Work Life Balance?

[maddaddy]

It's a tricky situation Wheeze, and one that must be handled with careful decisions and not with kneejerk reactions i think. My job security and my pension has to take priority i think, a few years ago i'd have thrown caution to the four winds but your life changes. Thanks for posting.

I would recommend you do not base your career on your pension solely , yes a consideration but if I am correct you are a young man with many years working ahead. The pension can change in that time, mine is changing next year and becoming worth less to me. I wouldn't let the pension be main driver.

Good luck

[mr brightside]

I would recommend you do not base your career on your pension solely , yes a consideration but if I am correct you are a young man with many years working ahead. The pension can change in that time, mine is changing next year and becoming worth less to me. I wouldn't let the pension be main driver.

Good luck

It's a final salary, the advice from the union stewards is to keep hold of it, hopefully the trustees are not idiots.

[TheHeathens]

It's a final salary, the advice from the union stewards is to keep hold of it

Who aren't qualified or allowed to give advice, and the unregulated advice they do usually give is crap. Final Salary pensions are extremely valuable commodities nowadays but they're really not worth you being unhappy for the rest of your working life.

Life isn't a rehearsal; you could work yourself into your grave and die before you get to draw your final salary pension. If you really aren't in the position to change your job at the moment, work on an exit strategy for a few years down the line and start thinking about something that will make you happier.

Your employers sound like tossers by the way and are pretty much breaking every rule in the book with what they've said to you. At the very least, you would have a very strong case for unfair dismissal.

hopefully the trustees are not idiots.

:thunbdown: Find out what the funding level of the pension scheme is.

[mr brightside]

I've been on my arse with no work-life balance now for 6 months and i can't see how i'm going to get it back. The Tendonitis in my knees won't get better because my job is too physical, in 6 months i've got nowhere with it dispite lots of physio and as much rest as i can give. I've had to completely abandon my recovery exercises and my short walks because the loading on top of what i get up to at work pushes me into deficit, if i just go to work i hover around neutral with bad episodes whenever it gets busy and we're knocking about like blue arsed flies.

I've asked work for help and requested a 6 month transfer off the shop floor to a desk somewhere, but i was advised that it would put me in a bad position and to think again. They were very suggestive and non-specific, but the gist was that it would put my job at risk as the company is old fashioned and would see me as a problem. My physio was willing to send a report to the company nurse, but again, it was suggested that this would put me in a bad position as the company might see itself as being at risk of legal action in view of medical testimony. Long story short- if i can't do my job i should consider another career. My supervisor was a bit more understanding and let me drop my hours down to 37 from 44, but it's like farting at a hurricane. I asked to book off every wednesday for 8wks out of my hols to break up the week, but management refused point blank.

If i approach the NHS they'll more than likely refuse treatment and tell me to rest it more, i'm resting at 100% capacity as it is at the moment, so long term sick would be the only option. I reckon i'd have to be off for a minimum of 8-10wks, as the company would not tolerate me coming back half healed and causing further problems. The issue with that is that being on long term sick on top of my requests for assistance would make me first in the queue for the door, and redundancies are getting more and more likely of late. It's a very uncertain time for us as the new board management are money men and the hours/cost overruns are out of control. They wouldn't give my skills a second look, only what risk i pose and how cheap it would be to send me down the road.

As far as i can see the only option i have for getting a life back is to look for another job within the same company, that way i keep my final salary pension. I'm about to take out a mortgage so any option that involves more requests at work is too risky. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Pretty much a year on from this now, change of diagnosis (Patella Chondromalacia) but still same problem.

I've got an internal application to fill in for a job at the same company, but working in the Projects offices. I've not handed it in yet or filled it in, but i've had to decide whether or not to junk the career path i've wanted to stay in for at least another 10yrs. The problem is i'm predisposed to knee problems and that doesn't run well alongside a job on the shop floor; i also need to rehab the current problem which has been ongoing for 1 1/2 yrs.

Ideally if i'm behind a desk i want to be in Engineering Design, but i have no underpinning knowledge of any of the computer systems they rely on. The desk job on Projects will introduce me to some of the systems and i hope provide a better springboard into design, if i hand in the application form i'm sailing blind into the unknown and jettisoning a perfectly good job on the shop floor that can earn me up to 36k.

My long term career path was always to get off the shop floor before it wore me out but i'm being forced to implement this strategy far earlier than expected. I'm also in a position where in interviews i'm going to have to answer questions about my motives for switching, and confidently fend off accusations that i'm not committed to the new position because my reasoning behind my candidacy is flawed. Stormy waters.

[Stagger]

My work life balance has dramatically altered.

Working 40-44hr/week
Travelling 10hr/week
House work 15-20hr/week

My position has become much harder.
Not everyone has had this though, some get to just freewheel in life.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

- Henry David Thoreau

[mr brightside]

My work life balance has dramatically altered.

Working 40-44hr/week
Travelling 10hr/week
House work 15-20hr/week

My position has become much harder.
Not everyone has had this though, some get to just freewheel in life.

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.”

- Henry David Thoreau

To say it's hard makes you a victim of it, don't take the victim role that easily mate. To say it's tiring would be more truthful, 'hard' is esentially your story of it. Have a look at the Karpman Drama Triangle, aim for survivor thriver thinking.

[Stagger]

That appears to follow parent, adult, child theories.
Thanks Luke, will print it at work and focus a little more on it.

[Graham Breeze]

To say it's hard makes you a victim of it, don't take the victim role that easily mate. To say it's tiring would be more truthful, 'hard' is esentially your story of it. Have a look at the Karpman Drama Triangle, aim for survivor thriver thinking.

Luke

Interesting. Of psychotherapy models I suspect there is no end and, like drugs, they can be addictive. When I was working with this stuff back in the stone-age it seemed to me that what one had to find was the one that was the better fit for oneself, settle for better rather than keep seeking the best - and just use and adapt. So say at the time Sheldon Kopp might have been life-transforming for me but to my colleagues it was "who? why? really!"

Graham

[mr brightside]

Luke

Interesting. Of psychotherapy models I suspect there is no end and, like drugs, they can be addictive. When I was working with this stuff back in the stone-age it seemed to me that what one had to find was the one that was the better fit for oneself, settle for better rather than keep seeking the best - and just use and adapt. So say at the time Sheldon Kopp might have been life-transforming for me but to my colleagues it was "who? why? really!"

Graham

One i learnt on the Psych-K course was a simple self-fulfilling prophecy circle. Beliefs drive Behaviour--Behaviour affects Experience--Experience reinforces Beliefs. The important part is the last bit, you have to complete the circle to lock in a positive change by performing some kind of action; living your new belief system as it were. The more you live a positive belief system the more it will reinforce itself. People like me and Trev have a habit of automatically letting the old belief systems self-reinforce without realising!

[Graham Breeze]

One i learnt on the Psych-K course was a simple self-fulfilling prophecy circle. Beliefs drive Behaviour--Behaviour affects Experience--Experience reinforces Beliefs. The important part is the last bit, you have to complete the circle to lock in a positive change by performing some kind of action; living your new belief system as it were. The more you live a positive belief system the more it will reinforce itself.

Yes. Yes. Yes.