When I told my boss I was pregnant, he gave me the warmest smile and said, \u201cThat\u2019s amazing news! Don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ve got your back.\u201d I felt so relieved. We talked about maternity leave, and I was approved for 12 weeks paid \u2014 all in writing. I thought I was safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fast-forward to about a month into my leave \u2014 I checked my bank account and panicked. No deposit. Checked the payslip: zero dollars. No explanation, no warning. I called my boss, thinking it was some payroll glitch. He goes, totally casual, \u201cOh, yeah\u2026 I let HR know you were taking unpaid leave to help out with the department\u2019s budget. Hope that\u2019s okay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was like\u2026 What? He never even asked me. I pushed back, and he just shrugged and said, \u201cWell, you\u2019re not working, so why should you get paid? We\u2019ve got other employees covering for you \u2014 they deserve the extra cash more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That\u2019s when I found out he\u2019d taken my salary and split it into \u201cbonuses\u201d for the rest of the team to \u201ckeep morale high.\u201d Like he was doing them a favor with my paycheck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, I\u2019m home with a newborn, barely sleeping, burning through my savings just to buy diapers and groceries \u2014 while also emailing HR nonstop, chasing answers, and trying not to lose my mind. I even started looking into legal help, but honestly, who has the energy or money for that when you\u2019re holding a baby 24\/7?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then I came back to work\u2026 and this man had the audacity to greet me with a huge grin and go, \u201cWelcome back to the team! We missed you!\u201d Like nothing ever happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t even know what to do now. I feel humiliated. Like I was robbed and then gaslit. Was it naive of me to expect integrity? Do I escalate this, or just cut my losses and move on?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A very tired, very fed-up mom Natalie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I told my boss I was pregnant, he gave me the warmest smile and said, \u201cThat\u2019s amazing news! Don\u2019t worry, we\u2019ve got your back.\u201d I felt… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":285,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":649,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/647\/revisions\/649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}