Parting ways
Well, some bad news on the work front today -- Bonnie has had to leave her second job.
Bonnie did "parent support" for the Parent Information Network, which has been immensely helpful to us over the years. That meant that among other things, she called parents of children with issues similar to our kids and offered them help and advice. She also coordinated monthly meetings in our area.
She was what they call a "casual employee," and they didn't provide her with fixed hours. Due to some recent personnel changes, they unfortunately took away her one consistent responsibility -- coordinating the Falmouth parent group we've been participating in -- and gave that job to a new hire.
In an extended telephone conversation on Tuesday, the manager Bonnie works for couldn't guarantee her either what sort of work or how much work she'd get when they start to pick up again in the fall. All she could do is make a sort of vague reassurance that there would be things she'd need to do.
Unfortunately, we have bills to pay and more to the point, a family schedule to maintain, with three kids all with different interests and different after-school responsibilities. And I work full-time. So having Bonnie on the hook to drop everything at a moment's notice and help parents at PIN's beck and call just won't work for us logistically. It also doesn't seem to make a lot of sense organizationally for Bonnie, for a lot of reasons not worth digressing upon here.
Bonnie decided at that point that parting ways with PIN was the right decision. She's not happy about it, and I don't think she should be. She put her heart into that job and had hoped that the effort she made would be recognized and rewarded by PIN, and I don't think they ever did. I can totally understand her position, too -- it's a lousy situation to feel a responsibility to a job that's offered by an employer who feels absolutely no responsibility to you.
I'm hoping that Bonnie can fill the gap either with more hours at her other job -- working in a doctor's office in Hyannis -- or with another part time job. But she's going to need a bit of time to figure out what she wants to do and how she wants to do it before she makes a decision.