Are you in a "right to work state?" Are you an "at will" employee?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1. Lawyer up
2. Hit the gym
3. Delete your facebook

Deleting your Facebook is terrible advice, absent instruction of your attorney (who also shouldn't be giving you that advice). First of all, you're not going to be able to delete all of it from the front end and don't know what Facebook will retain for how long. Second, it's straight up failure to preserve evidence, which isn't going to help you. Look up Allied Concrete v. Lester for a cautionary tale.

The lawyer up, hit the gym, delete facebook is a standard response when people are going through a divorce. This isn't intended to be taken seriously as advice in this situation.

Anonymous wrote:Is there any foul play here?


History:
Been with the company for 10 years. 8 consecutive years received average performance reviews. 9th year requested maternity leave and was away for a few months. That year received my first below average performance review and placed on a pip. 10th year boss knew I will be away for my second maternity leave and he suggested to wait a day or so before submitting the request. At that time, did not think anything of it. Next day was informed I was being laid off. Just was wondering if anything is there, whatever it may be.

There is definitely more to the story, but not necessarily ill will or a violation of any civil rights or employment laws. All of these situations are VERY fact specific.

Things to think about:

Were you "laid off" (as in we don't have work for you anymore, we are getting rid of a line of business, this group of employees is going) or "terminated" (typically for performance)? They might not use that language, but what did they tell you about WHY they were letting you go?

How big is the company? Important to determine what laws cover your employer.

How long were you back from your first maternity leave?

how constructive was the feedback about the change in the quality of your performance? Did you agree with it at the time? What discussions have you had since then?

Do you get severance?

You might want to start with the EEOC -- you probably have to go through the administrative process before you "sue." A lawyer is only going to write a demand letter for you, and then take a good chunk of whatever additional severance you might get.

Anonymous wrote:1. Lawyer up
2. Hit the gym
3. Delete your facebook

Deleting your Facebook is terrible advice, absent instruction of your attorney (who also shouldn't be giving you that advice). First of all, you're not going to be able to delete all of it from the front end and don't know what Facebook will retain for how long. Second, it's straight up failure to preserve evidence, which isn't going to help you. Look up Allied Concrete v. Lester for a cautionary tale.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He knew you were being laid off and didn't want a pregnancy-related lawsuit. Seems you've never been a great employee so they don't want to invest in you.

+1

Did you read OP's post? She says she got her first negative review only after her first pregnancy. Before that, all reviews were good.

OP said they received "average" performance reviews. To me that means "satisfactory" or something similar. Many (if not most) places "satisfactory" means "shitty."

As a fed if I started to get "meets expectations" as opposed to "exceeds expectations" or "outstanding" I'd start getting my shit together because if I ever wanted to change jobs every employer in the world knows that "meets expectations" in the fed world means "I can't fire the guy, but I sure as shit wouldn't keep him around if I had a choice."

well, our supervisor told the team that nobody in our division gets a "5", like none.

so to get a "4" you have to exceed expectations far and beyond. like respond to his emails on the weekends, late at night 9-10pm.
3.6-3.8 on our team is a good review. yes. and now that i am starting to look for another op i am realizing this is a load of c. and considering this is HHS and we are facing major cuts, he's not giving us a lot of options to get out of here.

I would definitely get a lawyer. Sorry you're going through this OP. Hugs.

Anonymous wrote:They likely planned on terminating you before you announced your intention to take leave. Your supervisor knew HR wouldn't let him/her term you once you'd submitted your leave request. While you may have a case just on the timeline, it's likely they've documented your less than stellar performance. You may be able to get some settlement out of them, but you probably don't have a strong case.

Signed,
An attorney who does some employment

This is my thought as well. The odds of your manager and HR being able to turn around a layoff within 24 hours seem pretty low unless the paperwork was already in process and they just sped it up. Also, you're on a PIP so it seems like there have been some performance issues.

