Back at work life

I am loving being back at work but what I am loving even more is being able to do only 30 hours a week. I have to consider myself one of the luckiest people on earth, and probably is true.


I had worked in NVIDIA for 10 years in the UK and the US when I decided to leave last year in May to take another role in another semiconductor company. I have to say that the new role was perfect for me running their finance department for their US and Latin America offices. I was not sure about the company as it is a European old fashion tech company that I was hoping with new management would had changed but when I joined realized how bureaucratic it is. Also, I have a really hard time working in environment where the management team has more privileges than any other employee just because they have vice president title: they can fly Business class when you are on the back of the plane, they have got more vacation than you, the company lease expensive cars just to drive from home to the office, they even have got special annual medical check ups that the company pays on top of any normal insurance. I am from the mentality that these differences affect productivity and normally example has to be shown from the top and not from the bottom....If I would had known this I probably would had never joined them but I did and as I said I loved the job a lot.

Unfortunately I was diagnosed with breast cancer two months after I started working with them and I went on 6 months disability which it was easy for me as I was still not attached to the job and the people. Everyone was super understanding and supportive, what can they do anyway....However that role requires me to travel a lot as well as a lot of effort to do the changes needed for improvement and meet the expectations from everyone, and do not forget that you need to prove to everyone that a Spanish girl can run a finance department of a US company. Well, this cancer was a wake up call for me and one thing I have learned for sure is to take my professional life much easier and put my personal life as a priority. For that reason I could not come back to work there, I needed an option.

NVIDIA people had been so supportive, that I called the CFO and asked her if they will take me back. We arranged for a lunch meeting and I was super happy to learn that I could go back to my old role and they will accept the only condition I was asking which was 30 hours a week!!!. So it is really nice to be back but still leave work at 3 pm and go for a walk, cook dinner and spend a nice family evening together. I am still on education mode which means that some people are still setting things up for me during my none working hours, some I accept, some refuse but slowly they are getting use to my new working hours.

As I said I am really lucky, no many companies will allowed you to do that in the current environment plus I can also afford that as I know many people even if they might want to give up their job they can't do it as they need the money.