Life is complicated with children, especially twins and multiples. Every child has his/her special needs which can arise at anytime and they like to ask for it in the last minute...
It is hard for us to get out of the house in a timely fashion, just like everything else in my household. If the doctor's appointment is at 6:00pm, we will need to prepare to leave the house at 5:00 even if it only involves a 15-minute drive. On a good day, one may want to go potty one minute before I start the car; the other may want to drink something or watch a little bit of TV before we can go. On a bad day, both of them would cry and refuse to go. It takes extra time to prepare everyone for a simple trip.
When I interviewed for my current job, I was upfront about my family situation and that I would need some flexibility to fit my family life. I also let my-boss-to be know that I am very responsible and productive; I always get my job done. She was very understanding and had no problem offering the job to a super-busy mother with two babies. Over the next two years, I worked very hard to keep up all the challenges at work and to be productive. At the same time, I developed a strict routine for myself and my family. Everything has been on a tight schedule including, get-up, bottle-preparation, feeding, daycare drop-off, work, meeting, no-lunch, daycare-pick up, dinner-preparation, feeding, bath-time, playtime, laundry and sleep etc. If you've ever watched me in action, I move at "lightning" speed despite the fact that I am grabbing two babies in two baby car seats, which are fairly heavy. Now you know where my tendinitis came from.
I had a good working experience with the boss who hired me for two years. We worked well together despite our sometimes differing opinions about work, but it was nothing personal; and both of us would compromise to find a common ground and to do the best for the department. In addition, she was relatively supportive and provided encouragement to my super-busy life. She left for another opportunity. I was happy for her but I started to worry about the new boss-to-be hired. Her position was open in October, the senior management team rushed to fill her position by the year end.
Things have changed drastically with my new (current) manger. She did not say "No" when I took time off to take care of my sick kids. But I could sense that she was not pleased based on her facial expression and the comments she made on multiple occasions. She is a member of the Harvard elite, no children, not married (?)(or married but she's never mentioned her husband). The new manger is obsessed with work, nothing but work. She is politically liberal, but not liberal when dealing with her direct reports. One guy took a short-term disability leave, and she made comments about his time off and showed negative views on his productivity. My response was "give the poor guy a break, he has a broken arm". She also felt compelled to tell me that modern day physicians do not see patients at night because a lot of them are working mothers. Working mothers do not work sufficiently long hours because they need to go home. She continued to say that "It is bad for patients because the lack of working mother physicians at night". The new manager also makes comments about daycare centers that send sick kids home, asserting that employers do not like this because parents cannot work. When I mentioned that I have a friend who has both triplets and twins, I got a very odd question from my new manager. The question was "Is your friend insane? She must be emotionally unstable when she had the twins". I did not know what to say. The truth is, my friend is a loving mother of five children and a good member of this society.
My new manger has the walls of her office covered with pictures of scientific Nobel Laureates. I am wondering if I could offer to replace some of them with the pictures of humanitarian winners. When we looked at the picture of my coworker's newborn child, everyone adored the baby and commented on how cute she was. The very unexpected sentence from my manager was " I also did not have hair when I was a baby." There was some disconnect between her and reality.
I was often speechless each time when I heard such outrageous comments from her. I may not stay at work as long as she does (13 hours/day, 6 days/week), but I work as hard as every normal person in the company, if it is not harder. She feels compelled to describe my schedule as being tight and does so on an almost daily basis. I multitask to keep up with my busy schedule; it is the life style I have and people should respect it. It became too much to digest all of the comments about women, kids and work hours. I have decided to look for a new job, to find a boss who can understand the balance between work and life and who can support a working mother. There is nothing wrong with being a busy mom. I will continue to do so and I will make my boss-to-be proud of my work.
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