I have been working as an only graphic designer for an entire tech company for 8 years when I got pregnant. Being the only graphic designer they asked me to help with the recruitment process because I knew the ins and outs of my job. So my marketing director which I thought was fantastic and I conducted the interviews and we picked my stand in based my resume selection and mostly me insisting on him because I did not want to leave the company in bad hands. At that time my marketing director’s boss was just replaced and he was very arrogant about everything. Really rubbed everyone in our department the wrong way.

So I go on my mat leave and 6 months into it I see all these people quitting because of him including my director! Around the same time someone sends me a clip of a monthly marketing meeting him praising my replacement and how much of difference his graphics have been making and basically this new now director putting my work down. When I saw that clip I broke into tears thinking everyone always loved my work and I poured 8 years into this company.

A few weeks after my marketing manager contacts me saying she wants to chat with me about projects I will be working on when I return and possible training. So we set up the call.

She calls me at 5pm on a Saturday and tells me they are hiring my replacement full time and they want me to work on the type of projects when I return that every graphic designer hates like PowerPoint slides, Word docs and internal websites! I had previously worked on everything for the company, the brand standards, the trade show booths, web graphics, brochures, ads, you name it! I told her how unhappy I was about this and she said “well be lucky you have a job to come back to during a pandemic” Now all this work has been reduced to nothing and I feel defeated. I am now 9 months into my mat leave and feel so down and forced to update my portfolio/resume and look for a better job at a cost of spending valuable time with my baby during my mat leave all because this new director for some reason prefers my replacement and no one in our department likes him.

My anxiety and frustration is through the roof and I think they are trying to squeeze me out.

-Sad mom