dilemma - should I stay or should I go??

[DebL]

I posted this on another thread, I would be grateful for your thoughts fellow mumsnetters....

I am in the middle of a dilemma - I recently returned to work part -time after 6 months maternity leave. My job is as a project engineer in the Chemical Industry. I work on a production site installing new equipment and assissting in production of refined rapeseed oil. As you can imagine, this is a very traditional male - orientated work environment, and my part-time status was hard to negotiate. Unfortunately it is only a 'trial' for 3 months and ends in March. My boss wants me to return full time, but I am not prepared to do this. To be honest it is a very demanding job, long hours etc when commissioning new equipment, training staff on shifts etc., and it is hard to fit the role to part time unless the company are prepared to be more flexible. The stress is getting to me and I am thinking of resigning. I love my job, but my daughter comes first, and it will be a real struggle with just DH income, but we will manage until I can find something where I can work from home, or part time. I have a Masters degree, 15 years experience and am a chartered engineer. Is this all wasted?????

DebL, the compromises we make hey? Someone posted on another thread about a dinner lady leaving at her daughter's school since her daughter had finished at the school and so the dinner lady went back to her job as a pharmacist! Could you sell your boss the idea of a job share? There is an organisation called new ways to work which might be useful, will see if I can find them and post a link. I don't know anything about the new legislation unfortunately but expect someone here will. Don't resign yet, there may be something you can do!

thanks WWW. I got some info from new ways to work whilst on mat leave. My immediate boss is sympathetic, and wants me to stay on part time, he is trying to tailor my job to be p/t or job share- but the senior manager makes the decisions, and he is dead set against me working p/t - this dinosaur is 2 yrs younger than me, with a 4 yr old son (wife not working - doesnt need to cos of DH big fat salary no doubt.....) GGRRR!! now writing this with tears in eyes due to frustration....
I don't want to take this to constructive dismissal, but sometimes it makes you realise how little women are valued once we become mothers. Is it really 2003????

just found a thread that echoes my thoughts, life and everything...from Oct 2002 re:returning to work - have I made a mistake? WWW, are you still doing the 'poxy' job you had in October? Would love to know what you did in your previous life, and how you feel now.

A general question to mumsnetters...how old were your DD/DS before you reeturned to your previous job, or were you happy to 'downsize', settle for less (but more quality family life??), or just relish the time being a SAHM?

I have worked for the same employer for nearly 21 yrs.My ds is 3.6 yrs of age. When I told my employers that I was pregnant the first thing my boss said was 'We hope you will come back part time' I did go back for 3 full days a week and it has worked out great. Must admit I cried the first few mornings when I went back, I just hated leaving him but you do get use to it. I am very lucky as my sister looks after ds so it works out well.

I am sure I read that all employers do have to accommmodate mothers when they are just wanting to work part time. If I come across what it said I will leave another message.

Hope it all works out for you.
Lorna

DebL, just a quick one before bed: I still have a poxy job in terms of pay but it's a different poxy job to the one I had in October. To answer your question, before ds I worked as a senior project manager (finance) for a blue chip. I went back to work when ds was 5 months old and later took them to tribunal for sex discrimination and constructive dismissal. I really wouldn't recommend it! I was then a SAHM for 4 yrs ish until last October. The poxy job I have now is better in that I work from home and use my brain a lot more than I did in the other poxy job. I like the people I work for too, which helps, and it's flexible - if I need time off I take it.

I don't think I could ever go back to that serious corporate stuff again but mainly because I think it's b***ks and it just doesn't seem important now. I wish someone had offered me a halfway house between being a SAHM and a working taken seriously person but until October (ds started school in Sept) they didn't and I wasn't particularly looking.

So, to answer your question about settling for less, I think a lot of us do because we have to, not necessarily because we want to. If there were part time, term time, flexible working, well paid, interesting jobs demanding well qualified, well motivated, intelligent mothers (sorry, but it is often mothers who end up giving up work) to do them there would be a queue. Employers could have the best of all worlds if only they'd wake up to it. IMO. So I did settle for quality of time over cash and I'm glad I did although it means I now don't have the other things that would have gone with it, like a mortgage etc.

