For thinking my company is treating me badly post mat leave

[Queenie1920]

I’ve been back in my job for over a year from maternity leave. When I went on mat leave, there was no one to cover my projects, until very close to me going on leave. Someone new started the company and was handed my projects.

when I came back, they said they wanted keep her in that role and move me onto different projects. I went with it, although I was upset about it. This person would then not include me in things I should be included in, such as meetings, emails related to my expertise.

She was seen as efficient, proactive and very clever. Anyway, we then identified some big quality issues with the projects she took on. Basically £100’s of thousand in fees on projects where the base calculations were wrong. Me and another colleague had to redo it all in a very short space of time. She took no responsibility, and tried to blame everyone but herself…she blamed graduates, and even blamed me for not creating quality check spreadsheets before I went on leave.

when I approached her about the first issue identified, she lied to me and told me no other projects were affected…she said that she had nothing to do with some of the projects (even though she used them to get ahead with pay and a promo).

now she’s been found out, she’s going for me. Criticising small things and going in to check my work in the system before it’s even finished for checking (and it’s not even her job to check), sending overly critical emails and copying the director.

the annoying thing is…it took a while before the management listened to the concerns on quality, as they thought I had a conflict of interest because I had been upset about the situation when I came back from leave (I felt it was maternity discrimination).

Am I being unreasonable for thinking this isn’t right? Have I been out of order in this?

You need to get in there quickly to meet management and get your side across. Ask for a proper meeting as you have concerns.

Leave out any hint of squabbling or ‘she’s out to get me’ as that will go against you- keep it purely factual and how it relates to projects and any possible repercussions to future work.

Try and keep your hands clean as when she inevitably tries to make you look bad via email then you can stay looking professional.

@Justsomethoughts thank you. This is great advice. I need to keep my cool. I have to admit, a few times I’ve called my line manager to vent. I’ve been gaslighted to much by this person, who was very popular with management. I don’t think they wanted to believe it. Even her own line manager, who was defending her fiercely, has now said that he can now see that she’s economical with the truth.

That's good they are seeing through her lies.

I had a job where a girl did that to me too. But they believed her over me. I was sacked as I had only been there a short while.

Fast forward six months and I phoned them for some reason, can't remember why, and she was gone.

I presume she got her comeuppance when they eventually realised that mistakes were still happening and I couldnt be blamed for them.

Make sure you're replying to her emails with all original recipients stating your projects are unfinished and it's before any deadlines and ask if there's a reason she requires your work or anything you can help with as you're not aware of any input required from her in the process. Polite, factual, offering collaboration but in reality showing her up to the people she's copying in for exactly what she's doing whilst ensuring a paper trail of her behaviour if you need to escalate.