You know the effect – you learn a new word, and suddenly everyone is using it. A friend buys a new car, and suddenly you think you see her car everywhere.
Well, look what I’m seeing everywhere:
I GET IT, BABIES ARE BAD
It was on the radio, too. I heard it as I was pumping away at work:
“A recent survey reveals that 80% of employers claim that they try to provide a family friendly workplace, but many admit that an employee is more likely to advance if they don’t have family commitments.”
I don’t know what to do. I’m not happy in my current job, but how hire-able am I with this baby in tow? What if the good places won’t want me? It doesn’t help that I am rusty at certain aspects of the job – I haven’t done surgery in years, for example, which gives the mean vet lots of opportunity to rake me over the coals.
I’m a good tech. I am great at lab work, I am fantastic with clients, I know animal nutrition and pharmacology, and even radiography. But I feel like all my workplace must see in me is my milky boobs and my sleep-deprived mental state.
PH still thinks I should leave if it doesn’t get better, but he also reminds me that a lot of this is my own inference. No one has actually SAID anything to me about my milky boobs, and no one has actually SAID (other than the mean vet that they all say I shouldn’t take personally) that they think I’m incompetant.
But they don’t make me feel like I’m not, either.
I don't usually like Natalie Dee, but damn, THIS IS ME
I’m pretty sure that just thinking about the upcoming week at work should NOT make me feel like my heart is going to explode.
You know I don’t ask you guys to “share” me around much. But if you could share my previous post a bit… tweet it or something… I would appreciate it. I am hoping for more encouraging feedback. The more stories I hear from women who found a good job despite a baby, the better I will feel…
If By Yes 
It can’t help that you didn’t actually want to go back to work and that you *want* to be home with Little Owl. I know I dislike unpleasant situations more intensely when I feel that I have no choice in the matter.
Also, the mean vet sounds like a bully. And bullies in your place of work? Is a running theme for you.
Have you considered part-time? The expectations won’t be as high, you’ll be able to work around schedules more, you’ll have more time with Little Owl… Is it an option?
I second that emotion. I also think you should continue to search, though. Are there any practices near you who employ primarily female vets? The one I go to is all women. You might find a more supportive atmosphere there.
Ooh, also meant to say I LOVE the anxiety girl sticker/banner thingy!
I would LOVE part time, and that was always my plan when originally planning on having kids. But that assessment we got hit with is eating into our budget a lot, and we could really use more money than that.
Maybe 30 hours a week? Even 35 is still technically part time.
@wombat – it feels odd to work with man vets. I’m not used to it. Almost all the vets I have worked with are women, and they’re so different. They feel more like you’re doing them a favour when you help them, and you’re allowed to call them by their first names behind closed doors. The man vets are more… traditional. Call them “doctor so and so”, be their handimaid, etc.
Pharmacists are the same freaking way. The women are great — helpful, appreciative, treat you like an equal. The men… not so much. The one I worked with the most refused to help me enter prescriptions into the computer. All he’d do was check them and, if I were lucky, bag them. He’d catch up on his online news or call his parents (yes, his parents!) while I’d stand there scrambling to enter the backlogged faxed and phoned scripts from the night before, deal with customers, take new scripts, fill them, bag them, and work the cash. Oh, and process the new shipments each day.
And he wasn’t even the worst of them.
I’m not eager to get back into that field. 😛
…is it my car you’re seeing then? 😛
I can’t say that I look forward to acing the workforce again. On Wednesday I’m planning to go to a networking event (GreenDrinks), and I found myself puzzled by what I would say when asked what I’m doing now. Somehow “I’m off on maternity leave, and decided to shop for careers while doing so” doesn’t sound like the sort of thing that’s going to make employers and small businessmen-and-women jump off their barstools to hire me. We’ll see how that goes.
Oddly, no. But I see Tara’s car a lot!
Strange girl. Sparkles is several years old now! But there you go.
Well, yes, but the phenomenon continues to exist. Remember how we used to see Douchecanoe’s car everywhere?
Since you’ve asked….
If your employer is giving you hassles about a ten minute pumping break and scheduling around daycare hours…wait until you need to leave because he pukes at daycare or when you’ll be late because he is hysterical at you leaving him at daycare or when he is so sick in the morning that you find it simply impossible to leave him for 8 or 9 hours or when…you get my drift.
Family friendly places exist and are looking foe excellent staff like you.
keep looking until you find the right employer, or else you’re workplace struggles are only beginning (sorry to say!).
p.s. I live on the Sunshine Coast – you should move up here 🙂
There’s an ad for a clinic up there!
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