Could you find out exactly what dinosaur boss' objections are exactly, in writing and then demolish them one by one? Anyway, sorry, this was meant to be quick and ended up being long and tedious. I think it's a question a lot of us have struggled with - where is our place economically once we have children and is it fair? Good luck sorting this out, it's a hard one I think.

I would agree about carrying on negotiations for part time. I managed to get part time, after negotiating, but colleges before me had not managed it.
I went back full time after having my DS twins, as I believed there was no possibility of PT,until I fought for it !!!
I love my work and I love it even more PT, but I would have had to change if I could not get PT.

DebL, you sound like a really hard person to replace - incredibly well qualified, tons of experience etc etc. This puts you in a strong position. I suggest you think about what you think you need to make your job work for you and the company if you were to stay p/t - do you need an admin assistant, for example (my job is million miles from yours so can't suggest anything sensible, I'm sure). Then talk to them again. Make your bottom line clear. You seem to be saying you will resign if you can't make your job fit your new life - well don't do it until you've made that clear to them - nicely! I suspect they blithely assume that if they say 'no' to p/t you will meekly work f/t. If they realise the choice is p/t or nothing they may well suddenly find themselves able to be more flexible. Flexible and p/t working is the future, and I think more and more companies are beginning to realise they've got to get with the programme! Good luck. Hey, maybe even you could suggest they re-hire you as a consultant and then set up your own consultancy. Your job sounds dead impressive to me.

DebL, I can empathise - I'm also in a male dominated industry and believe that my career has stalled now due to having ds. I've not been given a decent project since I announced my pregnancy - my position as Associate of my firm is becoming untennable and (on my bad days) I believe I'm being set up for redundancy, or constructive dismissal.

How is it that a 'family man' is a valued asset to a firm, seen as more trustworthy and loyal, where as a 'mother' is seen as an unreliable scatterbrained burden.

New legislation is coming in soon requiring all employers to 'take seriously' any request for flexible working. Given you've worked part time for 3 months, I think they'd have to come up with some realy good reasons to why it was not working before preventing you continuing to work in that way. You should perhaps document the support of your line manager as 'evidence' of the workability of the present arrangement.

Let us know how it works out for you.

DebL, I am almost sure (from my cosy seat in a female-dominated, parent-friendly sedentary occupation!) that ALL parents now have the legal right to apply for flexible working while they have a young family. Maybe this link will give you some helpful ideas: DTI Papers on Flexible Working
I do hope so. All the engineers I was at university with ended up as chartered accountants or IT professionals - nice to know that some still carve an interesting and important career in their chosen field.

That's my understanding too. Employers have to genuinely consider all requests for flexible working for parents of unders 5s (that's my main gripe about the legislation: if anything your need for flexible working practices INCREASES once they go to school!). If they refuse you, they have to explain the reasons why flexible working is not possible or practical. Given that you have been working that way for 3 months and your immediate boss supports you, I'd have thought that they would be hard pushed to justify refusing you. (... unless they can come up with some eaxmples of where your part time working has caused problems?)

It may be worth reminding them of the legislation!

I agree with those who say you should negotate further rather than hand in a resignation. It really sounds as if your considerable experience would be missed and you have a three month precedent of working part time. Only you know if your uncooperative boss can quote examples of why part time does not work. Any way of asking this man to elaborate so, as someone else said, you can refute his reasons one by one? Can you involve the HR department or a Trade Union too?

The other thing I meant to mention is that the legislation only kicks in (I think) on 1 April, as which point you can request in writing that they consider flexible working in recognition of your status as a parent of an under 5.

So hang in there until then!

To echo all the advice already given, hang in there until April. Although, the award for not meeting the requirements of the new legislations is a few measly weeks pay - you can always claim sex discrimination as well.

