She started working from home in mid-March 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The coronavirus pandemic followed by the lockdown has affected a lot of people in different ways. Homemakers and working moms have particularly faced a lot of problems since their responsibilities have increased with taking care of the family and kids.
Drisana Rios from San Diego, California, who was working from home, got fired from her job because her kids were making too much noise during work calls. Sharing her experience on Scary Mommy, Drisana, a mommy blogger and account executive, revealed that she started working from home in mid-March 2020, due to COVID-19, to take care of her daughter Dani, 4, and son Dylan, 1.
"The first week of working from home started off very stressful with multiple calls, emails, and unrealistic expectations." She added that she was responsible for helping her boss with their existing clients and obtain new ones. This required making a lot of calls.
"The pressure from my boss was creating so much stress. The kids were always interrupting, and the baby wanted to nurse all the time. They constantly had to wait for me to finish getting something done so I could tend to their needs. My heart broke," recalled Drisana.
Talking to Good Morning America, the mum revealed that the pandemic left her with no child care options and she was left struggling with children's lunches, nursing, and nap schedules while working. However, the boss didn't consider it but kept complaining about it. "He said, 'The kids could be heard on business calls with clients. It's unprofessional.'"
She then pushed her son's nap time to early afternoon so that she could make calls because the "stress and anxiety" that her boss was giving her was immense. "I set the expectation with my boss that I would put him down for a nap and that I could be on client calls from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. with minimal background noise, hoping my baby wouldn’t wake up in the middle of our calls."
However, her boss continued to schedule calls during lunchtime when the kids would be hungry. She insisted that in the months she worked, never once did she receive any complaints from her clients about her work. But still, by May her boss asked her to take care of her "kid situation." He said, "'We can’t have client calls with kids or noise in the background. No other account executive on the team has this issue. Your role as an account executive is to be present to our client, so you need to take care of your kid situation,'” Drisana revealed.
“Do you want me to lock them in a room or something? I can’t do that,” she said, according to Scary Mommy. His response: “Figure it out.”
Even though the mum felt "demeaned and degraded" she still agreed to join the time management training program suggested by her boss. However, along with another manager, her boss told her that they were "tired of accommodating" her. Frustrated by everything, she went to the human resource department in late May 2020 for help. When they finally set up a call on June 2, 2020, she was hoping there would be a solution, instead, they told her that they should "part ways."
When Drisana asked what was the reason, they first told her it was because she was clearly not happy, and then later said it was because "they were experiencing a reduced revenue due to COVID-19," even though according to the mum, "the company leadership had committed to no layoffs during the pandemic."
Known as Modern Cali Mom online with more than 61,000 Instagram followers, Drisana shared her story along with a picture of her daughter holding a letter board sign that read, "My mommy got fired because her boss didn't want to hear me in the background."
"They can keep the hush money they offered to not bring this up! No working mother should be discriminated against, especially during these times, for not being able to keep my one-year-old quiet for a business call. For not being able to turn something around in five minutes when my baby wants a snack," she penned in the caption. "IT'S not OKAY to have to feel that your boss is making you pick your work over your kids during these times!!!"
Now she is suing her former employer for gender discrimination and wrongful termination. "I hope my story raises awareness of gender discrimination and bias against mothers. I want other companies to look at my story and train its staff on discrimination and retaliation. Hopefully one day, mothers will be respected at work."
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