My old boss called me.

[Nuclear Unicorn]

He retired not long ago giving me a REALLY nice severance. I've been working part-time with my husband's employer. Working to stay sane but only part-time so I can be home with my SIL. Lover Boy makes good money so while we aren't Rockefellers we aren't starving either. Life is good.

Still, the boss is coming out of retirement to handle a project for a personal friend of his. We'll be working for 9 to 12 months. He wants me to take the lead on a lot of the grunt work. For a resume it would be an awesome bullet point should I decide to return to working full-time. It will pay well but there will be no severance this time around. I enjoyed the work we did together he was always good to wok for.

But as I mentioned earlier, I'm home a lot to be with my SIL. She's school-aged and since the passing of my MIL I've been there for her. This is something I've done happily. My maternal instincts aren't, shall we say, "developed" enough for me to want kids of my own but by God I love spending my time with her. If I took the job I'd be heartsick missing out on time with her even if only temporarily.

It's coin toss time. Thoughts would be appreciated.

[Chan790]

1. What is the nature of the project?

Any chance that any part of it or even most of it can be "work from home"/telecommute work?

It's been my experience that grunt work tends to be work that is done on site for no good reason...if you were to say "I'd love to but I need some consideration on this point" are you likely to get a response you can work with?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

2. Some of it, yes. Others parts, not so much.

There's plenty of office work but some of it entails running all over Creation chasing down permits and whatnot. Other parts are being in a room full of engineers and/or contractors. Things a 10 year old, no matter how well behaved, just can't be a part of. And it shifts from day to day.

I'm actually bummed just thinking about it.

Maybe if she was older I'd put her to work like my dad did when I was 16. I had to file his invoices and receipts and do some light bookkeeping. Heck, I even wrote correspondence for him when his clients were slow to pay or "I swear I'll pay you any day now" letters when we were slow to pay vendors. It's that experience that got me my job with the boss.

[Lochloosa]

3. Why don't you ask her how she feels about it

Just a thought.

[politicat]

4. I'd check in with her, but it is really good for girls to see professional women role models.

Girls need to know that part of being an adult woman is being professionally fulfilled, loving their work, and how important work/life balance is. They need to see the balance, and they desperately need to have the model of independent, professional, strong plus nurturing, loving plus the model of marriage as partnership of equals.

On the other hand, if the bereavement was recent, she may still be feeling insecure. If you can schedule so that your hubs is the one who gets her off to school, and you're the one picking her up (because you're going in to the office/job site early) or if you can do the running during the day while she's at school and do the computer/paperwork while she's doing homework, that might work.