Time4Balance » Blog Archive » Updating my blog - when someone close to you dies

My blog is a labour of love to keep all my readers up to date with what’s going on in the world of flexible working. As you know, my philosophy is that working needs to accommodate people’s personal circumstances in their need for flexibility.

I am walking the talk: I have not been able to work or update my blog for the past 2 months due to a death in the family, having to move house as well as being involved in some awful legal proceedings in my personal life.

However, I am now up and running again so watch this space for more up to date news and articles and thank you for your patience.

I am lucky enough to be able to take the time to support my partner and his family during this very sad time by being able to work very flexibly but this isn’t the only reason I need to work in this way.

One of the reasons I want to work flexibly is my family: I have 3 small children, 1 of whom has insulin-dependent diabetes requiring 24 hour care. I also have an elderly father who has just suffered a stroke and needs care, attention and love. My partner’s father has just died after a long battle with cancer and his family are grieving his passing and also need support. I have a very large family: 20 in total. These are immediate family members; this number doesn’t include cousins, aunts and uncles or grandparents! Consequently, there is usually some drama going on but equally, I am fortunate enough to have a huge amount of support and love myself.

I cannot imagine how I would have coped with some of the events of the past 3 years without being able to work flexibly in some way or other. When someone close to you dies, it affects you deeply and creates great difficulty in being able to concentrate on anything, especially work. You want to be at home, with the people you love who need support and who can give support in return.

When my 33 year old brother died a few years back from Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, my boss phoned me the next day (I was a City Solicitor at the time) and said how sorry he was. However, he continued the conversation by saying that he couldn’t help feeling that I was better off coming straight back to work "to take my mind off things". I was stunned. I replied, as calmly as I could, that "nothing would take my mind off the fact that my brother was lying on a slab in a morgue." It was his turn to be stunned. I couldn’t dress it up in any other way. To expect someone to "take their mind off" something as fundamental as a death of your family member, is absurd in my view. Frankly, at that moment in time, I would have gladly handed in my notice and gone AWOL had it not been for the financial necessity of work.

Our culture has historically had the attitude "don’t bring your personal problems into work". Admirable in some ways if you can become two separate individuals: the one who can totally focus on work to the exclusion of anything personal and the one who is deeply upset about some personal issue. I personally find this hard to do. I’m sure that I can’t be alone in this difficulty; most of us are affected by what goes on in our personal life and would rather be anywhere but sitting behind their desk when something awful happens at home or the people we love and care about, need us.

Most of us have to work for a living though - that is the reality and many of us are lucky enough to enjoy our work and wish to give it our best. Our careers are often very important to our enjoyment of life. I thoroughly enjoy what I do as it gives me a great sense of satisfaction knowing that I am helping people achieve the Work life balance that I myself find so invaluable.

Working flexibly allows your organisation to accommodate your increased need to spend time dealing with your personal life as well as keeping your job! Even if you cannot perform at your best for a while, you are more likely to be loyal and committed to an organisation who shows humanity in these circumstances than one who still insists that "coming into work will take your mind off a death or other personal trauma" and simply isn’t interested in your personal life in any way. An organisation who allows their employees to work part-time for a while, take compassionate leave, work flexi-time, a compressed hours schedule or work from home during these difficult times in an employee’s life, would benefit in the long term. Not only will they retain their employee but it would send out the right messages to others that it is a humane organisation who values its employees.

Needless to say, I felt that my firm of lawyers at that time were only interested in the billable hours I could produce, rather than me as a whole person, not just a fees-producing employee. I eventually left…….the best decision I made as I now have a life which allows me to give to the people I love at times when they need me most.