Ep 334: There's No Such Thing As A Stable Job

though Taviny's not here. But then I just got into the career questions and I can't help myself. I love this so much, and y'all have some really really interesting career challenges happening today. I'm your girl, Mandy Money, so let's get into it. Just a quick reminder, if you want to submit a question for the show, you got a couple of options. The best and fastest way to get into our inbox is to head over to ig make sure you follow at Ambition Podcast and slide into

our DMS. You can submit your question there. If you want us to just read your question, go ahead and type it out. If you'd like to be considered to be a guest in our studio doing a live Q and A. Then send us a voice message. You only get sixty seconds. You may have to break it up into a couple of different voice notes, but go ahead and submit your question via a voice note, and you may be asked to join BA in the studio. So exciting, all right, But today I am shaking up this money

mail bag and I'm answering y'all's career question. So let's get into it. Our first question comes from listener Elena. Elena, my heart goes out to you already, but let's get into this. Elena says, how does one prepare financially for pregnancy and having your first child? I recently found out I'm expecting, I'm married, we have no debt, we max out our retirement accounts, and we have a two bedroom apartment. Plus we both make six figures. Okay, Elena, flex on them.

My current companies HR policy states that maternity leave will run concurrently to FMLA. Is this common? I thought I could take four months off maternity leave and then add on the twelve week FMLA. Any thoughts. I'm going to stop there, even though Elena has a couple of more questions, Because girl, I was the exact same as you when

I found out I was expecting my first son. I was working full time for a company that offered only was it eight weeks When I started think, they bumped it to twelve weeks, and I too was like, oh, I can just take my company paid maternity leave and then I also get FMLA on top of that, but nope. Then I also learned what the word concurrently means. It means that you actually do not get to just stack

on your FMLA to your company's paid time off. It sucks, but it's true basically what FMLA does, and that stands for the Family and Medical Leave Act, which is the least that America decided to do for working families who want to start families or have families, because it's like the bare minimum you are, I believe, just guaranteed twelve months or sorry, twelve weeks of coverage if you were to leave your job, like you would come back and you should still have a job for those twelve weeks.

But it does not provide any other benefits and does not pay you, And of course it's not required for companies to offer paid parental leaf. The only reason companies do is because rightfully so, they realize they need to

attract talent. And one of the best ways they can attract talent, because our company or our country is kind of trash when it comes to our parental leave, is to offer parental leave right the same way that our companies become our source of health benefits, because until Obamacare, there wasn't a marketplace. There wasn't an easy way for an everyday worker to get health benefits if it weren't for their employer providing it. So you see how they get us. You see how they convince us that we

need to work for the man. The man's got our benefit, he's got our maternity leave, he's got our health care benefits. Okay,

so well played the man. But let me talk to you. So, when you're preparing for your first kid, I think you're doing exactly right when it comes to going through your company's parental leave policy and really understanding it and running through it with a fine tooth comb and even hopping on the phone with your benefits department so that you can even further understand and make sure that you're you know,

comprehending everything correctly. I was a little surprised myself by the complexities that go into like going on maternity leave and the forms you have to fill out, and technically it's considered a disability, so I had to file some

disability paperwork. It was a lot, and so I would just say, take your time with it, and yeah, there may be a rude awakening for those of y'all who aren't you thinking of having a kid now, And maybe that's not top of your mind when you're choosing where to work, and maybe you don't mind that they don't have paid maternity leave, or if they do that it's only you know, a short amount of time. Maybe it's not your you know, top of your list right now.

But as soon as it becomes real and you do have you know, either your expecting or your partner is, and then you want to, you know, find out about your benefits, you may be in for a bit of a rude awakening. While parental leave is getting more common, it still is not as generous at very many companies.

I think that we've you know, heard of like big tech companies offering like six months parental leave even for the spouse like it's crazy, but that's certainly not the case in so many different industries and so many different companies, So definitely look at your policy closely. And then you got to make a game plan. Really, you have to decide, you know, if we're going to finance our own leave, Like let's say, for example, you want to take your companies full four months, but you want to do an

additional two months on top of that. You know, do you have enough money in the bank because you wouldn't be paid for that time to cover that time off. And then you have to think about will my company be okay with me taking an extended leave, and what assurances do I have from them that I'll have a job when I come back. I'm not an employment law attorney.

