AIBU to feel frustrated about manager's repeated maternity leave?

[ShesPregnantAgain]

My manager, let's call her Betty, has just announced her fifth pregnancy. I've enthusiastically congratulated her but I'm actually pissed off. She's barely been at work for the past 7 years. She gets pregnant, that makes her ill so she's off for most of her pregnancy, then 9 months on maternity leave, comes back and a few months later does it all again.

The job she used to do doesn't really exist any more. The company's moved on: all the people, systems and expectations are different. They get in maternity cover for her every time so someone gets trained up, actually does a good job, does a handover when she comes back and then leaves. It's so disruptive.

I know the company can't fire her for pregnancy-related sickness or for taking maternity leave per her statutory rights. They can't even performance manage her because she's never here long enough, or appoint one of her covers to do the job permanently. None of us can work for promotion to her level because that would discriminate against her. Her manager does promote people out sideways and upwards but she's just there, filling the role without actually doing anything. We all just get on without her.

I know that women, me included, benefit from these protections because of the crap women suffered in the past. I just think she's taking the piss.

To an extent..?

So your job is only protected up to 2 children?

Or you’re only protected as long as you don’t get pregnancy related illnesses?

Women need to be able to work and keep their jobs throughout pregnancies and maternity leaves regardless of how ‘frustrating’ it might be for others.

It is definitely possible to go through redundancies and filter an employee out if they don’t have appropriate skills for other jobs. ACAS says follow the rules but it’s possible to reorganise and this employee has to apply for the new jobs.

She is shameless if she is showing the kids on Teams calls.

@RomeoRivers "Like I said, the pregnancies might not have been planned."

Hard to believe that any reasonably intelligent woman would let herself get accidentally pregnant five times over 7 years. It's 2026 not 1826.

This sounds like rage bait bollocks.

As you say..you barely know her.

Presumably not all 5 were unplanned, but it’s possible some were.

No wonder productivity is so poor and costs are so high in this country, if this sort of thing occurs frequently. Workplace protections are a good thing, but there have to be limits. The UK economy is a basket case and public services are badly run and inefficient, I doubt this state of affairs can continue for much longer. Then we’ll all be learning the hard way.

People like her ruin it for everyone else - they make it so that companies don't want to hire women of childbearing age. And then don't trust us to wfh, because piss takers will be minding their kids at home while they should be doing the job they are being paid for. This fucks everything up for other women! Those piss taker employees never consider how their selfishness impacts on everyone else, on the colleagues who get screwed over having to take on extra work.

Personally, I'd limit maternity protection to 2 children (with some exceptions for specific situations).

An employer is paying people to do a job and it's not unreasonable for them to expect the employee to be there, doing said job. They shouldn't have to keep open a role indefinitely because someone wants to keep popping out babies. They wouldn't do it for the employee who needs a year off to care for a dying parent, for example. It's not fair for one person to keep taking!

I doubt many people have that many kids nowadays.

Nice life - Mat leave and paid sick and holiday to cover the rest. Mgt obv too scared to act

To be fair the woman would be slagged off if she was a SAHM. So are we saying no one should be allowed to have a big family? I mean I have two and that's all I wanted, but some like a big family.

So she works from home with presumably a baby and toddler, and perhaps the older two are at school?
how does she get anything done even in the two weeks she’s back before going off again?
doesn’t your workplace enforce childcare for people who WFH with small kids? That’s outrageous.

Oh give over! It's not the same at all. A man wouldn't have all that time off.

Bringing up sahm is whataboutery. So long as the state isn't paying for her to sah, few people actually care. Sah affects no one outside of her own family.

These misogynist views are the reason women are and continue to be discriminated against in the workplace. You should all be ashamed of yourselves.

She should have resigned once she realised that for every pregnancy she would be unable to work due to health conditions. Five pregnancies when she is unable to work during the pregnancy and then takes full maternity leave is completely taking the piss. Businesses pass these costs on to the consumer, or the taxpayer has to stump up if it’s a public sector role. The small amount of time that she actually does work, she doesn’t even have childcare for her younger children. Disgraceful.

Her manager and HR know about it. As they haven't done anything about it, presumably they don't think it's a problem.

I'm not "ashamed of myself" for being privately annoyed by the burden of having to repeatedly help onboard cover people and help my manager return to work, and having my own flexibility threatened by someone taking the piss with our very understanding employer. Misogyny would be saying she shouldn't have so many children, undermining her by moaning about her in the workplace or saying she should quit her job.

Just because a woman has made a choice to do something, she isn't owed unconditional support for other women. Not when her actions are directly negatively affecting other women.

I'm ignoring the troll hunter BTW. Presumably everyone in their life behaves with courtesy and consideration to the people around them. Or they're the kind of piss-taker I'm talking about.

@PrincessofWills Er no. This women should be ashamed of herself for not working and playing the system. I doubt many do have 5 dc but this is not reasonable for the employer. What about the women who might be mums that are having to deal with this? The job is a non job if it’s so lax and isn’t required for months on end. Make it redundant and divvy up the work elsewhere and give everyone a pay rise.

Exactly. Who do these posters think is doing all the travel she should be doing in her tweaked role every time she returns to work? It's not like the company can hire cover instantly when she goes off sick.

The comments made by women about other women makes me wonder why we bothered fighting on the picket lines for equal rights. It's very sad.

What would annoy me most is not the mat leave but the unable to work while pregnant. It's absolute BS. Some women get very sick during pregnancy but they don't have 5 kids. She is an absolute pisstaker. I hate these type of women because they give the rest of us a bad name.

It is the employer's issue for not managing their employees effectively- not a woman's fault who is taking maternity leave/sick leave in accordance with her employment rights.

What she's exercising though aren't equal rights. She's stealing time and money from other people