Pregnant and Work Contract EndedI have a question...I' m not sure I can do anything about this, but thought I would post here and see what everyone has to say. I have been working remotely as a Contractor for a large company. I work from my home in another state and have been doing so for more than 2 years. I was recently told that the position needs to be located in the office for 2008 and that my contract is ending @ the end of November. I am not in the position to move, nor would I for this opportunity, but I was not even given the option either. In addition, I discovered that my replacement has already been hired and I was declined the opportunity to finish the year. I am pregnant and pregnant enough where I cannot hide it. I have worked in Corporate America long enough to know that very FEW places hire during 4th quarter and being obviously pregnant on top of it makes my situation very difficult. I am so full of anger @ the lady that made this decision. I' ve been told she is a control freak and just wants everyone in her view so she can boss them around. There is no ' real' reason for her decision. There have been no problems w/my work and the co-workers that I support are very happy w/me. I am in shock that she is ending my contract (1) right before the holidays (can you say "low blow"), (2) knowing I am pregnant and (3) with no severance & little notice. I am the breadwinner in my family and this is a devastating blow. I cannot believe this woman is able to sleep at night knowing what she has done to me. What she did was perfectly within her scope as employer to do. HOW she did it was sneaky, underhanded and downright mean. Unfortunately, being a contract worker and not a permanent worker, I don't know if there is too much that you can do to retaliate or to win your job back until at least the end of the year. At this point, the only option you may have as far as earning money and working while pregnant is to discover if you can work in a retail store as seasonal help. I don't know if this can be done at this late date or if you even want to pursue this as you are pregnant. You definitely need to visit your unemployment office to find out if, even as a contract employee, you are eligible for even a little bit of help in the form of unemployment compensation, food benefits, medical benefits, etc. The unemployment people may even have some more ideas like how you can file a grievance against your boss for her underhanded way of letting you go before your contract officially expired. Did you have a firm expiration date or was it open-ended? I believe that makes a difference. One thing that you may want to keep out of your conversation with unemployment (or anyone else, for that matter) is that you wouldn't have relocated for the position even if you had been given the opportunity. The response invariably will be "then why do you care" or "so what's the problem". On the up (?) side of things. When you are looking for a new position and the question comes up regarding why you left, you have a good case for using the "downsized because of re-organization" reason. Thanks for response. I neglected to leave out some info that makes my situation even worse than originally explained. I have been working a 2nd job all year (retail related) and so I cannot collect unemployment..or if I did, it would amount to maybe $20/wk...not really worth the hassle. The problem with this is that I' m starting to find it physically difficult to be on my feet for an extended period of time, so getting ANOTHER retail job really isn' t an option at this point. I have no choice but to continue to pursue something (full time & professional) as I was/am the breadwinner in the household. Of course, I' m quite pessimistic about finding something that will even come close to what I was making in this day job. I will pick up more hours @ my 2nd job, but that wage is 4x less than my day job pay, so it will hardly compensate. The only positive is that my insurance is thru my 2nd job, so at least I won' t be forking out tons of money for Cobra insurance. As far as the contract...it was open ended. I am really a nice person but I do wish an array of bad things and negative Karma upon my employer. She is about as mean as they come. And as if I needed any more bad news...I had a promising phone interview last week. I was upfront and honest w/the interviewer about my PG status and she said that was no problem and that she had hired people farther along than myself in the past and it had worked out fine. She ends up blowing me off for the interview and then finally calling me on Friday to say they are moving forward w/an internal candidate, but that in a FEW months they will be adding to their team and so she would like to stay in touch w/me. Ironically, in a FEW months I will no longer be PG...what a coincidence. I guess she thinks I' m an idiot. I can certainly read between the lines here. | |
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