To tell my prestigious job to do one

[Magnoliamarigold]

I recently returned from my mat leave, my job is as a postdoctoral researcher at an oxbridge university. Lots of Nobel prizes and OBEs at the department. When I got it it was my dream job.

I'm pouring from an empty cup. Baby is five months old and refusing to go to her dad, I am doing all the night feeds. The other day I slipped down the stairs and fell with the baby in my arms, and my back is in a bad way.

Because the role is so prestigious, my employer takes the . During my mat leave I was asked to use up all my KIT days voluntarily, so that publications could still go ahead. It was non negotiable. I was not paid during my mat leave despite being told I would be. I told them I was pregnant at the beginning of the year, but when I was in hospital being induced I was still having to answer emails about my mat leave as the HR woman hadn't yet got round to it. I have been asked to work on bank holidays, I have been asked to work 4/5 days a week even though I am contracted at 2.5 days. My boss is a professor who has not taken one sick day, or annual leave day in the entire time I have known her. She works bank holidays and a lot of weekends. She works when she's on holiday. Work is her life. Most recently I have been asked to take on a large amount of work that I probably would have been able to do previously, but I am so sleep deprived, my brain is so sluggish, and frankly I can't be bothered anymore.

I'm fed up, and tomorrow morning I am having an ad hoc review with this professor - she is unhappy with my work since coming back from mat leave and is clearly making a paper trail to give me some sort of kick up the and get me working at pace again.

I'm thinking of doing one of the following:

1. Make a record of all the unprofessional things I have had to put up with and use an HR mediator (albeit it might be the useless woman again, and will cause me a massive amount of stress)
2. Tell boss, shove it, I am taking the rest of my mat leave, take the financial hit and will come back when the baby is 1.
3. Work with her to improve my outputs in a way that everyone is happy

Has anyone been in this position? What should I do?

The problem the op has @NicLondon1 is that if she has already returned to work, her mat leave has ended. Once ended it cannot recommence.

I am married to an academic, and if I ever have to date again I swear I will put 'No academics' in my tinder profile :D.

But seriously every time I hear about conditions and expectations of work in academia I thank God I did not pursue a PhD offer and decided to work instead. The hours are insane, there is a constant expectations of churning out papers which one writes on holidays, weekends, evening because the usual working hours are filled with teaching, meetings, administrative tasks etc. There is much less permanent contracts for teaching positions.

What is really paradoxical is that all this is happening in places which are theoretically most left wing sector in western countries, and you would think that employees would pay attention to labour laws etc.

@RosesAndHellebores I think a lot depends on your discipline. Postdocs in the sciences were often working in horrendous conditions, and constantly reminded how replaceable they were. Particularly women.

Sure, due to the nature of my job, I didn't tend to hear from the people who were having a good time of it. But I saw a lot of very bad practice at an institutional level. Mat leave promised and then withheld, sick leave denied, no real accountability anywhere.

I ended up leaving because I felt so vicariously ground down by it, and complicit in a system I had some grave reservations about.

I have a friend who was pregnant in a prestigious lab in Oxford, well known for their medical research to keep it vague. Although I know it's a different case because all her colleagues were male and she felt this made her situation challenging because they had never experienced what she was going through.... Not that this always helps.

She didn't get paid, got bullied to return after 4 months when she wasn't ready, was exhausted. And her life was made very difficult until she left. She's amazing and gone on to do great things in a better environment.

This is totally unacceptable and needs to stop

I am exhausted. I am not pregnant, on mat leave or have children, though I do work in a university and I never stop. I am up at 6 at the latest, don't take proper lunch breaks every day, leave at 8 pm sometimes. I have a side hustle as well, but that's on top of my day job. I love my work, but it is wearing me out.

True, can any exceptions be made if there behaviour was illegal?

I'd seek union involvement, it seems like you'd rather go so get legal support in stating your claims in regards to them breaking employment law and unfair treatment and you'll likely get a hefty severance package and a fair reference for a future job. Similar happened with a family member who worked as an SLT in a secondary school, they were pushing unfair and unreasonable demands on her and the union helped her put forward bullying and discrimination allegations against them and she left with £14,000 - not enough for an entire year in your instance but enough to hopefully buy you 6 months to search for a more suitable role. Make sure you gather evidences before lodging any grievances as education institutions can be sly in removing permissions.

I left academia. I remember when we were 'striking' a few years back. All my team were actually WFH, including the weekend.

I can think of a school of public health in our capital city where women are treated quite well.

You don’t have to leave academia to get better work life balance and employment rights respected. Yes Oxbridge is more prestigious but it is known to accept a far more cutthroat culture. I’d start putting my CV out to other RG universities and swap some of the prestige for a better life.

A postdoctoral appointment is really not a prestigious job. Who told you that it was 😂

If you employer is being an arse, look to move elsewhere, as you would with any other job.

