Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Yes, yes, yes!!!!!

I am like SO HAPPY! Today I had a meeting with my manager to talk about going on maternity leave and about how my responsibilities will be dealt with while I'm gone. I was really nervous about this meeting because I wanted to broach the topic of my working from home at least part time once I come back, mostly so I can continue to breastfeed and so I won't have to pump as much. I wasn't sure what my manager would think or what he would say, but I knew it would be better to talk about it sooner than later. I had gone over how the conversation might go about a million times in my head and most of the time I got flustered trying to figure out what to say and how because it meant so much to me to be able to work from home. (And I prayed at least three times today for God to help me to know what to say and that if it was a good thing for me to work from home, that I would be able to.)

One thing that really worried me was that to work from home, my company requires you to have a company-issued laptop, which you can use to connect to the company's network. I do not have a laptop for my job and I figured that my manager would not see it as a necessary expense for my job and would, therefore, not want to pay for one. So I had figured out a way for me to do some of my work from home that would not require me getting on to the network, and I prepared a speech on how I could do that for part of the day and then come in to work to do the rest of my work.

So basically, I was really nervous going into it because I didn't have any idea what the result would be. So I went into his office and we started just chatting about the baby and how wonderful having kids is. Then we talked about what responsibilities I have that would need to be covered while I was gone. Some things could be put off while I was gone, but there were some that could not. We talked about who in the department could do them and divied them up accordingly. Then, when it looked like the meeting was over and he had another meeting to go to, I said, "So you have another meeting right now, right?" and he said, "Yeah, why?" And I said, "Well, I wanted to talk to you about what is going to happen when I come back to work after the maternity leave is over." He asked, "You mean like with your schedule?" And I said, "Pretty much. You see, my husband is going to be home all day with the baby taking care of him, but there's one thing he can't do and that's breastfeed. I was wondering if it would be possible for me to work at least some of the time from home." Surprisingly, he answered, "Yeah, I can work with you on that. We'll need to get you a laptop that you can use to work on at home, but a lot of your responsibilities don't require you to be here in the office, so that should be just fine." I was just like, "Really? I was so worried about that." And he responded, "No, it's no problem really. We can work it all out." And I saw him write in his notebook, where he writes down things he needs to do, a note about getting me a laptop to use at home.

Well, as you can imagine, relief just swept over me. I was SO HAPPY! I couldn't believe that it went so well, and that he immediately volunteered to get me a laptop and I didn't even have to fight for it or justify why I needed it or show him how I could do some of my job at home without needing to get on the network. I had worried about all that for nothing, really. I really could feel that Heavenly Father was there guiding the whole situation. It made me feel very loved and it made me feel good that He wants me to work from home just as much as I do. When Aaron and I decided to get pregnant, we really didn't know how it would all work out, and we knew there would be sacrifices. But I have tried to have faith that it WOULD work out and that Heavenly Father would be there to help things to work out. This truly is a testament to me that He is watching out for me, He does care, He does know my situation, and He is willing and ready to bless me if I have faith in him. I feel very lucky and grateful for that. Yay!

No comments:

Post a Comment