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Low about work - pregnant

5 replies

Khanga27 · 26/02/2024 14:51

I am currently finding work very hard. I have been with the same company for nearly 10 years. I was offered a new role on a trial basis in a different department. This went well and I was offered a permanent position which I accepted.

However since that point things have deteriorated. I thought it was just a blip but now I feel I made a huge mistake accepting the permanent position but it is too late to go back to my old department which I miss. I find the work challenging which is good typically, but it all got on top of me after I had something personal happen to me in August as I was in a spiral of grief, anxiety and generally feeling very low and struggling to focus on anything in or out of work when I returned after being signed off. When I first told work about my personal situation they were very supportive and said if I needed to take time or do less for time being then that was acceptable (verbal only). I had no engagement to HR or anything like that, but was getting counselling outside of work.

Unfortunately things didn’t get better for me and in hindsight I should have maybe been signed off longer due to struggling with my mental health. 2 months later I was approached about my performance. I tried to work harder and put in extra hours and although there was improvement, it was not enough to not affect my overall appraisal for the year.

I’m now pregnant again, but now feel huge regret about taking the role on a permanent basis. I can’t change jobs outside the organisation without it affecting my maternity entitlement, so I feel trapped. Does anyone have any advice about if they’ve been through something similar please? My team are approachable and friendly but I’m so scared to say anything in case it negatively impacts me further somehow.

OP posts:
Khanga27 · 26/02/2024 18:53

has anyone been through similar?

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freezefade · 27/02/2024 08:44

How have things been since your last appraisal? Is your performance back on track and stable?

What is it you're scared to say? That you're pregnant? Or that you want to change roles internally? (Are there any vacancies for you to do that?)

How much of what you're feeling (eg the regret) is sadness about the performance blip and lingering grief/struggles from your personal matter last summer?

Khanga27 · 27/02/2024 09:25

@freezefade I informed work I was pregnant due to symptoms so they are aware. I am scared to say that I want to change teams and haven’t felt supported in this team with things. My manager was already aware of my anxiety earlier in the year so when my MMC happened in the summer and the struggle with that (which I am receiving counselling for due to the trauma of that with 2 hospital visits and surgical management, taking a month and a half to resolve) it did knock me a lot. I’ve been given praise for my work done since the meeting with my manager and told that I have improved, but the comments for my appraisal appear to reflect the performance of the last few months of the year with no acknowledgement of what had gone well prior or consideration of my personal struggles. My performance this year has been praised.

In my entire time at the company I’ve always had near-top ratings, and to be honest I do feel like when I came back from my absence apart from that initial meeting, I didn’t have contact with my manager at all.

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freezefade · 27/02/2024 21:14

I am scared to say that I want to change teams and haven’t felt supported in this team with things

How straightforward is the process for changing teams? Could you just ask to change teams without disclosing the second part? I'm not sure you really need to tell them that if there's a way to just move forward without raking over it.

From their perspective, I can see why they would have given more weight to your recent "lower" performance at the time of your appraisal as they didn't know if it would pick up.

If you have a long track record as a high performer, one blip isn't going to mark your card for life - especially as your subsequent performance has already been praised again.

It might feel insurmountable and that it's ruined or tainted everything because of what you're dealing with personally - trauma can make everything feel ruined and hopeless.

Speaking as someone who had a really shit appraisal after a trauma. At the time it felt irrecoverable, that I would never come back from it, and that it erased all my past successes. Many years and good appraisals later, it doesn't bother me much and it hasn't ruined anything.

You sound like you have had a lot to deal with in a short space of time - and all pretty recently. Even if you can't picture a brighter future just yet, trust me that it won't continue to feel this awful. Stick with the counselling and hold onto the praise you've received recently as that matters more than a disappointing appraisal in the past.

Khanga27 · 11/03/2024 10:11

thanks @freezefade. I’m a bit frustrated as I got positive feedback from manager and people I work with, and have been doing my best since but then last week my manager referenced that I hadn’t been putting in extra hours like others on the team have. I mentioned to him about how I’d told him about my struggles with pregnancy symptoms and other health aspects and it means my energy just isn’t there to work into evening, but that doesn’t seem to be taken into account and I’m just being compared to staff that aren’t pregnant.

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