I’ll never know if he knew. But I’m pretty sure he did. There is no smoking gun I can point to. But my guess is that the HR guy told him. He probably figured it wasn’t worth it to pay for maternity leave, so it’d be easier just to get rid of me. And it wasn’t illegal, because they eliminated the role, not the person.Did you talk to a lawyer?
No. People told me I should have, but I just couldn’t. I was so upset at the time, I signed the paperwork and went home sobbing. I was tired. I was pregnant.
I also didn’t want to rock the boat. Because the worry when you’re a woman in tech is that if you raise your voice, you’ll get branded as a troublemaker. Tech is actually kind of a small industry. You don’t want to be the woman who’s not easy to work with. I was so scared at that moment that I didn’t do the right thing.
False ChoicesDid you start looking for another job right away?
I did. But it’s hard to find a job when you’re pregnant. It was my second pregnancy and I was already showing. Then I had the kid, which didn’t make it any easier. Trying to find a job with a newborn is impossible.
My husband was working, which meant we were on his health care. But his salary wasn’t enough to pay all of our bills. So I had to bring money in one way or another. Fortunately, I found contract work. Contract work has saved me time and time again.
I would take care of my kids during the day. Then I would put them to bed and start working. I was really doing two jobs at once.What were your days typically like?
I probably averaged about four hours of sleep a night. I would wake up around 5:30 a.m. and go to bed around 1:00 a.m. I would take naps with my kids in the afternoon. That was how I got through. I would force my toddler to take a nap when the baby did. Then I would take a nap with them.
It was a delicate dance. I was very tired for about two years.That sounds really hard.
It wasn’t all bad. Contract jobs typically pay well, so I was able to pay off a lot of things, including my student loans. That was great. But I was out of full-time work for almost two years, which was terrifying.How did you find your way back to full-time work?
There was a long period where I didn’t think I would. I was just done. I didn’t want to work in tech anymore. I wanted to go a completely different route. I was kicking myself for taking that first technical writing job, thinking, What did I get myself into?What changed your mind?
I used to ask my daughter, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” And when I was working full-time, she said, “I want to be a writer, like you!” Or, “I want to be an artist, like Dad!” He’s a designer.
Then, after I had been home for a while, her answer began to change. Even though I was still doing contract work, she didn’t really understand that. She just knew I was at home. So she started saying, “I want to be a mommy, like you.”
Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a full-time parent. It’s a super admirable thing to do. But, personally, it broke my heart to hear my daughter say that. I didn’t want to be instilling that idea. So in that moment, I decided that I was going to find my way back to tech. I was going to find a place to work that wouldn’t treat me in the way that I had been treated.Where did you start?
I focused on remote jobs. I figured that people who trust their employees to work from home will treat them like adults.
And eventually I landed at a wonderful place. Most of the people who work there are remote. I’ve been there almost four years. I’ve been promoted three times within that time period, and I’m leading the team now.Tell us more about why working remotely is so important to you.
Being able to work remotely is the entire reason that I’ve been able to keep a full-time job while having two small children.
There’s a million doctor’s appointments and school functions. They don’t actually take that much time. But if you’re working on-site, you just can’t do them all. You can’t take your kid to that twenty-minute doctor’s appointment that they need to get antibiotics. You can’t show up to the thirty-minute classroom party where the parents just stand in the corner.
So being able to work remotely has really enabled me to be there as a parent and not give up those things that matter to me, while still being able to contribute professionally in a meaningful way. When you work remotely, you don’t have to feel guilty about asking your boss if you can work from home one day or leave early another day.
For instance, at one of my former full-time positions, I had wanted to take my kids trick-or-treating on Halloween. The trick-or-treating starts in my neighborhood at 7:00 p.m. I had a two-hour commute, so I had to leave work at 3:00 p.m. to get home with enough time to put my kids into their costumes. My boss told me I was allowed to leave early, but that I would have to come in early the next day. So the following morning I was in the office at 5:00 a.m. I turned the lights on that day, just so I could take my kids trick-or-treating.
I shouldn’t have to choose between my kids and my work. Working remotely means I don’t have to.If working remotely is not an option, I imagine that many women will just opt out of tech entirely for the
