Pic: My precious.
Maternity Leave had drawn towards the end. I followed the procedure, wrote a return to work notice to my employer and advice them the return date. While I was at it, I also requested again working as a part-time. New legislation in 2008 entitled mums like me to make such a request and my boss has to ‘think about it’. I had mentioned to them once prior to my Leave started. They did reluctantly agree to think about it while I was away.
Oh, well, obviously they did think about it. Cause a week after I hand in my notice, they decided to make my job redundant.
What exactly did they say? Humm.. “Due to the bad economy times and our sails (I worked in the shipping industry) had gone down dramatically. We have no choice but to downsize our office and make a few redundancy.” No mentioned I happened to be the only one who’s on Leave and I am the only one in Auckland branch who had been made redundant.
I am not even going to start on me being the only one who requested working as part-time (actually I did ask them if this was the reason. They strongly denied it but…well, called me suspicious, I think this was the exact reason. They purposely waited until I finished my leave to tell me so avoid legal trouble).
Steven, Ambrosia (had to take her alone as my mother was away in Taiwan at the time and no one can babysit her) and I were sitting in the boardroom. Watching my manager, HR manager, and account manager (rumor has it she was the founder’s daughter) twitching uncomfortably, eyes looked pretty much everywhere but ours. All I could think of was: “This can’t be happening, this is 21st century. Am I being fired because I valued my family more than my work?”
I loved this work. After graduating from the Varsity and several slavery jobs, this was the best job anyone could get. Near the posh suburb (Parnell is a really posh neighbourhood in Auckland. Trendy café, good restaurant, nice little boutique shops, and almost every celebrity I know of lived here, even the current Prime Minister), nice colleagues, plenty of promotional opportunities, and well established employment benefits. They even allowed me to walk around the office bare foot. I was over the moon. There was a period I was actually looking forward to go to work each day.
However, it started going downhill when I had Horatio.
The colleagues still nice, but somehow the whole atmosphere started to shift. First I watched two of my colleagues who come later than me being promoted to the position I wanted because they were ‘childless’ (the manager actually told me this right at my face: “We were thinking of letting you do it but…well, you have a baby now.”), then I was assigned to do some highly stressful but daunting tasks that nearly stretched my nerves to the breaking point. It was only when I started showing signs of emotional breakdown they reassigned me to a less stressful role.
Finally it was this.
You thought in the bad times like this, the employer would be keen to hire some part-time workers to save some money. But no, during the course of next couple of weeks, I realized my now former employer wasn’t the only one. Almost every employer I know shook their head as soon as I expressed my interests as a part-time. One of my recruitment agents even asked: “Can’t you…find a daycare or something? You know it’s 21st century now, you can’t stay at home and mind the kids. It won’t work.”
Seriously, absolutely, hopelessly heartbreaking.
I am a clumsy mother, but I love my children. There is nothing in the world that could replace their delightful face when being with mammy and daddy. Being there at every milestone is the most satisfying thing in the Universe. But I am also a modern day woman, sitting at home and asking my husband’s hard working money just won’t work. When I made my choices, stay at home a bit more and earning less money, little did I expect there would be several door slammed shot at my face.
I am sorry, but it hurts very much.
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