Bad News

As it stands right now with Craig on afternoon shift, Shaun and Craig are able to spend mornings together before Shaun heads off to school after lunch and Craig leaves for work mid-afternoon. Come September when Shaun begins grade 1, the two will literally not see one another during the week at all. Craig will still be sleeping when Shaun leaves for school in the morning and by the time Shaun returns from school Craig will already be at work. Our only saving grace is that Shaun has a lunch break around 1PM and we live so close to the school he can come home for lunch and see Craig.

Then a couple of months ago Craig brought home a job bid sheet. Basically it had every job in the warehouse placed on a flowchart -- shifts, days-off, positions. Workers who were interested in moving from their current position were encouraged to bid on every single job they wanted and hopefully their seniority was enough to get them their first choice (provided that particular job opened up because whoever was occupying it had also bid on a job that was open). Craig bid on a ton of jobs, all day-shift, in hopes of landing one with half decent days off. Many postings have split days off where the guy has Tuesday and Thursday off but works Wednesday. Or they'll have 2 days off in the middle of the week but have to work the weekend. We compromised the last go 'round and Craig moved into a job with Friday and Saturday off. Not ideal, certainly, but at least he has one day on the weekend and having Friday off has allowed him to go on a couple of class trips with Shaun and allows me to volunteer in Shaun's classroom occasionally.

September brings full-time school and the whole game changes. This most recent job bid was basically our last shot for Craig to post into a day-shift position before Shaun starts grade 1 in September.

With thirteen years seniority and a lot of senior guys taking a buy-out package offered in the last contract, we were pretty confident Craig would move up the ranks and slide into a day-shift position without question. Well, the results were posted today and Craig didn't get a single position he bid on. Not one.

There's two reasons why this could be: 1. The people analyzing the job bid sheets made a mistake - which has happened in the past - and in actuality someone was awarded a job that Craig should have received because of seniority. In that case it's an easy fix and Craig moves to day shift. OR 2. The jobs Craig would have had the seniority to win, didn't open up because the people currently in those postings chose to stay put.

Craig checked the results and analyzed the list; there were no mistakes made. So now he's working afternoons for a while longer. I'm trying not to show my disappointment to him because the whole thing is out of his hands. It's not his fault he wasn't awarded a day shift job; that's just how it works. But I'm sad. I feel terrible that Shaun won't see his Dad all week unless he races home for lunch one day. I hate that Craig has to miss more bedtime stories and baths and tucking-in and kisses and hugs. It's sad that this whole thing is such a crap shoot and he has no way of knowing whether he'll get awarded a shitty job or a great job so errs on the side of caution and only bids on the better jobs which also have a higher likelihood of needing decades of seniority to slot into.

I'm also angry that I have to continue doing this all by myself. He's wholly present during the hours he's home, don't get me wrong, but with me having the daycare running during the day and Craig being absent at night, I'm doing the Mom thing from 7 in the morning until 8 at night with no breaks in between, and then for another hour while I'm cleaning up and preparing meals, crafts and circletime activities for the following day. It's exhausting and I'd love to have someone to tag-team with; especially at the end of the day when everyone's hungry and tired.

We will certainly make the best of it but that doesn't make it suck any less.