Starting Up

[Patstone]

Yes I quite agree, but we both only started making silver jewellery 3 years ago, so not long to get established really. She works 40 miles from home so by the time she starts work at 7am and finishes at 4.30pm five days a week, sometimes six days a week, depending on the rota, and drives home after a very physical job (they have to clean out dirty shavings and sweep yards before they feed, medicate, move fences in fields, groom about 250 donkeys, every day etc) so she comes home knackered, she is very skinny and fit, but she wont always be able to do it as she is 43 now and will need to change careers within the next 4 or 5 years. She is also a qualified Architectual Ironmonger (locksmith to you and me), so she has something office bound that she can return to if necessary, but she wanted to make jewellery instead if she could. She knows its not really a practical idea, but you can dream. She asked me to ask people on the forum how they did it to give her a few ideas, even if she could cut her hours down a bit.
P.S I forgot to add her 16.2hh thoroughbred horse and her dog, which also need tending to outside work hours. Doesnt have a lot of time left to even make jewellery let alone sell it.

From an employment law perspective, I would advise her to get some advice from a specialist lawyer - I can recommend one - who will talk through options - a change of working practice which makes someone so unhappy can be constructive dismissal, especially with an employee who has worked happily for 12 years
I'd say your joint business situation is not such that you could just speed it up a bit to produce a living wage just like that - there is a lot more to building a business than a couple of craft fairs a month. It can be done, but realistically, if your daughter was going to do it, she would be getting to the stage where she was doing it by now - you have to want to have your own business more than anything.

[caroleallen]

It's very difficult to be successful if you have other distractions. When my children were young, I just dabbled and it wasn't until they were older that I gave up my job to make jewellery full time. I now work 7 days a week, often 12 hours a day. I live and breathe jewellery and never take my eyes off the ball. I'm very lucky to have a husband who supports me and has taken the reins of the household chores plus doing my admin, posting etc. You have to be totally single minded to succeed.

Being an architectural ironmonger sounds like a much more lucrative job to me as everyone needs locks. Forgive my ignorance but why would she be office bound? Wouldn't she be out changing locks?

[Patstone]

Her previous job was getting a set of floor plans mainly for new build premises, including banks etc. then work out what sort of locks and door furniture to put on them. It was mostly commercial property, so security rating and ease of use and of course the strength needed was also a big part of the job. She also had to know how to identify different parts of locks because sometimes spare parts were needed, and the customer would send a broken part and she had to know which part and from which lock, and there are millions of different locks. She has been out of that job for 12 years now, and I expect like everything else, some thing have got computerised so it would be a big learning curve for her if she went back to it, provided she could find a job of course. I have advised her to stay put for a while to see if things change, give it a few months more, she isnt a shrinking violet by any means so she has to stand up for herself and let her feelings be known. I think she is going to email her boss to tell him her feelings, as she is off this week on holiday and staying at home to make jewellery.

[caroleallen]

That sounds like a good plan Pat. No matter how old our children are, we still like to protect them don't we?

[Exsecratio]

I would advise her to get some advice from a specialist lawyer - I can recommend one - who will talk through options - a change of working practice which makes someone so unhappy can be constructive dismissal, especially with an employee who has worked happily for 12 years

Going legal can end badly in a lot of cases, to claim constructive dismissal you have to leave the job as soon as any changes to your working conditions take place or it is considered that you have accepted the new conditions or treatment by remaining.
While blacklisting IS illegal look at it as an employer, if the person you are interviewing for a job has a history of suing their employer when they don't like something would you then employ them?

As I've said before, don't be under the illusion that right always wins, it doesn't, the best lawyers (read: most expensive) usually do.

best wishes

Dave