Contents
“They terminated my contract the day before the takeover”
” I am a lawyer. In my profession, there is no permanent contract but collaboration contracts which can be terminated at any time, without cause. During my second pregnancy, I continued to work with the same implication and above all, I had carefully trained the person who would replace me during my absence. At the time, maternity leave for liberal professions was 12 weeks (it has now increased to 16 weeks). It was unthinkable for me to resume so quickly, I wanted to spend more time with my baby. In the environment where I work, people have no life, they give everything for their job. I have seen colleagues burn out, mothers never see their children. This is not what I wanted. So I told my boss that I wanted to extend my maternity leave. We signed an addendum which stipulated that the contract would be suspended for 6 months at the end of my maternity leave.
The day before I was due to resume, I learned that the colleague I had trained was staying and that my contract was being terminated. The argument was that since I didn’t want to return full time, it was more reasonable that I stop working for this firm. I would add that I had suggested the idea of working part-time, but there was nothing definitive. I had to give my notice in a terrible atmosphere and then I left without saying anything. I went through a difficult period, I no longer had confidence in myself, I told myself that I could not be a credible lawyer if I had not even managed to defend myself. I am aware that I have paid dearly for having a child, it is quite violent to take. I do not rule out the idea of filing a complaint against this firm because I have evidence. If I do it, it is not for the indemnities but for the principle, because I think that it is through procedures that mentalities evolve.
Nayeli, 34 years old lawyer
“You are a very competent person, you have to reinvent your mission”
“I didn’t think this could happen to me. I have always worked well, conscientiously, without counting my hours. I told myself that when I got back from maternity leave, I would get back to my job and who knows, maybe even with a little change. I felt that things were deteriorating before I went on maternity leave: I was no longer offered to attend important meetings because I was “leaving soon”. During all my absence, that is to say 4 months, I remained in contact with my colleagues. Everything was fine, I was serene. A week before the resumption, just to get back in the bath, I returned to the office to attend an important meeting and there it was a cold shower. “Elodie, we wanted to tell you that So-and-so has been promoted,” my boss told me. But this position logically came to me given my seniority. Then, I was presented with great fanfare the new reorganization. Stunned, I watched the presentation and saw that I no longer appeared in key positions at all. I had a vaguely “transverse” role as if I had found myself there because they had not known where to put me. The pill was hard to swallow. The first few weeks were chaotic, my boss avoided me and my colleagues were embarrassed. My boss finally agreed to receive me a month later. She explained to me that it was a combination of circumstances this promotion, this new reorganization that had forgotten me, that she had never doubted my skills. She refused to increase me. “Compared to others, I was not that badly paid,” she assured me. It was up to me to prove myself, to show him that I wanted some, to reclaim my missions and then we would see if I deserved a raise “. It didn’t take much more to make up my mind to leave. Luckily, I quickly found a job and triumphantly submitted my resignation. It was a general surprise, my boss suddenly became human again and told me: “It takes a lot of courage to resign when you have just had a baby”. To the others, to explain my departure, she will say that “I did not wish to take on my new missions. ”
Elodie, 31, consultant
“I found myself under the orders of a person less competent than me”
After my first child, my boss just demoted me. I found myself under the orders of a person who was not competent, not a graduate (unlike me) and who had been placed there by cronyism. To justify this placement, my boss told me that the last client I had worked for had not been satisfied. I am a service provider in the field of archives. I work for several clients, most of the time as a team, with a project manager who oversees everything. Before being pregnant, I held this position. When I saw what was happening, I didn’t say anything, stupidly I shut up. I thought that this situation was temporary, that I was going to change my department, especially I had other concerns to settle. My daughter was ill, which forced me to take parental care leave, which I think had worked against me again vis-à-vis my boss. I understood that nothing would change when I saw that I was given less and less to do, that I was put in the closet to keep it simple. I resigned myself to doing the minimum union, I privileged my family life, the care of my chick, and too bad if the days were interminable because I was so bored. For my second pregnancy, my doctor stopped me very quickly and my baby also had health problems. I now have to get back to work in January after more than a year of absence and I don’t know what sauce I’m going to eat. I am divided between the desire to fight to regain my achievements, to ditch this company that I hate and to get back on track, as if nothing had happened.
Laurène, archivist