Returning to work – or not

Posted on March 28, 2011

The last few weeks have been hectic, emotionally and physically. My little boy started to walk, turned 1, we went to Bruges for a couple of days and I celebrated my birthday. Then last week, just 2 weeks before I was due to return to work I decided I couldn’t.

I’ve spent the last couple of months trying to decide what was best for us as a family – to return to work part-time or give up my job to enjoy watching my son grow up. With the deadline looming, nursery place sorted and a new set of work clothes purchased (as none of my old clothes fitted!) I changed my mind.
The last few months my son has changed in leaps and bounds. I watched him take his first steps, learn to feed himself, copy me cleaning him up after meal times and enjoy interacting with other children. I don’t want to miss out on anything by not being there all the time. I think the decision about working or not is a difficult one and the situation is different for everyone but I’m lucky that we can afford for me to take some time off.

I had worked in my last job for 7 years so it wasn’t a decision I took lightly. However I managed to squeeze in some great projects before I started maternity leave and reached a good salary level and left on a high. Over the last few weeks the HR team really upset me with the way they handled my requests to ascertain exactly how much annual leave I accrued and they also didn’t sort out putting me back on the payroll! The whole process of returning to work after maternity leave just reinforced my opinion that it wasn’t the right decision for me.

My good friend drafted my resignation letter which was a lot more eloquent than I could ever manage. I particularly like this sentence:

During recent weeks I have been anxious regarding my imminent return to work. I had hoped going part-time would satisfy my need to maintain a work-life balance, but as a family we have decided it is right for us, at this time, that I resign.

I received a decent reply from my manager (considering I always found her really difficult to work with). I’m not sure when I’ll get a chance to wear the new work clothes but I’ll definitely be using the Orla Kiely handbag I also bought!