INGRID DOULTON | Lady Writer | Contact
A mid-career financial services provider has faced her professional Waterloo this week after returning to work following an extended period on maternity leave.
Late last Friday afternoon, senior client relations expert Sally Stuyvesant received a calendar invitation for this morning from her direct manager and the firm's human resource brownshirts.
With all weekend to stew on what could be coming, the fact that the 35-year-old had recently return from nine-months of maternity leave all but guaranteed in her mind that the meeting was about.
Shortly past 10am local time, Sally's suspicious were correct.
"I've been made redundant," she told The Advocate a short time ago.
"Illegally, of course. But I signed a deed. Standard practice. In terms of how generous the package is, look, it's not bad but I'd only been back a month and was just getting back into it. My family has a good routine going, we found some extra spots at daycare, we were back, finally. At least they had the guts to do it in person."
Sally speculates that the wheels of her redundancy were in motion before she even got back.
"I asked to work a day from home, because we couldn't get another day of care. We don't have any family in Betoota, either, so it's not like we have the free labour of an older woman we can just use and abuse no questions asked," she added.
"My boss didn't like that. She wanted me in the office every day so she could keep an eye on me. Then there was the time when daycare rang a few weeks ago at 11am and said out child had a temperature and needed picking up. My partner couldn't do it because they are a pilot, so not like they can just pack up and leave the office, so I had to go. My boss gave me the old cat's arsehole pout on the way out, too,"
"Then, I guess, I shouldn't have been honest when my boss asked if I was planning to have more kids. I stupidly said yes. I think that ultimately signed my death warrant for this job. They're going to replace me with a 25 year old they'll pay much less, on rolling 12-month contracts so they can just let her go after she gets maried and the process will repeat,"
"But I'm 35 now, in terms of having a baby, we had to have a throw at the stumps now. Otherwise it just gets harder and harder. And now I'm unemployed, my partner is stressed out because like every other couple on this fucking island, we have a $700,000 mortgage and one medium income now,"
"And now I need to find another job and start all over again. And this new job won't be as good. Won't be as senior. Worse conditions. Same boss, though. Some clueless old bloke or an extremely anxious, insecure middle-aged woman who'll be two-faced and unsupportive. And then they'll make me redundant from that job as well, and I'll sign that deed too because there's no point tanking your career at FairWork being let go from a four-day $92k pro rata job at fucking AMP, is there?"
"I let myself believe that my employer actually cared about me. They don't. You hear stories of women answering work emails from the maternity suite. That's so unAustralian, at it's core. Anyone who says otherwise is a yankie-soaked bootlicker."
More to come.
