I’m hoping this forum might be able to help me see with some clarity and clarify whether I’m being discriminated at work, or whether I’m just being unreasonable. Apologies in advance as it’s a long one.
In short - I’ve been working for the company I work at for the last 4 years in a stressful/ demanding sales role. It’s intense and I have a lot of responsibility. I’ve given so much of myself to this job over the last 4 years - late nights, weekends, so much energy and I have a reputation at work as being the “hard worker” because I’m meticulous and (deep down, have had major imposter syndrome about how I got to the position I’m in and therefore have felt compelled to overwork myself , over prepare & over deliver so I don’t get found out as a fraud) - but we digress, those are my issues.
I work alongside a nice team of people but the environment is very competitive where everyone’s trying to get to the next level. My boss is ok - she does care and wants to be a good manager but she’s also quite young / inexperienced herself and I’m the first person on her team whose gone on maternity leave so she’s never dealt with it before in her career.
After 4 years of my time in this company, I told my manager I was pregnant when I was just 12 weeks as I felt I owed it to her & the company to give them as much notice as possible so they had time to find a maternity cover as I look after an important client.
Long story short, I was surprised when their first reaction was to say to me “well for mat leave cover, my initial thinking is - this is an opportunity to potentially give someone else on the team an opportunity for a promotion, so I’m thinking if you’re taking the full year off, I could split the account into two halves (the account has 2 separate business units that I manage both of at the moment) , they manage one half & then you’d come back to work to look after the other half, meaning a a more manageable workload as you’ll be a new mum & might want that flexibility, etc. But if you’re not taking the full year e.g just 6 months, we’d just make do and cover you across the team until you return.”
While I initially appreciated this, my immediate reaction was anger because there was an immediate assumption from her that just because I’ll be a mum, I’d want less responsibility when I return to work. Who’s not to say I wouldn’t return with a fire in my belly to do more? Secondly, I was given 2 options: one that would be more favourable for my career prospects if I took a shorter mat leave and the other that would involve my responsibilities being essentially halved. (FYI though: legally my job title, salary & responsibilities would be the same so legally I think technically it’s above board/ I don’t think they’d be breaking any laws?). For full transparency, the reason she suggested this is because I do have a huge workload and often work late nights / I’m across a huge amount of projects whereas for other accounts, there are often two sales people who manage different business units whereas I manage the full account.
I took a beat to calm down and ended up being honest with her & told her my exact above concerns. She held her hands up and apologised & said she just went straight into planning mode and didn’t think about how it would make me feel. She said she completely understood and only wanted me to come back from maternity leave feeling supported and totally appreciated my position, would hate it if someone did that to her, and will do her best to support me.
However since then, there have been some developments that I feel uncomfortable with. A guy on my team - essentially my number 2 (who is a total slimeball) has put a business case forward for why he feels my role should be split in half & that he should take the other half of the account - essentially saying he thinks he’s already doing half the job based on how he supports me already, that he could increase revenue by XYZ if we had two people instead of just 1 , putting a business case forward to my manager. He already supports me on the account so he knows the account and he was actually the person my manager initially referred to when she suggested “splitting the account in two” to give someone an opportunity for progression previously.
Apparently lots of conversations have been happening about it over the last few months. Meanwhile, my manager has become less communicative with me (maybe because she knows now that I’ll raise it if I feel like I’m being unfairly treated).
While this has been going on, they finally put my maternity cover job advert online about 1 month ago (when I go on mat leave in only 3 weeks time lol) while they interview both external candidates and internal.
I’ve heard through a colleague on my team that the plan is to get someone external to take over one part of the account and this guy would take over the part of the account he pitched for originally. Apparently the only thing they can’t agree on at the moment is what happens when I return from mat leave as his argument is he wouldn’t be happy to go back to a support role when I return from mat leave and would want to keep his half instead of me managing the whole account like I do now. So currently they are thinking about giving him that opportunity if he drives enough revenue in that year while I’m off.
(I also obviously shouldn’t know any of these details - I only know because a close colleague on the team told me after my manager told them in confidence).
Fast forward to now, I go on mat leave in 3 weeks time and I have no idea what’s happening. I’m still having to work with this guy every day. I’ve made inquisitive comments to him like “do you know what’s happening about my mat cover? “ and he pretends he has no idea & hasn’t even told me he’s applied to the role.
Meanwhile, every time I have a 121 with my manager and ask how they are going to manage my mat cover, she tells me that she can’t say much as it “wouldn’t be fair to people involved internally interviewing in the process” - yet I’ve seen my manager and him walking off for 121 meetings in the office. She just tells me that they likely won’t confirm my mat cover until I’ve gone on mat leave so I’ll likely just need to hand over to her until then, not to worry, and to go off and enjoy being a mum and that she’ll make sure I come back to my job on the team (keeping it super vague).
In the meantime, the slimeball himself is gradually being more and more assertive and taking on more projects that would typically be my responsibility. I’m then exhausting myself at work thinking I have a point to prove because I want to prove being 8 months pregnant/ being a mum doesn’t affect a woman’s ability - when really I’m absolutely physically & emotionally exhausted, stressed, my back is killing me & commuting into work 3 days a week is tiring while I’ve also got up and presented to clients at 3 big conferences over the last 2 weeks struggling to breathe as baby is pushing on my belly. I want to slow down before mat leave - but I just feel as though if I give an inch, he takes a mile and makes out to our management like he’s always been doing half my role anyway, & that there’s nothing for me really hand over. Any time I’m exhausted or struggling, he’s like “oh you should definitely just relax & take the day off, I’ll cover for you - just look after you and baby as you’re what’s important!” When I know there’s a total hidden agenda there which makes me feel pressured to keep pushing on until the day I leave to go on mat leave so that he doesn’t try and takeover before I’ve even left.
In summary, the environment is so incredibly toxic and I can’t speak to my manager about it as she loves him/ he has her wrapped around his little finger. He’s played the game well.
I’ve debated confronting him about it all but at the end of the day I’m not supposed to know anything I do about him applying for my mat cover role as it’s all confidential HR stuff. I’m also 4 weeks away from giving birth and stressed enough as it is and I also recognise that technically, optics wise, even though he’s stabbed me in the back and been sneaky, to the business he’s put forward a strong business case that might lead to my remit being halved & more revenue being made for the company (potentially) in which case, I have no real leg to stand on.
Ultimately I just don’t know what to do. Should I keep battling to the end exhausting myself, or should I just let him start taking more projects from me anyway seeing as I’m going off in mat leave in 3 weeks and he’s likely going to get what he wants anyway based on what I’ve heard? The reality is, I think they are waiting until I go on mat leave to make the structure change as they don’t want to stress me out while I’m pregnant, so my manager thinks it’ll be easier to tell me when I’m off / on a KIT day.
The only thing that soothes me a little is other mum friends I speak to tell me my priorities will change when baby comes , that I won’t give work a second thought while I’m off for 12 months and that maybe going back to a less pressured job won’t be a bad thing in 12 months time.. but I also feel like I could not think of anything worse than going back to work and having to work alongside him as an equal after the way he’s gone about the whole thing. If he’d just spoken to me about it and involved me in the process, I think I’d feel differently. I also feel like I’ve committed 4 years to this company to just feel completely tossed aside - another typical example of what women face when having a baby.
Any advice is welcome and thank you so much