Please help me mum hive!!!
I have been working at a small company to get some money whilst I changing careers. It was always supposed to be something to tie me over. It wasn't very well paid but I needed to work in order to get the free childcare hours. At the interview I asked if they had hybrid working and they said they didn't. I accepted that as it was supposed to be a short term thing. After a couple of months I realised that it wasn't actually working out financially because of the childcare costs. I worked out id actually be better off going down to 4 days so I put in a request by email explaining my financial situation.
My boss replied that he needed to wait for someone to come back from holiday till he could respond. When that person came back I followed up and asked if we could talk about. He said he would at the end of the day. Once everyone in the office had left they asked me into a meeting room. They said that they were letting me go for financial reasons. I knew that they were looking to hire another person in my team so I was very surprised. I asked if I had done anything wrong and they said it was just a financial decision and that's all they could say. I asked them why me and not other members of the team and they said they couldn't talk about it because it was a message from head office
No one in the office does any form of flexible working and I think that they fired me because they didn't want other people to think they could apply for flexible working either. Before I realised what was going on I was being assisted out of the door. I wasn't able to get on to my computer and collect evidence. The next day I asked a colleague to go on my computer and they said it was locked . This never happens when someone leaves, we always have their emails open to track client jobs.
I was devastated not because I loved the job but I need to feed my children and I feel like I've let them down and I'm a terrible mother for not playing the game. I've got in touch with ACAS but I'm not sure if it can go any further without the email evidence. Does anyone have any experience with this? I don't want to be a victim, I feel so humiliated and I want to fight back. But how far can it really go? Do I have a leg to stand on?
I would appreciate any shared experience or knowledge in this area. X