Surprisingly lucrative
Ivy
I remain unsurprised
Me
Also, no one has died without me on reception today
Ivy
Tragic
I smile and set the phone down.
I stare at the spreadsheet again, then at the calendar, then back at the numbers like they might rearrange themselves if I give them long enough.
Fifteen weeks.
I pick up my phone before I can overthink it and call Ivy.
She answers almost immediately. “Are you looking for verbal reassurance?”
“No, help with maths,” I say.
She groans. “Worse.”
“I’ve just hit fifteen weeks,” I tell her. “Which means if I leave my job now, I still get SMP.”
There’s a pause. “You’re going to have to translate that into non-policy language.”
“Right. Okay,” I say, rubbing my forehead. “Statutory Maternity Pay. You qualify if you’re still employed at the end of the fifteenth week before the due date. After that, it doesn’t matter if you stay or go. You still get paid the same.”
“How much is the same,” she asks.
“You don't want to know,” I say. “But Dubois & Woods don’t offer enhanced maternity pay anyway, so I wouldn’t be losing anything by leaving. It’s literally identical whether I stay at reception or not.”
She hums. I can picture her pacing. “So if you quit now, you’d still get the money.”
“Yes.”
“And if you stayed, you’d get… the exact same money.”
“Yes. Once my maternity leave starts.”
There’s a pause on the line. I can hear Ivy breathing, thinking.
“And you can live on that,” she says finally.
“No,” I say immediately. “Absolutely not.”
“Right.”
“But this is the same if I leave now or if I stay. SMP won’t pay me enough to pay the bills,” I add, because this is the important bit, “that’s where Task-Goblin comes in. If I resign now and take to goblin life full time, I can build up a cushion. Do more jobs while I’ve got the energy. Put money aside so when I’m on maternity leave, I’m not panicking about every food shop.”
I can almost see the nod. “That makes sense,” she says. “Very you.”
“And I wouldn’t be starting from scratch afterwards,” I continue. “I’d already have clients. People I can go back to. It’s not like disappearing off the face of the earth.”