I should have started off by saying that, But I'm guessing that if it's outside that twelve week Family and Medical Leave Act window where you have to you know, your job is protected under that Act while you're on leave. If you go beyond that, then I'm going to assume it's not protected. But shit, I mean, let me be honest. I found out last week that in the middle of Twitter and Elon Musk laying off half of its freaking workforce. That one of the people who was laid off was

in the middle of her maternity leave. Yeah, so even though she qualified for maternity leave, she was still let go smack in the middle of it. Right now, they get severance and she'll be fine. But it just goes to show that the policy is the policy until the company's business and bottom line and what shareholders wants becomes the greater, you know, the greater important thing in that moment. So it is what it is. But let's go on

to the rest of your questions. You say, before finding out I was pregnant, I was getting ready to apply for new jobs. But now it seems like I wouldn't be able to get maternity leave and a new company or any job security. Should I wait to leave until after I return from maternity leave? Oh, this is a juicy one. And you know, I've actually talked to women who have applied for jobs while they're pregnant and haven't

told them. And you know, thanks to the pandemic and the increase of remote working, they can't see below your neck. So who's to say she's expecting it's perfectly fine to take a job you can be nine months pregnant and take a job. In fact, I remember the CEO of Yahoo where I worked about a decade ago, Marissa Meyer. She had come from Google. It was a whole big thing. It was like a pop culture moment meets tech at

the same time. And Marissa Meyer took that job when she was pregnant with twins, like very publicly visibly pregnant with twins. Yeah, and it happens, and it's fine, But you do want to review your benefits package. You don't have to tell them why, but you should say I want the full benefits package. Please for my own review and find out what you need to do in order to qualify for their paid leave. They may have some sort of fine print that says you have to work

here for at least six months or a year. I worked for a company that said if I left within a year of coming back from maternity leave, that I have to pay them back for my leave. Yeah. Now that is not totally uncommon, so I would definitely read

your fine print. But to your point about, like, you want to apply for new jobs, but it seems like you wouldn't be able to get maternity leave in a new company or any job security, like I would fight fear with facts in that case, like get some job offers, go do the interview and find out what their benefits

package is. Maybe asking for their benefits package is one of the first things you request from the recruiter so that you can kind of get it out of the way and you know, weed them out based on if they are allowing you to get parental leave right away. Another example is that I had a friend who got a job at Google. He was working at Etsy at the time. Google recruited him. His wife was expecting, and they were like, go ahead, come to Google and you can take your first you can take your six months

this is Google. Okay, you can take your six months of parental leave before you even start. Okay. I was like, say, what so some companies are pretty generous with it, but you have to actually get in a place where you're getting offers so you can review them before you make a decision, right, Elena. So that's what I'm constantly talking to my clients about is don't wonder, get some facts, And the best way to get facts is to always be looking and taking those interviews. You ain't got to

tell them you're expecting. It takes a long time to cook a nugget, you know what I mean, cook a baby. So you may interview now and then you may get like six months with company and then take your leave. But you do want to find out for your own purposes, like what their policy is and all of that. So no, I would not at all say that you shouldn't be applying. I think you should, especially if you feel like you're ready.

You just want to find a company that treats its families, treats its workers who have families really well, and you know, do your own research to find out what their own what their benefits are, and see how well supported you would be. Okay, now let's play Devil's advocate and kind of look at what would happen if you were to wait until you come back from a trinity leave to then leave your company and start looking. Well, let me tell you something. I want to tell you a little thing.

This is your first child. Okay, you don't have one yet. Something dies in you when you're kidding, But the reality is that after you have a kid, things just get harder. Elena. And when as long as you're past the first trimester, you know you got energy, you have all your brain is still in your head, and you remember things and you spark and all that. It took me about a year before I felt sparkly and before I felt like I could, you know, really bring my whole self to

the table again after I had my son. It just takes so much out of you. So I honestly would vote for do the interviews, get the job, sparkle and shine and get the great you know, do the negotiating all of that to become to put yourself in a great job before you have the kid. Because when you come back from attornity leave, oh, the emotions of coming back to work, plus the fact that a tiny human has left your body and taken like ninety percent of

your brain with it somehow. On the White House, I'm just saying, there's pros to doing the job search while you are just worrying about yourself and your partner, while you have all the time in the world to prep for interviews and to put your best foot forward through the interview process. Okay, Also, can we go back to your question about like should I leave or should I stay where I have some job security? Remember what I said about that woman who I heard about at Twitter

who was laid off during maternity leave. Listen, there is no such thing as a stable job. There's no such thing as total job security, no matter how secure you think your job is. As soon as that company's business needs change and move in a different direction, believe me and trust they will pivot in that new direction, come hell or come high water. Inevitably it will happen, even if they try to delay it. It's just the reality.