Oxbridge or not, they have to stick follow employment law. All universities have robust HR roles in place, avail yourself of them and make it clear that their behaviour is unacceptable.

Who is funds this postdoctoral position?

It’s a fixed term contract pro-rated 0.5 FTE, but you say they will renew it when it’s up?

How can they do that unless you are employed by the University as permanent staff rather than on grant money.

I have done several post docs and this whole approach is very, very odd.

Gosh OP, sorry to hear that, sounds really tough. This is one of the reasons I left academia. It felt really unfair in terms of what I was putting in, I wasn't getting back. I don't know if this is an option for you, but I switched industries in the search of getting paid more but also with the hope of being looked after better by my employer. It's a bit sad but I sort of prefer being a cog in a big wheel and just enjoying perks of a more established corporate than struggling in academia. I actually haven't quite made it to a big corporate but in a halfway house at the moment but it already feels worth it eg. Appreciated for what I do, recognised for the effort I put in, better salary.

Definitely start by doing number 2. Give yourself the space and break you're entitled to.

If when you come back again things haven't changed, then think about HR.

Is there any chance to apply for similar roles inside other colleges/at other units?

There’s nothing prestigious about a job that is about to run you into the ground. They have broken all sorts of laws and are treating you like shit. Working within academia can be the worst.

TBH I think you need to remove this job from its pedestal

I can't ever imagine considering a postdoc prestigious, especially when the faculty is taking the piss

You need to contact Pregnant then Screwed for some advise on how to tackle this. It’s illegal.

I wish someone would write about this in the press or take them to court. These institutions and individuals involved should be publicly shamed and suffer financial and reputational penalties.

@Quincythequince of course it's a prestigious role, don't be an arse. Postdoc anything is prestigious. Less than 2 percent of the UK population has a doctorate and a bunch of those never make a postdoctoral appt.
I'm sure you mean this more kindly, as in the water is warm outside academia, but there's no need to underplay the OP's huge achievements

We employed an RA who only got SMP because she got pregnant very soon after starting (can't remember the exact timing, but too soon). She didn't want to come back, and we used the remaining funds to employ another RA for longer who thankfully knew the job, but it was RCUK funding and we didn't get anything from the Uni to pay any employer's maternity pay so if she'd earned that and wanted to stay on after, we'd have been well and truly stuffed paying her maternity pay but still needing someone to do the job.
A small RCUK grant is always spoken for down to the last penny, so an extra half a year's salary is not possible, we'd have had to find it from somewhere but it might have meant not employing someone to do another piece of RA work and hence not finishing the grant.
I took mat leave during the lifetime of the grant as well (after the RA, so during the time the other RA was working) and though they "generously" allowed us to extend the time the grant took without giving us any extra money, I wasn't there to supervise the other RA, etc. etc. and came back to a bit of a mess. The timing meant that we couldn't just pause the grant while we both went on mat leave (and we had commitments/experiments running that couldn't be paused easily without wasting even more time).
RCUK thinks that all PIs and RAs are blokes.

This isn't a prestigious job, it's a shit job and an employer who is exploiting you and potentially breaking employment law.

KIT days should be paid
Unless the law has changed, they can be offered in lieu instead.

Was about to suggest speaking to pregnant then screwed myself

I’ve got three and from prestigious institutes too. I know what they are and I know how much work goes into them.

My point being a post doc rule is not prestigious, and is not viewed as such.

It’s the lowest rank after a PhD.

I’m not saying it doesn’t take skill or intelligence, by definition it should.

But they are largely dispensable, easily replaced roles and you can expect to work like a dog. It’s wrong, but it’s how it is.

It is not prestigious.

And I’m not underplaying her achievements, but her view of herself in the context of her working environment is a bit warped.

It’s the dead bottom rung on the ladder of academia. Square 1, you have just passed go.

I'm not sure you can restart your maternity leave once you've gone back, so that might not be an option.

I would be inclined to keep calm and say very little in the meeting, other than to remind her of facts like your contract being 2.5 days. Take notes. If there are no recorded minutes, send an email afterwards saying "please can you confirm that this is what was said". Then talk to HR. Alternatively, ask if the meeting could wait until you have had a chance to talk to HR - they might be willing to send someone to the meeting. If you are in the union, then a union rep might be able to come to the meeting.

If you're not in the union, join. There may be limits on what help they can offer for things that happened before you join, but I'm pretty sure they would clarify your rights, and might be able to provide support going forward.

If you were entitled to maternity pay and you didn't get it, you need to raise that with someone. I know my maternity pay was awkward, as although the employer can claim the cost of SMP back from the government, the university policy was that that went to central admin and not to the department paying the SMP and the maternity cover - but that should not mean you not getting paid.

You were entitled to refuse the KIT days; you needed to be more assertive on that.

Bank holidays may not be an issue - certainly my contract was that we got an extra 8 days holiday rather than being entitled to the bank holidays specifically - the university worked straight through the May ones.