From: mbb@keps.com (Maureen Busch)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: Is There A Mommy Track for Technical Professionals?
Date: 27 Jan 1993 11:12:34 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

In article <16B6373D2.CREECH@LSTC2VM.stortek.com> CREECH@LSTC2VM.stortek.com (Teresa Creech) writes:
>In article <9301222019.AA13412@cairo.kodak.com>
>mbb@keps.com (Maureen Busch) writes:

>>For me, it meant I only got to work on the things nobody else wanted,
> 
>that isn't necessarily the case.  I kept my regular work.

It doesn't always happen, but it does happen.  And sometimes the 
reward for doing a job no one wanted well is to get another one.  It
gets tedious after a while.  We're not doing anyone who
might be considering the option any favors to claim it never happens.  Since
it does happen, it helps to be aware of it ahead of time so that one can be
more aware of the signs it is happening and work to change the trend *early*.
 
>>and I was viewed as not being "dedicated" since I wasn't always there.
> 
>I put in 'overtime'.  I did meet my deadlines.  I don't *think* that I
>was viewed as not being dedicated.

I didn't say I didn't meet my deadlines.  I did.  I said I was viewed as being
not dedicated because I wasn't always there.  I worked with mostly men, most of
them had their wives at home full-time to take care of the kids.  I got grief
for being there instead of "home where I belonged", but I also got grief 
because "well, you aren't here when we are, we can't ask you questions when
we need to."  (Never mind that I had made it abundantly clear that I was
available by phone on days off and would gladly do what I could to help.
You can't deal with a problem you don't know exists, can you?)
You can bust your butt, but there are plenty of closed minds out there, and
they aren't all on the verge of retirement.

>>That time did not count at all towards being promoted to the next level.
> 
>True.  I am 'behind' people (men and women) who are my age, with the same
>education, and who started at the company about the same time I did.  I
>knew this would happen and it's a choice I made.  I didn't mind so much.
>What I did mind was not getting raises.

Try having it count *against* moving forward.  Yes, it would make sense that
it would take some one working at 50% time to take twice as long to make the
same level.  I expected that and was willing to live with that.  It shouldn't
count as time *out of the workforce*, or worse, but it happens sometimes.

In all fairness, I did work briefly for an enlightened manager (Hi, Gary!) who
treated the situation with the fairness that you and everyone else seems to
have encountered.  Not all managers are willing to do something different.
Hell, I never would have been able to convince anyone to let me work part-time
if I hadn't already been considered a valuable and contributing employee.  
We have a lot of reorganizations here, managers and organization configurations
change frequently.  Not all managers are wonderful.  It is hard to make
something work, no matter how hard you try, if everyone else is beating you
down.

The point I was trying to make is that you don't have to be one of those
slothful part-timers with a prima donna attitude to have the situation work 
against you in ways you never anticipated.  Without dedication and hard work,
I wouldn't have survived all the layoffs we've had, so it isn't all bad.  The
problem is that everyone except me seems to have nothing but wonderful things
to say about working part-time.  Sometimes it doesn't work out the way you
expected, the way you had been led to believe it would work out, the way you've
worked so hard to have it work out.  There is only so much you can do to change
other people's attitudes.  Pretending it never happens isn't going to make
those kinds of attitudes disappear.




From: karen@hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM (Karen Helt)
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 17:28:00 GMT
Subject: Re: Scarey breathing incident
Organization: Hewlett-Packard Co., Loveland, CO