Anonymous wrote:I got laid off when I was pregnant along with a bunch of other people. I was actually glad to be able to not work during the last half of my pregnancy. I didn't get a lawyer, but in hindsight I should have.

If you got laid off with a bunch of other people, what would you sue for? It's not illegal to fire pregnant women.

You can probably get a lawyer to draft a demand letter for you and get a settlement. Do you have any proof, like emails with your request for ML (I assume the supervisor was smart enough not to put his request for you to postpone in writing?)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He knew you were being laid off and didn't want a pregnancy-related lawsuit. Seems you've never been a great employee so they don't want to invest in you.

+1

Did you read OP's post? She says she got her first negative review only after her first pregnancy. Before that, all reviews were good.

OP said they received "average" performance reviews. To me that means "satisfactory" or something similar. Many (if not most) places "satisfactory" means "shitty."

As a fed if I started to get "meets expectations" as opposed to "exceeds expectations" or "outstanding" I'd start getting my shit together because if I ever wanted to change jobs every employer in the world knows that "meets expectations" in the fed world means "I can't fire the guy, but I sure as shit wouldn't keep him around if I had a choice."

At my workplace, satisfactory means satisfactory and 80% of people fall in that category.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He knew you were being laid off and didn't want a pregnancy-related lawsuit. Seems you've never been a great employee so they don't want to invest in you.

+1

Did you read OP's post? She says she got her first negative review only after her first pregnancy. Before that, all reviews were good.

OP said they received "average" performance reviews. To me that means "satisfactory" or something similar. Many (if not most) places "satisfactory" means "shitty."

As a fed if I started to get "meets expectations" as opposed to "exceeds expectations" or "outstanding" I'd start getting my shit together because if I ever wanted to change jobs every employer in the world knows that "meets expectations" in the fed world means "I can't fire the guy, but I sure as shit wouldn't keep him around if I had a choice."

I'm a fed and 99% of the people at my agency get meets expectations. You'd need to walk on water to get a 5/5. Senior lawyer won a huge case in court for the government and still only got 4.5/5. Upper management looks at our scores and our supervisors get dinged if we have too many 5's.

Do you have any friends who are attorneys? Use them to get a referral to a decent plaintiff-side employment lawyer. My guess is you have an ok case, less so if those "average" reviews are an outlier in your workplace..

SUE!

And I'm not someone who sues easily or cries foul often. This happened to my friend. She actually got together with several other women who were laid off at the exact same point in their pregnancies (6 women fired at 8 months pregnant!). They won the case easily last fall.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:He knew you were being laid off and didn't want a pregnancy-related lawsuit. Seems you've never been a great employee so they don't want to invest in you.

+1

Did you read OP's post? She says she got her first negative review only after her first pregnancy. Before that, all reviews were good.

OP said they received "average" performance reviews. To me that means "satisfactory" or something similar. Many (if not most) places "satisfactory" means "shitty."

As a fed if I started to get "meets expectations" as opposed to "exceeds expectations" or "outstanding" I'd start getting my shit together because if I ever wanted to change jobs every employer in the world knows that "meets expectations" in the fed world means "I can't fire the guy, but I sure as shit wouldn't keep him around if I had a choice."

Uhh many of the places I've worked "meets expectations" is pretty good and 90 percent of the people get that.

Same here. In fact, at my employment, we have to prove our employees did something exceptional or out of the ordinary to give an "exceeds expectations" or "outstanding" rating. And by prove, I mean we have to document what they did specifically. We can't just say they did exceptional work, or they were never late turning in their projects. It would have to be "on project A, they did X, Y, and Z, which was above and beyond."

very rarely does anyone get "outstanding" since the employee would have to be taking on extra projects, doing those tangible X, Y Z stuff consistently.

I got laid off when I was pregnant along with a bunch of other people. I was actually glad to be able to not work during the last half of my pregnancy. I didn't get a lawyer, but in hindsight I should have.