Should I raise pregnancy brain as mitigating factor in poor work performance review?

[stella1w]

I am in a dilemma and a very bad work situation.

For reasons too complicated to explain I decided to retrain as a lawyer. Shortly after making the transition, I was lucky enough to fall pg with number one. I managed to get through the exams, and work fulltime in my old job as a journalist until I finished the studies part.

I started the two year compulsory onthejob training in September and a few weeks later fell pg with number two. I had horrible fatigue etc and got a terrible evaluation in December. I had hoped my performance would improve but if anything, it has got worse eg. making printing mistakes on documents about to be submitted to court. The kind of mistakes that basically would keep you from being taken on full time at the end of your training.

I have a real problem with keeping on top of the workload and do make errors. Other people also make errors but they are not leaving the office at 5.30pm and have more opportunity to show willing etc. So my department really don't rate me at all.

I have to submit my evaluation on Monday and am expecting a slating which objectively is kind of justified. However, I do feel that a lot of my mistakes are due to pregnancy brain - forgetfulness and inability to focus are recognised symptoms.

The question is - should I mention that as a mitigating factor? I don't want to make excuses but I think it is a factor in the situation. And legally, I think the law on pregnancy discrimination is that you have to make some allowances for pregnancy in these kinds of issues. So it might be worth putting down a marker as the situation is so bad. Or maybe I shouldn't mention it.

I have come late to this thread, and used to be a solicitor, have done planning and crime and other litigation. OP, you are obviously a very capable person in general, and you are struggling with accuracy, making mistakes in documents etc. One of the difficult areas in law is that you have to be good on the strategic/broad brush stroke front, getting on with clients and (as one barrister once said to me) summarising your case in a paragraph. You also have to be meticulous with detail ( another reminded me you should not produce a single piece of paper you would not he content to have scrutinised in the Court of Appeal) It sounds to me that you may just have a problem with being meticulous in general and that being tired makes this harder. You can remedy this easily by checking everything you do - it might slow you down a bit but
You will be on safer ground if you do.

I'd second everything the others have said about the difficulties of managing two children and a legal career, my DH worked office hours in those days but I needed a nanny to be able to give as much as was required at work. Sadly women with children have to be able to show they can cope the same as everyone else and with lots of legal work late nights, travel and staying late in the office are just grit to the mill.

I thought it worth updating as the OP.

I am in a new seat and am performing much better and people seem a lot happier.

HR told me it was not unusual for people to have problems in my previous seat - she hinted at the culture of the department.

I fell in the street and had an extra scan which showed polyhydramnios. This might have been contributing to all the fatigue etc.

(For those of you who seem to have enough time to just attack people seeking help, I suggest you look up this condition and all its potential serious outcomes before you start flaming).

I have been very disappointed with the tone of most of the responses - it would have been enough to say you would not have raised the issue without attacking me personally - especially as I am pregnant and was under severe stress.

Perhaps some of you don't realise how lucky you are to have the support and resources you have and never tell yourself "but for the grace of god, go I".

I'm glad things are going better for you.

I understand pg brain and can also understand why people don't, as I had it in my first pg (due to extreme fatigue) but not in this one.

hope things continue to improve for you

I'm glad it's going better for you. I have always found the accuracy aspect the hardest part of the job. One of my friends/colleagues said that I was a broadbrush strategic person and to try and take jobs that played to this strength. Saying which owing to some rather dire screw ups at the beginning of my tc I did develop methods to try and catch out a lot of these. It is not an uncommon problem.

I changed jobs on qualification and was pg at the time which was stressful. I was of course desperate to prove myself and not lose the job and worked long hours and did quite well. I was completely exhausted by the end. I am pg again and have now moved in-house and am finding it more exhausting than the last time partly because of having a child already and partly because I'm expecting twins. So even though I'm working less hours it's still not easy.

I would recommend that you honestly assess what went wrong with that seat. I'm sure the pregnancy isn't helping with or without any complications but trying to work out what caused the problem and methods to get round it will really help you if you want to continue in this career. My learnings were that I don't function well around people who are constantly criticising me and treating me as an idiot as I already question myself and all it serves to do is make me very nervous and more likely to make errors. Also even if time is tight it is always better to check and check and if you have the option have a second pair of eyes look at something to make sure an error has not got through either in the drafting, the address/no you're sending it to, or that the attachments are really attached. I know it sounds basic but these are the usual things that most people screw up and that will cause the real headaches re professional indemnity claims. They are also the supposedly "simple" things that people don't expect trainees to screw up and most of them do at some point. Saying which if you are working with decent people and you suddenly get a panic attack after leaving the office that the notice you sent definitely went to the right people they should be willing to doublecheck these things without criticising you. The partner I worked for for 4 years did this for me once and instead of criticising me for calling at 7pm after the notice had been (correctly) sent just said that it's always good to be extra cautious. Attitudes like that build your confidence and make you less likely to make errors in the future.

I hope that helps.

Pleased to hear everything is going better. You had my sympathy and as a senior person in a professional role, I hope I would have understood if you had worked for me.

I agree absolutely with Tiggersreturn. I am also a "broad-brush, strategic" person - and am going to leave my present job. I have also been got down by critical colleagues at work. I have learnt the quadruple check technique, but I know that it undermines your confidence and so your ability so much when people are always looking hard for ways to show you up. And with children, you just don't have the reserves of energy to buffer yourself against that (let alone when you're pregnant and a single parent!).
I was so relieved to read Tiggersreturn writing:
"My learnings were that I don't function well around people who are constantly criticising me and treating me as an idiot as I already question myself and all it serves to do is make me very nervous and more likely to make errors."
This is EXACTLY how I feel and it helps so much to hear that I am not the only person who feels like this. I have decided I can't live with it any longer. What is so great is to hear from Tiggersreturn, Thinkingaboutschools and hopefully OP from your present placement that there are professionals who relate to each other in a more respectful way as long as people are making the effort to overcome their weak points.

Simic - just to encourage you, after my awful first seat I was mentored by someone brilliant in my next 2 ones but still felt even after improving that I was always looked at as the one who would screw up. Moving on qualification was the best thing I could have done (even though I was pg at the time and there were no jobs in what I wanted to do so I had to go). It made me feel I had a clean slate to start with and I was also lucky in that the partner I mainly worked for although not always a wonderful match for my work style (very much of the school of pedants and expected everyone else to be like that) was a great person to work for as he never took his stress out on the people around him. Plus we shared a similar sense of humour.

I moved again 4 years later to a great in-house job confident that I was a competent and very able solicitor (most of the time) and this was mainly thanks to the partner I had worked for on qualification, other partners I encountered in my qualification firm and client experiences on a secondment.