More frustration

My work/not work decision has come down to whether Deere can offer me part-time work or not. After all the hard thought and careful planning I had put into my decision to go back to work part-time, I thought I would feel glad to leave the final say in someone else's hands, just so the pressure was off. But now that that's coming about, I'm afraid I'll wish I had more say.

I went in to work today, just to show Emily off to people. It was fun to see everyone again, and especially fun to have them say how beautiful my baby is (who wouldn't enjoy that??). Long story short, I won't be able to work part-time at the plant. The policy says that they will promote part-time work and encourage managers to help employees in that situation, but they also have concretely fixed headcount numbers. This means that in order to work part-time, a manager needs to either split one full-time job between two people or reduce the position to part-time, essentially forfeiting half a person. No manager in their right mind would forfeit half a person worth of manpower, and they sure wouldn't want the hassle of dealing with two part-time people instead of one full-time. So of course all the managers said no. One of those managers that was contacted told me today that he was initially excited about finding a part-time spot for me, said he had a quantity of work that would be a good fit for me and for the organization, but he was told from higher-up that he couldn't add half a position. It's ridiculous, since now that work will just be forced onto other unhappy and overworked full-time employees, who will probably also consider finding new employment. When will Deere get the picture that it's not the middle of the farm crisis anymore?!?! People can find other good jobs now, and they're not promised a fat pension upon retirement, so why be loyal to Deere? By not offering part-time work or onsite daycare or onsite workout facilities or actual health insurance (instead of "health care plan" bullshit), they're going to lose out to companies that do offer them. Deere is screwing over their youngest generation of employees by not having HR policies for the 21st century, and in doing so they're just screwing themselves.

*sigh* but I guess that doesn't matter so much to me anymore.

I will be so relieved to have the decision made, and if I stay home I can't wait to be looking forward to getting in a routine with Emily and jumping wholeheartedly into my new career. The part really is killing me is that I am not worth the effort for Deere Des Moines to keep. I'm highly educated, motivated, and I'm really good at my job!!! I'm good at being a QE, and I'm a good metallurgist. But not I'm worth the effort to keep. I'm trying not to take it personally, since I seem to be a victim of ridiculously backwards policy, but it's hard, since it seems to have so much to do with what people are willing to do for me.

There are two things left to check. I have an awesome contact at corporate who actually does think I'm worth keeping, and she is going to see if I can do corporate labwork on a part-time basis from the lab at Des Moines (at which point my self-confidence begins to rebound. ahh...) I would be able to work in the lab, doing what I like best, and NOT have to deal with Tom or any other production-related crap that comes along. That's a big maybe, but at least it's a good option. There's also another unit in Urbandale that works with satellite navigation for agricultural equipment, and they seem to be one of the more forward-thinking units in the enterprise. I have emailed their HR dept to see if they can do anything for me, which would probably just be plain old quality engineering work. Either way, I will not be going back to work for Tom. It would be just plain unhealthy for me and Emily.

And since this should be a blog about her, I'll add a bit about what she can do now. On her picture website (see link at right) there are pictures and video of her holding her head up, which she can do for several minutes if she's put down on the floor while already looking up. So cute! But then she gets really mad, which is not quite as cute. :) Right now, she is cooing at her fish-gym on the floor, so I'm going to go play with her. She is so fun to play with, making sounds and faces. At least nobody can take my favorite job away from me!!