And way too often in jobs that we think are stable, we are thrown out on our asses and come to the really uncomfortable realization that, oh shit, the whole time I thought I was in a stable situation, but I was always dispensable to them. You know, That's just the reality of what it is. So I definitely wouldn't think that you're guaranteed any sort of security, you know, just because you're working for a company. Okay, let's see you ask And then you have a final question here. Your

husband's company doesn't offer paternity leave. He plans to take his MLA, so has twelve weeks of unpaid leave. Any advice on how to go about this or can we nudge the company to get with the times? And provide leave for dads. Well, you can do what you can to nudge the company, but I would say, like, what are you going to do, like write a letter to HR saying we'd really like if you would give us paid leave for you know, fathers or spouses and partners

as well. You could try, but I'm telling you there's no greater message than I'm turning in my two weeks notice. And here's why my wife is expecting I'm not able to take off paid leave to be a supportive partner. So I'm going to go to this company which has generously offered me twelve weeks of paid leave. There's no better message than on your way out the door telling them why you're leaving and making sure they know that unpaid parental leave is one of the main factors you've

taken into consideration before you turned in your notice. That is a message that HR will hear, because the last thing HR wants to do, even though it's like kind of their jobs, is spend a bunch of time recruiting replacements or people who have left, you know, so the benefits department. And here's the other thing. I remember myself working at a company that offered really like crap parental leave.

It was eight weeks when I first started, eight paid weeks, and I remember being like, this is really shitty, and the benefits person saying, yeah, we're trying to fix it. Please let us know if you almost didn't take this job because of our parental leave, because that makes their jobs easier, they can make a better case for improving their benefits when they have to go to the board and ask for those types of you know, improvements and adjustments.

So I know we're not talking about your husband thinking about quitting his job, and maybe it's too much too soon, but I'm just saying there are plenty of companies that offer paid leave. I wish they were more, But if it really means a lot to you, then I mean he should be hitting the job market too and working for a company that offers those benefits. Otherwise, your option is for him to take his twelve weeks of unpaid FMLA leave and then you guys have got to figure

out without his income for those twelve weeks. You know what expect and says are you going to reduce or how can you make it work with just the four months of paid leave that you're going to be getting from your job, you know, is an adulting fun. Oh god, nothing felt me made me feel more like a grown up than having a child. Oh my lord. Anyway, Elena, thank you for this question. I hope that so many listeners identified with you. And hey, you may not think

that you're ready for a kid. I sure as hell did it until I was until I was thirty two, and then I was like, oh, okay, let's do this thing. But before that you may not think that it's the most important thing as you're looking for companies to work for, But why not go ahead if you even think that you may want children and you may want to work at a company for a while. Take that into consideration when you're weighing your options and ask questions about their

parental leaf policy. You're well within your right to do it, and companies need to know that job candidates are woke to the fact that they have to come to the table with benefits that you know, honor the fact that it's really fricking hard to be a working parent in this company and not get paid when you're on leave. Do you have any idea how much daycare gos like this shit is crazy. So I need, I need, I need more people to stand up for themselves in the

job interview process. Ask about those benefits because, like I said, when they know that we care, that is when we really see change happening. All right, Okay, I'm getting off my soapbox for a little minute. I'll be right back in just a minute. After these ads to answer another listener question. This is Mandy Money with brown ambitions baqa hey va fam. All right, we are back with our

second question. This is a juicy one from my friend Tranika, not actually my friend, but after reading your question, I feel like I know you. You're all okay, so let's get into it. Tranika says, I want to start off by saying I have been listening to you ladies since twenty nineteen. I appreciate all the knowledge you have both shared as well as your personal experience. It helps us

all see you as real people with real lives. Yes, we keep it one hundred year at BA all right, not gonna lie, and Trinika says, I want to offer my sincere condolences to Tiffany and the loss of Superman. Thank you for that. My dilemma. Trinika says is, I have two jobs and I can't keep working them both. I was originally working as a home health hospice nurse. I love the job. I had the freedom to make my own schedule, I can have time to do personal things,

and I get paid well. They even promoted me to assist at manager in addition to doing patients visits. I applied for the new job because back in July of last year, we had a different manager who I disliked working with her, so I decided to apply for another job at a VA hospital. It took forever, but they finally gave me the job and I took it. But since then, my hospice job has hired a new manager and she treats me like an important part of the team.

