Going back to work

Going back to work....

It’s not an easy decision to make.  As a recent convert, I can honestly say that I grapple with the ethical side of it all.  A part of me feels obliged to return to the HV industry.  Why should a company invest so much in my training, safety and career growth only for me to up and leave once I have a baby?  I feel as if I have betrayed ABB by using them for my fulfilled sense of livelihood and not giving them a good return on their investment.  I naively persisted and bartered my way into projects, overtime, training courses and work experience opportunities, all the while telling myself and my manager that I was worth the investment – I would grow to be a valuable resource for them.  But it hasn’t eventuated that way!!  I have left the industry, and who knows if I will ever return to service what I see as the fair terms of an employer-trainee agreement?  I wanted to be trained for maintenance switching, fiber-optic terminations, licensed to drive a truck and operate a hiab, trained especially to work on SF6 insulated switchgear, you name it…. Every little niche corner my division was involved in, I wanted in on.  And now that I am a mother, I can’t fathom being able to guiltlessly dedicate that much time to a career – not in the foreseeable future anyways.  So it’s a bit of a moral dilemma in that sense.

So with the liberties and the laws of equality come a sense of conviction and a whole lot of responsibility.

Companies are expected not to discriminate between men and women.  They are expected to offer equal pay, equal opportunities and rights.  To hold back on promoting someone based on their gender would be grounds for a lawsuit these days.  Well now I am beginning to question the fairness of this….. wouldn’t any wise employer or corporation be hesitant to invest in a resource, if said resource happens to be a woman who is in her late 20’s or early 30s and just settling in with a new partner etc?  Because the costs associated with losing a trained member of staff can really add up.  That’s money down the drain.  Then you have to fill their role, often times temporarily, train that person, pay out maternity pay, and then the mother may choose to never come back (which is what I am contemplating now).  And if she does come back, is she going to be able to be as committed as she was before?  Most certainly not.

See, nothing matters to me now as much as Jack and Nathan.  If I had to work, I wouldn’t want a speck of overtime.  I couldn’t go away on jobs overnight or be sent away for weeks on end for project work.  I wouldn’t want to use my extra family time to do any training or upskilling.  So as far as ABB would be concerned, I am pretty much useless to them! 

People ask me if I plan to go back to work when Jack gets older…. But the reality is that if I ever do go back to the HV industry, it wouldn’t be until I’ve had ALL of my children.  (This is an ongoing debate in my house- I used to want 4, Nathan wants 2, so I say 3 is a good compromise.  Nathan still just wants 2.  Apparently its not open for compromising.  You can all start praying that my next pregnancy will be twins… thanks). 

It wouldn’t be fair for ABB (or whoever) for me to come back between children – they would have to continue to train and upskill me, then pay me maternity leave and deal with having a lost resource while I was away.  (Not to mention it doesn’t fit our plan for having a stay at home parent).  So by the time I have 2 (3) children and they are all of an age they are older and getting independent, we’re looking at ..what…15 years? If I have a third child in 5 years time and he is 10 when I go back to work?  Whoa.  I’ll be an old lady!  Whos going to have an inexperienced old mum come back to the workforce then!!!  Not happening. 

So now we get into that whole issue of mums who lose confidence when they are out of the workforce for a long time while raising children.  It becomes DEcentive for mums to stay at home for too long because they will no longer be eligible for their jobs once young people come through who have more time and energy on their hands.  Clearly I am generalizing here, and there are many different scenarios out there, but I don’t think I’m wrong to say these are recognized issues for many trades and jobs and the mums who do them.

So I suppose a part of me feels as though I have let my mentors down.  And proved some people right.  However all was not wasted in my journeys because there were a couple, if not a handful or more, of women who were somehow positively influenced or inspired by what I did. Just quietly, I did feel a sense of pioneerism in what I was doing in NZ.  After all, I was the only woman doing my trade (as a high voltage electrical fitter) in the whole of the country.  I met less than a handful of other women that were tradespersons while I was apprenticing.  I went to some workshops and even did some speaking at women-only conferences – and was asked to speak at a girls high school  - while working in NZ.  That’s something, right?  But I still find myself wondering…. Have I taken more than I gave to the industry?  I can thank ABB for nearly 100% of my quality of life – then AND now – and I feel like I’m left owing them more of my time and energy.  I don’t want to rule out going back – because I know how much of a thrill I would get from being out there in the switchyards again.  So I don’t rule it out…. But wow is it ever a burden on my ethical conscience!  This blog is as inconclusive as my feelings on the subject….