Now that I've hit the 4 month mark I decided to start telling my work this week that I'm pregnant. I figured that if I was in the office, this is about the time that hiding my belly would start becoming a challenge and would force my hand anyways. Although I really wanted to not tell anyone and show up early next year in the office (assuming we were going back in) with a huge belly to see people's reactions. It would have been an amazing transformation.
I started off with telling our structural team boss, who is very young (probably around 35), new in the role, and managing a huge team (there are 18 of us now!). Right before the pandemic started, our old boss announced that in the twilight years of his career he was moving into an organizational project management role. He was kind of like team dad with an easy way about him and it was unclear who would be filling his shoes. The three other older engineers on the team had no interest in the role- they just want to be engineers, which I get. Below them there is a large age gap with the rest of the team, so that is how it fell on our current boss. All things considered he is actually well-suited for the job and has made the team feel cohesive even in pandemic-times. I think I got really lucky landing a job here, just wish the office was in DC...
So I started by telling the current boss and got very positive vibes from him so that was great. He said that I always made him chuckle because out of the entire team, I am apparently the most aggressive at connecting with other co-workers and finding work when I think my billable hours are going to be low for the week, while other people just take a vacation day if they're low on hours at his suggestion. A few times when he suggested taking a vacation day I wouldn't say a word :) I finally was able to explain to him that the reason was because I'm trying to bank all the PTO I can in preparation for the baby, both because I know that I will need some of it, and as kind of an insurance policy for the unknown. To be honest though, even if I wasn't pregnant I might behave in a similar way because I don't like the idea of forced vacation when I don't need it. So that all went well and he knew the right questions to ask, etc. I told him that I threw up in the middle of one of his meetings one time and he seemed to get a kick out of that.
Later that day I happened to talk to another co-worker that I often work with, so I figured I would tell him as well. He is great to work with and a self-described 'awkward engineer', which I guess I forgot in my excitement to tell him. He's fairly young, maybe late 20s, but a very good engineer and very confident in that arena which is what I'm typically used to. I realized immediately when I told him that he literally had no idea what to say, and that I was going to have to lead any conservation on this subject matter. I gave him a few tidbits and made a few jokes that he could join in on and that was fine, and then pivoted back to the project we were working on. I do all my calls through my computer so Zach could hear the conversation in the background and he said it sounded like I was the first person to ever tell him that I was pregnant, which is quite possible. Overall, 10/10 amusing.
The next co-worker I ended up talking to I figured would be an entirely different conversation, so I wasn't too worried about it. Also important to note that this co-worker reported to me that he saw the Dune trailer this week that just came out so bonus points. He is also late 20s but kind of like an old man in a young man's body. We had a Hawaiian shirt day this year for some social gathering and he was able to outfit everyone on the team who wanted one in a Hawaiian shirt from his closet, which I thought was great. He works hard and gets it done but at the end of the day I imagine he's just thinking about that retired life on the beach. He was very congratulatory, and I learned was also born in February which we discussed the pros and cons of, but what really amused me was that he kept referring to how our company would treat me right and that accommodations could be provided to me. I tried to tell him that I was planning to work up until the birth, and besides a few additional doctors appointments, nothing would change about working with me. However, shortly after that he started talking about my accommodations again so I just let it slide. I have finally accepted that I require accommodations now and expect that they will be provided to me as soon as possible.
Finally, I told a female co-worker who was the first woman to join the team after me (now there are 4 of us with the growing team, not bad). We are similar age, she is really good at what she does, and very funny, so we became fast friends. There was one time that another co-worker got a rabbit, and our boss put it on the team meeting agenda as a bullet point, so she said that maybe my baby announcement will get as good of treatment as the rabbit. Obviously as a woman, she knew more of the 'right' questions to ask so it was fun to tell her everything that's been going on and laugh about it. Also important to note that she also separately reported seeing the Dune trailer this week so she rocks. Now I wonder how many people I told at work that I like Dune.
The team is very strange right now in that out of 18 people there is only 1 person who has children. Part of it is just that it's a young team for sure, but still kind of strange. So there's not really anyone to talk to on the team about working and raising kids. I will talk to the guy for sure, he's got three kids, although his wife has done the majority of the childcare and hasn't reentered the workforce yet. The reason he came to our company is that his old job often required working in the office on the weekends (we have to do that sometimes too but we can at least do it from home if we want) and he felt like he was missing out on his kids. He said an older guy literally died at his desk, and when they went to the funeral one of his kids asked him what his dad was like, because he never saw him since he was working so much. It sounds like something out of a movie. So that triggered him to come to our company, which I get the sense is generally family friendly, at least for an engineering firm.
Anyways, I guess I was mainly telling people both as a courtesy and probably for my own amusement as well. I have a few other people I need to tell on Monday, otherwise I'll let Doglet take the place of the rabbit for good news on the team meeting agenda. Hopefully my boss mainly handles it, that is kind of an overwhelming number of people to tell at once...
Also because my mom or someone will probably be worried, I didn't use any names for co-workers and this blog is set to unsearchable on the internet, so it's fine.
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