I'm so very happy.
My wife just used the FU money a couple hours ago. She has been employed at 60% time; 24 hours/week tuesday - thursday (3-8 hour shifts). This schedule started after her return from maternity leave so that she could spend more time with the kids and stay employed. It was the optimal solution for us, everyone was happy and we kept on saving. The kids have a little time away from us with other kids, we get more time than we use to with the kids.
Yesterday she was told thats coming to an end, she needs to go to full time. As she is late 30's with two kids, I think her supervisor expected compliance, I think it came as a surprse when my wife wanted to mull it over. As in all these caes the unspoken alternative was she's out of work, no one ever thinks people will consider that option. Luckily for us, we have a decent stash, she isn't bound by normal conventions of needing to cover rent and can live the life she wants. Still, its pretty scary to be confronted with it even after all this preparation.
In case it needs to be said, she said No to returning to full time work. The unspoken alternative is still not being whispered out loud, it happened so fast that I don't think its sunk in yet. I have no idea yet if they'll try to keep her or let her go, I suspect they feel she's bluffing. She still wants to work at 60%, but shes willing to never work again, I'm also sitting on the precipice of FIRE, we're just saving so we can live a few years overseas as a family at this point.
It just makes me so happy that she can make her choice. If she's out of work, her last day should fall on our anniversary. I think that will gurantee I'm husband of the year which is great; however looking forward I'm pretty much going to be a dissapointment for the rest of our anniversaries though, this is impossible to beat.
This is such a great story. 10 years ago, that was me. I had a 2 year old and had been working 30 hrs/week for over a year. Company did a reorg, I got a new boss, he said "I don't believe in part time". I spent a couple of weeks working my way up the chain (mainly talking to his boss, the VP and head of the location). No go. Even down to
Me: "but Mrs. H works part time."
New boss: "She's not a technical employee."
Me: "Wait, she has a PhD in materials science?"
New boss: "She's not in the critical path"
Me: "I'm in the critical path now, working part time, and it works?"
New boss: "I don't care, I don't believe in it"
So, as I'd been thinking of making a change anyway - I called up a FORMER boss and said "I'm looking for a part time job." And got "you're hired."
I gave notice. I think they were surprised. Now, I gave them a very long, 3 months notice, as I promised to finish off my last project. Thing is, they figured that the other engineer was still there, so no big deal. Of course, I knew that he was leaving soon after me.
Fast forward two years and another woman has a baby, and wants to work part time, 25 hours. They say yes! She's in the critical path! And even better, the VP tells her "yeah, we made a mistake with mm1970." Even though I already had a job lined up, I didn't need it.