WORK LIFE BALANCE

Work – Life Balance?

Here’s what a “work-life balance” policy looked like in a workplace where 99% of management were women.

Carolina was a young woman who had been determined to achieve financial independence from an early age. A high-achieving student, she worked and studied tirelessly throughout university and secured a permanent, fully qualified position by the age of 23.

 

Because she had no prior work experience, she was assigned to one of the least desirable positions. Her only option was to give it everything she had and wait for better opportunities.

Over the years, that position gave her a wide range of managerial responsibilities. It allowed her to build the skills, experience, and knowledge she would later depend on. It also gave her a hard-earned education in what “work-life balance” actually meant in practice.

 

 

Eleven years later, she applied for a new position, attracted by the promise of work-life balance benefits for mothers. She was offered a temporary role in the city of her dreams and hoped it would eventually allow her to settle there permanently. Although she was offered a management position, she initially turned it down because she believed it was time to put her family first.

 

 

After receiving strong encouragement, however, she eventually accepted that management role. From the outset, she was completely open about the fact that she could not give the position her full commitment because of her responsibilities at home: a toddler and a young child.

Carolina quickly realized that she could not meet the demands of the role during such a vulnerable period in her life. She therefore stepped down, choosing to prioritize her family as the pressure was too intense. 

Unexpectedly, circumstances beyond her control then resulted in her losing the temporary position altogether. A position she would have retained had she remained in management.

One year later, Carolina returned to the same workplace, this time in a full-time, permanent position. She accepted then that management role and went on to endure seven extremely challenging years.

During that time, she faced a major financial crisis, significant childcare responsibilities, and profound personal changes.

As the years went by, taking time off for childcare, medical appointments, or even short periods of illness became a constant struggle. No matter how much she did, it never seemed to be enough. Despite her dedication and commitment, Carolina was repeatedly made to feel that her performance was inadequate regardless of how hard she worked to balance her professional and family responsibilities. Eventually, the pressure of managing childcare alongside her work became unbearable.

 

When her ten-year-old child had to be tested for food-intolerance in hospital one day, Carolina was forced to take unpaid leave.  Her salary had already been docked at a time when every cent mattered and only some time later did she discover that she had actually been legally entitled to that time off.

This was THE turning point.

 

She began to recognize patterns which reflected a persistent lack of empathy toward a single-parent family within her workplace. Here are only some examples:

• Criticized for leaving meetings that had run beyond their scheduled time so she could collect her children.

• Denied time off to attend school meetings requested by her children’s teachers.

• Disapproved of remote working while caring for sick children, despite actually being legally entitled and not taking leave instead.

• Denied 15-minute lunch breaks during 12+ hour working days that began at 5 a.m. for her.

• Given no recognition for work completed during unpaid personal leave.

• Expected to do administrative tasks overtime to cover for colleagues who were off sick, without that additional work beingeven acknowledged.

• Met with hostility when she had to leave early because her child became ill at school.

• Double shifts and weekend work going unrecognized.

• Unacknowledged for multitasking during extensive work events that coincided with her child’s birthday gatherings.

• Applications for official training marked unauthorized.

• Early Friday sessions mistakenly scheduled on the basis of a technicality, making attendance impossible for caregivers.

• Requests for flexible shifts denied.

• Part-time sick absence recorded as full-time.

 

Encouraged by the colleague she trusted most, Carolina continued trying to persevere but the atmosphere in the workplace became increasingly toxic.

More than 20 years into her career, she finally considered requesting unpaid personal leaves that she was entitled to and never had used before. So in an effort to avoid further conflict over childcare, she began lawfully taking time off when necessary, even when those leaves were not routinely approved. Whenever possible, she continued working remotely abandoning no responsibilities or walking away from duties.

 

Then, one morning, shortly before a supervisory visit, she was abruptly invited to leave her desk. No explanation was given.

Something changed for Carolina that day when she realized that she could no longer accept what had been happening. It was high time to take action and walk away from a situation she had come to see as persistently unjust. 

 

 

Therefore, she requested to step down from management permanently, and applied for a part-time position in the hope of finally creating a more peaceful family life. Instead, she encountered another series of distressing experiences in the workplace: surprise meetings outside official working hours, continuous scrutiny, and, eventually, legal action initiated by former office colleagues over accusations that were unclear.

 

 

She felt increasingly hounded, disrespected, intimidated, and judged without being given a fair understanding of the circumstances.

The final blow came when her supervisor (someone Carolina herself had supported through personal difficulties) called a surprise meeting with senior staff. Carolina was then strongly invited to transfer to another workplace.

 

 

 

At that point, she began to believe that distorted or incomplete information had been shared about her behind closed doors. Her methods were creative, flexible, and within the rules but appeared to have been misunderstood, misrepresented, or deliberately presented in a negative light.

 

 

 

Carolina chose to remain silent, took a gap year, stepped away from the situation, and redirected her career. After months of study, reflection, and personal growth, she returned to work just before the world was brought to a standstill by the pandemic. After lockdown, her family faced new health challenges so Carolina applied for a position far away from her former workplace, hoping for a fresh start.

Her application was immediately rejected by the same office colleagues who were still in positions of authority, being forced to prove that she was qualified for the position. And so she did prove that she was qualified for the position. Yet the resistance and the hostility continued. It all seemed that, no matter how much she proved herself, the barriers would never disappear.

 

 

 

Why tell this story?

Because what Carolina experienced was real.

Because other people heard only one side of the story.

Because judgements were made without knowing the full facts.

And because behind every workplace decision, every accusation, and every judgment is a person whose circumstances, responsibilities, and side of the story may never have been fully heard.

 

 

 

On ne voit clairement qu’avec le cœur. L’essentiel est invisible aux yeux (A. de Saint-Exupéry)