I am not advocating that you actually rush off and slap in claim to a tribunal but the mere threat of a tribunal claim is often enough to make employers think twice about there discriminatory action. Also, with sex discrimination you can name two or more parties in your claim - the company and the person who actually discriminated - again, this is often not known to managers and it really makes them sit up and take notice of what they will personally be liable for if they do not abide by the law. As WWW said, taking employers to tribunals is not fun but if you know the facts and convince them that you will take matters further (even if you know that you won't), then it is worth trying to mention the legal ramifications if they continue to behave in an unreasonable manner.

If you would like to talk over the law in a bit more detail send me your phone number via mumsnet and I will give you a call. You may also consider speaking to an adviser at the Maternity alliance or the Equal Opportunies Commission.

I hope you sort this out soon and find a good working balance.
sis

To echo all the advice already given, hang in there until April. Although, the award for not meeting the requirements of the new legislations is a few measly weeks pay - you can always claim sex discrimination as well.

I am not advocating that you actually rush off and slap in claim to a tribunal but the mere threat of a tribunal claim is often enough to make employers think twice about there discriminatory action. Also, with sex discrimination you can name two or more parties in your claim - the company and the person who actually discriminated - again, this is often not known to managers and it really makes them sit up and take notice of what they will personally be liable for if they do not abide by the law. As WWW said, taking employers to tribunals is not fun but if you know the facts and convince them that you will take matters further (even if you know that you won't), then it is worth trying to mention the legal ramifications if they continue to behave in an unreasonable manner.

If you would like to talk over the law in a bit more detail send me your phone number via mumsnet and I will give you a call. You may also consider speaking to an adviser at the Maternity alliance or the Equal Opportunies Commission.

I hope you sort this out soon and find a good working balance.
sis

From an employer's point of view, they often view someone going part-time negatively because they just think '(s)he can't do the job in 3 days'. I was hugely impressed when my colleague asked to go down to 4 days and our boss looked at it creatively and said 50 days of x salary means £x - how can we split up your job so that £x pays for what you can't do in 4 days?

Can you try and think it out this way and try and sell it to your company like that? Do you have a lot of admin that could be handled by an assistant (2 days of your time might mean 4 days of an assistant), or could you pass the training off to a consultant? (this is a good way of losing the bits of the job you enjoy least!). Start from your job description if you have one - it's a company document so it will be hard to argue against.

Finally, life is short, you shouldn't be doing a job where you are unhappy. While I doubt the amount of freelance work there is installing chemical plants, as a chartered engineer used to working with staff and commissioning equipment, I'm sure you could be in demand. Maybe use the next few months to network while you decide?

sorry about the double posting below.

I am overwhelmed my your responses, thank you everyone!!! This will be a long post - I warn you now!!

www - I'd hate to have to wade thro one of your long posts if that was a quick one!!

I don't want to go down the tribunal route, no point in burning any bridges just yet. I agree with you about the corporate ladder stuff, it never really was important for me, I was quite happy with the rung I was on. It's c**p having it kicked from under you tho.

My main fear of being a SAHM is that the ladder will have rotted completely, my experience will have been tucked away in a far corner of my brain never to be dusted off again due to lack of use. So I would like to 'keep my hand in' - maybe temporary contracts, working from home, or consultancy could be a possibility.

Thanks for your post www, set me thinking about other ways I can work if I can't persuade 'dinosaur' otherwise. I will ask him to put his objections in writing.

aloha - my job is not that impressive! I like your approach, I hadn't thought about my strong position - I am too willing to admit defeat. I think I made a mistake telling my line mgr that I couldn't cope p/t because of the number of objectives I'd been set - how I should have approached it was ' These are for a full time job, how about being more realistic?' I wonder if I have pulled the rug from underneath myself already? Anyway, that is the approach i will take from now on.

Janeway - a family man is seen as trustworthy and loyal because he is less likely to quit an underpaid job because of his commitments - after all his wife had to give up work when the kids arrived, and his is the only income!!

I think the dinosaur boss thinks he HAS considered my request seriously. We had a conversation about my return to work before I went on mat leave. He had all sorts of reasons why not- very much related to long hours culture and working in a totally non flexible way! It was only due to my line mgr that I managed to have 3 mths p/t.