She makes me feel so appreciated. They just moved into a new office this week and she asked me to be the first person to come in and pick out an office because she wants me to come work with her full time in the day. I currently work full time days at my other job at the VA, and then I come and do my hospice patients in the evening and I do all my adamin work at night. This hospice job and the freedom it gives me, plus the small team and the closest of the staff is great.

But I was fired from a job many years ago, about twenty years ago, and ever since then, I've had the fear that someone may walk in and say, look, I don't like you anymore. You're fired. I know that's an exaggeration, but it's one of the reasons why I've always had two jobs. But the big issue is that I don't like my second job that much. I micromanaged to the extreme. I work as a nursing assistant instead of a nurse, so I don't feel that I'm given

opportunity to grow or use my skill set. But the advantage of my second job is the union and the benefits. I hope I was able to explain this in a way that makes sense. Both jobs pay the same, by the way, Okay, Trinika, actually this is hilarious. You ended this whole explanation without a question. But I am going to assume that you want some advice on whether or

not you should be keeping these two jobs. All right, I can one thousand percent identify with what it feels like to want to have a backup you know, like you found out you were fired, you know, twenty years ago, and that still stays with you. I was laid off over ten years ago, and that still stays with me. It's the message of oh, our fates are not entirely our own when we put them in the hands of

an employer. But here's the thing I want you to think, Like, stick with me for like a minute, and imagine for a second who you are now and who you weren't twenty years ago, and who you are today twenty years later, is someone with over twenty years of experience in your field, someone whose talents have been observed and recognized so much so that two places were wanting to hire you at

the same damn time. And you are finally feeling what the you know, the lovely side effects are of being appreciated at work and your job at the hospice center, like you said, they give you freedom, they give you autonomy, They respect and value you like girl, They let you come in and pick your own office. Like that's incredible and it's very it's sweet when you actually work someplace that values you. But I think you need to value

yourself as well. And I think you need to kind of like shrug your shoulders back and just absorb the fact that you're not who you were twenty years ago, and that you have skills, you have experience, you have a professional network that would be your safety net if ever again you were proven to be disposable by a company, if they were to let you go, or like you said, someone came in who didn't like the way you looked and then just fired you, although that would be illegal.

But anyway, if your greatest fear came true that you were once again fired or let go through no fault of your own, if that were to happen, you wouldn't be in the same place as you were twenty years ago. Okay, I, without knowing very much about you, can tell you that today. And it's the same thing that gave me the courage and the confidence to step away entirely from the corporate

world in twenty twenty one and launch my business. It's because if I had done that at twenty ti too, you know, after I got laid off my first job afrom moving to New York. Had I done that back then, I couldn't say I was as professionally resilient back then as I feel I am now. I could afford to take the risk of branching out on my own because I have confident that today I am Hella employable and even if one place didn't want me, I could find many others that would because I have developed so many

skills that are in demand. And I know if all as fails and tomorrow the world wakes up and they're like Mandy money is canceled, can't stand her whatever. Please don't do that though, Okay, but if that were to happen, I would be okay, you know. And I want you to feel that same level of confidence. When you start to realize and you start to have that faith in yourself and who you are today and your ability to be resilient in the face of any kind of professional challenge. God,

it just gives you this like talisman. It gives you this like glow internally, because then you can go out into the world and make decisions not from a place of fear and not from a place of your lack of trust and faith in yourself, but from a place of I got me, you know, and I'm going to be okay even if other people's decisions, you know, leave me hanging or leave me out in the cold. You

got you, Trinika. That's how I feel about this. When you start to feel that, and I hope what I'm saying is resonating with you and you're starting to feel it, like look in the mirror and like recognize how far you've come. I think you'll start to see that it's not the second job that you need to provide stability because honestly, like they could decide they don't like you either and fire you. You know, all you're doing is I think, anyway, not really working on your inner trust

in yourself. So I would sit down and just like do some work, you know, really look at who you are today versus who you were twenty years ago, and how differently you would handle that situation. Do you have more savings in the bank, because twenty years ago, that wake up call like a taught me when I was laid off, taught me I never wanted to be without three months of savings in the bank at any given time. You know, do you have more savings in the bank?

