The Contingency Plan

Work it Baby

I was feeling quite energetic after a visit to Hugo's doctor today so Lucas, Hugo and I took a trip to my old stomping ground (work) to drop off some proofs and say a quick hello.

Following my post on Tuesday, I was eager to stay out of the house, and felt the excited, clucky faces of my friends would remedy some of the down and exhausted feelings I've been experiencing.

After taking the back entrance into the office, it only took two minutes before we were surrounded by everyone in the company. Hugo happily slept through the whole ordeal, which may have been a good thing as he was passed to and from so many people. We had to pry the poor thing back to leave, but hey, I don't blame them for getting so attached.

The visit was also designed to help me through some of the decisions I have to make over the next six months.

During an online conversation with my MD (Kirsty) tonight, I discovered the company will tomorrow announce the departure of my Group Account Director (GAD), yes, the one I currently can't stand to work with. The timing is bad as her departure marks the three most senior people in the team leaving within a month of each other and will really sting my former colleague and Account Director as our GAD was the reason why she left. Kirsty will take over management of the group until Jane, an absolute gem who's been freelancing for us, will take rein in February. Jane's from the UK and we get and work along soooo well together. She only plans to stay a year in the position, but I hope they convince her to extend that further.

Anyhow, Jane's going back home for the holidays and came over last night to say goodbye and to give me the goss from, work, but also said Kirsty adores me and was raving about me before she left the office last night. I find that an enormous compliment as Kirsty has extremely high standards and is someone I respect and admire.

So with all this shifting and changing, there's an opportunity for me to quickly move up the ranks if I return to work after my maternity leave. The workaholic in me adores this thought as I thoroughly enjoyed the higher management role I had before leaving and was obviously good at it as I reported straight to Kirsty and ran the team smoothly.

The obvious con to this, is that both Lucas and I abhor the thought of putting Hugo in child care so I can't return to work full time. We think we only have one chance to raise him and it makes sense for Lucas to continue working as his salary is so damn good. Our ideal plan would be for me to work from home 3-4 days a week and to go into the office on the two days Lucas works from home, but I don't know if this will be possible so I'm really grappling with thoughts of whether or not I return.

Can I have my cake and eat it too?