I am currently on maternity leave and my ds is 4 months old. I had originally planned on going back to work in September and when I was pregnant I mentioned this to my head of department (am a teacher) informally when discussing my plans.
However, since having ds, I have reconsidered and decided I wanted to take the whole year. I had discussed this with some of my friends from work informally, but hadn't really made a final decision until this past week when dh and I assessed our finances and decided to go ahead with this decision. So, this morning, I emailed the payroll secretary of work telling her my plans and asking what further action I needed to take (putting it in a letter etc).
A couple of hours later I get an email from my head of department, asking what my plans are to return as her boss (deputy head) is hassling her about the timetable. In the email she actually said "what do I care???" as she has a new job and so is leaving at the end of the summer term anyway. I reply that I have just spoken to the relevant person this morning and repeat to her what my plans are.
She then sends a very stroppily toned email, saying that yes, the secretary had already told her and the deputy head already knew, but it would have been nice to have heard it from me, and this meant that she would have had to change the timetable "AGAIN!!!"
I am shocked tbh about how unprofessional she has been. I have a 4 month old who I am totally consumed by. The fact that she has to change the timetable is of absolutely no consequence to me and I refuse to be made to feel guilty about it. I was actually under no obligation to tell them of when I planned to return yet anyway, I just did it out of courtesy. She is obviously pissed off that I have told the secretary before her, but as far as I am concerned I was just going through the correct channels. She has had a bit of a history of dealing badly with maternity issues, part time workers etc who she manages, and so I thought it would be best to just tell payroll as I suspected she would make it into a personal issue, which she has.
I am trying to compose a gracious but also strongly worded email back, but am not sure how well advised this would be. I wanted to mention something along the lines of hoping there are not too many troublesome childbearing women to manage in her new job, but at the same time, she has overall been a good boss to me and I dont want things to end sourly between us.
So, AIBU? Sorry for length!!