My career goes "bung"!

Some may remember some of the issues that I faced during my pregnancy due to the fact that I was on a contract and had to sit an interview when my pregnancy was full term!

Well a lot has happened in this time, and my employer gave me my job even though I was to be on maternity leave for the duration of my contract, allowing me to receive the best maternity leave pay I am aware of in the country (ie 36/52 weeks paid for). My boss even approved me coming back 3 days a week without hesitation!

So with some financial security for the timebeing, and much more important things to thing about (ie the BABY), I promptly forgot about work for a bit. I didn't want to worry about it, and quite frankly, didn't care enough to. Every now and then, a little niggle at the back of my mind went "Meri Risa, you may not have a job to go back to! They may finally get around to restructuring your department, and your position may not fit in with how things are run under the New Order! What will you do if you can't get your old job back?!"

Then, late last year, child care and returning back to work became a more frequent discussion topic at my mum's group. Some mothers are having to return back to work about now, or are trying to secure child care places. It became time to act. I started to make meetings with my bosses, one of whom had started working AFTER I went on Mat leave and I had only met with once briefly. First boss met with me quickly, appeared to not have thought any of the practicalities through much (typical) and after a long, nice friendly chat about nothing much at all, said he'd get back to me shortly, but didn't (again, typical).

Then attempted to meet with other, new boss, and it took a while (busy guy), but he did what he said he would and generally had his shit together... (must be something to do with fact that he ISN'T a professor...). He wanted to talk over the phone first, which threw me as I'd much rather do it face to face. It pretty much went like this:

NB: Hello
MR: Hi there
NB: so let me get this right, you were the one that [insert brief position summary]
MR: yes, and I was approved to come back part time in May
NB: you were approved to come back part time? When was this?!
MR: (gulp) before I went on leave
NB: But doesn't your contract finish in May?
MR: (gulp again, and take a moment to back track and compose self) I was going to be on a 2 year contract then it got whittled back to 1 and in the end I had to apply for my job while on maternity leave, but I was hoping to come back to work in May and work no more than 3 days a week.

The rest of the conversation was discussing various things, including my willingness to be flexible and move sideways if that suits, but the main points my boss made were: He still needs to meet with my other department to discuss the position, and in general, he is trying to cull part time positions wherever he can due to limited desk space and difficulty in making meetings with clients if you aren't there all the time. I figured I just had to wait until the meeting was had, and he promised to ring and let me know the outcome.

Bummer!* Can I just reiterate that Casual and contract positions SUCK for women who are planning to have children and go part time - we basically have no way of making our employers take us back unless it's an industry that's seriously short of labour. And we have such a long way to go as a society to accepting that part time work is nowhere near as much of a hassle as people make it out to be. Seriously, I know sometimes deadlines emerge suddenly, but much of the time, panic in the work place is due to people being disorganised, not communicating, and procrastinating.

One of my friends was approved last Sept to come back to work part time in Feb, only to be called a week or two ago to say "Sorry, it's actually full time or nothing". Now she has 3 days childcare sorted out, doesn't want her son to be in child care full time, and is faced with either not working or looking for a part time position. Her partner is not really in a position to go part time. Nor is C-chan for a couple of years, as he starts a new job next month.

And have you looked at part time positions lately? Not only are they part time, but their salary rates are lower - positions like "Assistant" and "Administrative Assistant". Why do we scratch our heads and wonder why womens' salaries are lower than mens? Not only do we take a pay cut when we opt to go part time, but if we have to search for a part time job when we are told we can't come back part time, they are at significantly lower salary RATES on top of the fact they are part time.

I have since found out that my position will be cut/absorbed as part of other new more focussed positions. This in itself isn't a silly idea, as I was stretched way too far in my job - a jack of 50 trades and a master of none. But don't you think it is strange that my Employer invests in me by paying me super duper maternity leave pay then basically leaves it up to me to find a way to come back to work there? So my career goes bung. More on my strategies to bring in some required household income later - not all gloom and doom... I'm lucky that I have some things I can apply for.


*That would have been in capital letters at one time, but "career" is now further down the list of concerns after 1) child, marriage & family, 2) household security including finances and 3) making the world a better place for aforementioned child.