Marina - thanks for the link. Several engineers I knew at uni also defected, money had a lot to do with it, and perhaps they didn't fancy wearing hard hats and safety boots every day

JanZ - I knew about 1 April and the flexible working. Wonder if thats why I was only given until the end of March?

tigermoth- I will ask for examples of why p/t will not work. My next step is to talk to HR. Unfortunately I don't belong to a trade union.

Sis - thanks - how do I send my phone no? email mumsnet with it to pass on to you?

In summary, thanks folks, I won't give up and resign just yet. Perhaps HR will be supportive, my line manager and I come up with a good way for me to work that will be acceptable to dinosaur (must remember not to refer to him as this at work ).
I must remain positive, after all I am too good for them to lose! But it is not the end of the world if it doesn't work out, your comments have given me ideas about networking, consultancy, and contacting recruitment firms to look for more flexible engineering work.

good luck, debl, hope you manage to get something sorted out

Just an update on my situation. I have managed to negotiate an additional 3 months working part time, and have a meeting arranged with my line manager and 'Dinosaur' to discuss extending this to the end of the year by an alternative arrangement - me working from home 2 days per week.
I gave my line manager an ultimatum - if I can't carry on p/t I will resign. I think he was a little shocked by this, he assumed that I would meekly come back full time if they said no to p/t.
I have even better grounds now that the department has lost another two engineers - one left the company and another is on a secondment to another dept. This means a severe staff shortage and this coupled with a huge project list - more pressure on me to come back full time but also if I leave they will really be in the doo-dah!
On a personal level I feel that I have a bit more breathing space, but I am still looking elsewhere for part time work, and have managed to sort out financial situation where we could cope for a while if I did resign.

I will keep you posted!

Well done for the ultimatum! I've just been through exactly the same situation at my work and in the end it was the ultimatum that did it! I was a real workaholic before my sweetpea arrived (I worked up to the morning I gave birth - bit stupid in retrospect)but now my family comes first. I spent most of my maternity leave agonising about returning to work but eventually realised no-one could make me do it. My boss was very similar - totally opposed to the idea at first and even threatened to take back some of my maternity pay(!)- but I kept hassling him and one day he just agreed like it was the best idea he'd ever heard of. Don't know why the change of heart, but I like to think that I am so wonderful(ahem) that once he realised it was p/t or nothing he soon changed his mind. Or maybe it was all the cost involved in replacing me? Anyhow, I suppose I jst want to say to anyone else in this situation, don't give up, keep on hassling and remember that you are just fantastic and indispensible esp with all those new time management, deadline meeting skills babies give you

DebL ell done on reaching a happy solution for you.

P/T does keep your hand in and keeps you up to date with new skills.

I am very impressed that you have decided to deal with the situation immediately, rather than wait for a few months and see how you get on. I wonder if I dealt with my situation now, as opposed to in the future if it would de-stress me somewhat?

Are you quite relaxed about it all now?

hello, debl, and congratulations!

like you, i work in a male dominated environment with a long hours culture and negotiated flexible working after 3m of f/t work. however, unlike your situation, my firm is very keen on the idea -or at least is keen on the idea of appearing keen on - "diversity" in the workplace, so it was not a particularly hard sell for me.

just wanted to say well done for having the cojones (how ironic is that phrase?! ) to challenge the status quo. the more of us that do it, the easier it will become for everyone else.

best of luck and good for you!

well done, morocco too! excellent message.

Thanks for your messages of support.

gosh2, I can't say that I am any less stressed about my situation - It's just that I have 3 months breathing space before I have to make a decision to leave, if I am not 'allowed' to carry on p/t. Also the flexible working rights come into force 6 April, so I do have that as back up - and my HR dept are sympathetic to my cause.

morocco, thanks for your message - I feel the same way about DD coming first now, but work is still important to me!

Bossykate, I couldn't cope without mumsnet, sometimes you feel isolated and the only one in your situation until you log on and realise you are not alone, and others out there face the same parenting dilemas.

is everyone aware of their EU parental leave rights?