I need some advice on this quite soon - im due back at work after maternity leave in oct but im actually dreading it.
My line manager imo is a chauvenist. I hav been with the same company for 10 years now and in the first 7 years i was promoted 3 times (not bad going for admin positions in this particular company). I have always had a totally unblemished work record and received pretty good (for the company norm) pay rises. I had my DD in April 03 and when it came to returning to work in the October i requested to work flexibly. Thats when the trouble started.....I followd the procedures and suggested 4 possible options for my return ie work from home & office 50/50, part time with job share etc. He chose secret option no 5 which was for me to work part time - no job share, home work etc. (Told me that "the company doesnt do working from home" but he does regularly - we both work off of laptops). My workload wasnt reduce and suddenly come Xmas i had an appraisal for the first time ever. He couldnt say anything bad except that i couldnt keep up with the work. Then when my DD was ill once i took unpaid leave and he tried to get me to take it as holiday because "the problem with you taking it as unpaid means you still have annual leave to take and you have enough time off as it is now you are part time". He eventually gave a small aspect of my job (nothing near as much as it shouldve been) to a colleague (to stop her leaving so to justify giving her more money). He regularly told me that "you cant return to your job full time now - you would have to take x (lower grade) position instead". He told a colleague that it would be a shame if she had kids now because she was doing so well. At my last appraisal again when i had to list difficulties faults etc i left it blank and he made me put in "difficulties completing workload due to numbr of hours worked" even though i stated to him that it was in fact his difficulty and not mine. When i went off on materntity leave i got no reply to my birth announcement message (got flowers from DPs company). I have heard nothing from him and 19 weeks have passed. (Dont want flowers etc but he is a representative of the company and i had colleagues ringing me up asking me if id had DS yet because he hadnt announced it). I complained in confidence to his line manager regarding his non response to birth announcement and he apologised unreservedly. I thought it would make me feel better but it doesnt. The hourly rate in this job is good for an admin role so i dont want to leave. The only reason i dont want to go back is him. What can i do?????? Sorry for such a long waffling story but im getting so stressed about this now.