New Job: I Get To Work From Home!

My husband and I both work at a motorcycle dealership and have always worked retail hours. Over the years we've managed to wrangle our way out of working Saturdays and have managed to cut off the later hours but we were still working at least 9-6 every day. 

Since I've been on maternity leave I've been stressing out about what I would do once it was time to go back to work. I knew I wasn't going to be able to work my old hours if I wanted to remember what my kid looked like awake.  I avoided thinking about it because I didn't like any of the options I could think of. 

I love my job. I manage a shipping and receiving department (among many other things...) and I enjoy what I do.  We have benefits now and I can't get another job that pays me a wage that's even close at least to start. 

The best solution I could think of was to continue working 20-25 hours at my current job (just enough to keep the benefits) and then pick up some weekend work (maybe as a server) when my husband was home to watch the baby.  The only problem there is that I would have to find a way to get my full time hours back when we wanted to have another baby in order to get full maternity leave benefits. I thought about going back to work pregnant (I'd have to get on that now as my mat leave is up at the beginning of June) but I don't really want to have another baby yet. I just want to enjoy the one I have a little longer...  This was all weighing very heavily on me and time just seemed to be flying and I was getting a little panicked.

A couple of weeks ago my husband texted me and told me to call my boss. I said, 'What does he want?' and husband said, 'Something managery.' OK. So I called my boss and he suggested that when I come back I become more involved in the management of our online store and website. I was a bit taken aback at first as I wasn't sure if he was trying to push me out of my current department or what. I had actually been pushing for the online stuff to be taken care of by my department for some time already but I didn't think it was ever going to happen.  I told him I'd think about it. At that point it didn't really appeal to me.

Over the next few hours though the idea really began to grow on me.  It occurred to me that if the bulk of what I was doing would be web based, I might be able to work from home for some of the time! The more I thought about it, the more excited I got.  I developed a pitch and sent my boss an email to look it over.  I proposed that, when my mat. leave was up, I would come back for 5 days a week from 9-1pm and then work from home another couple of hours each day. I still was quite unsure that he would even consider it.  This type of arrangement is not one that our workplace really sees much of. 

To my surprise, he completely agreed that it would work.  I am able to work a few hours currently while I am on maternity leave without losing any benefits so I have begun working a few hours a week for now and will be returning to a 30 hour (or so) work week at the beginning of June. I am so stoked that it has all worked out this way!! I can't wait to be making a more regular amount of money again as well so we can really see some progress in our finances and well, save some money up for the next kid! :)