Are you more financially savvy? Do you have a stronger professional network that can lift you up and help you bounce back in the face of getting fired or laid off. I'm going to guess that you can answer yes to some of those questions, and so you should feel a lot more confident and at peace that you got you that you actually don't need a second job for security.

What you have, what you need you already have, which is the ability to be resilient and come back and get new work even if the job you have today decides they no longer need your services. You are in an in demand field, you know, healthcare, hospice care. I don't believe in necessarily stable jobs. And even though someone fought me on that that nursing is the stable job, well, listen, I still stand by what I said. There's no job that's stable. Like you said, you can be fired at

a moment's notice. So you really just have to believe that the skills that you have will find you and help you find another opportunity. And damn girl, twenty years of experience in that space, and just based on how they're tring's reading you at that hospice center, it shows me that you have incredible skills and you are someone who is valued and trusted and you could probably be doing this on your own. You know, if you wanted to, you could run your own hospice center if you wanted to.

It sounds like, so just work on that faith in yourself and that'll free you up. It'll free you up to get rid of the job, the job that is dragging you down, so you don't have to work for people who don't value you, So you don't have to accept that treatment that you know you don't deserve, and you can let that job go. Free up more space and time and energy. Work full time for a place

and see how that feels to work where you're valued. Like, how much could you stand to gain by investing even more time working under someone who seems to really respect and value you. Maybe you could learn so much there that you go and run your own hospice center, or they appoint you like assistant director, or they end up leaving it they want you to take over. Your path could be so much brighter than you're either and letting it because you have this like cloud of self doubt,

you know, sort of hanging over you. And because of that self doubt, you're hanging on to this job that's not serving you, and you're giving them a part of the energy and the sparkle that you should be giving to the job that is valuing the most. Okay, I hope that was helpful. I'm so glad that you felt comfortable being so candid and sharing your question with me. And I just want to say, like, I feel like I know you because I talk to women almost every day.

It's an incredible privilege the work that I get to do. And I know this is the core of why so many of us continue to work where we feel undervalued, underappreciated, And it's because we're operating from the space of I need this and I need to feel secure. You're looking for that security and that protection and that stability outside

of yourself. You're looking at it from your employer. I just hear this so often as a sense of self doubt that we are we are looking to external forces like our company, our managers, you know, other people to be our stability and our job security, rather than kind of looking internally and recognizing what tools do I have in my toolbox that make me secure that I can be my own form of job security, that yes, eventually I will need other people, companies, corporations to employ me

so that I can, you know, be compensated for my skills, but that even if one place doesn't want me, I know that I have skills that another place will. And so when we start to do that work to build confidence in our own skill set, and if you don't feel confident, you know, asking someone like me from the outside to look at your experience and help big you up, like you know, make you show you what a badass

you are. It can also and maybe it's also a point where you're like, I'd feel more confident if I had a little bit more of this or a little bit more of that. But I can tell you time and time again, it's really just about sitting down and reminding yourself of who you are, what skills and value you bring to the table, and then that starts to become, like I said, a talisman that helps carry you forward

more confidently. And then you can start making job choices from a place of self confidence and you're not so beholden to getting that affirmation and the value from other places, because you know deep down you've got you, You've got what it takes to bounce back if and when someone else decides that you know you're dispensable, you're disposable all right, Trinika, thank you again for your question. Thank y'all bea fan for letting me answer y'all's questions again. You can hit

us up. We are brand Ambition podcast on Instagram, so slide into our DM send us a question, type it out if you want it read on the show. But hey, if you want to potentially be in the audience or sorry, in the studio with us, then you can leave a voice note with your full question and you may be hearing from our producer. You never know until next time, ba Fam, I am Mandy Money. I will see y'all later. Bye, Hey,

ba Fam. We could not do this show without your support or the support of our team behind the scenes. The Brown Emission podcast is produced by Cumulus Podcast Network. It's edited by the wonderful Imani Crosby and produced by Tanya Bustos. Dennis Stimplinsky is our in house tech curu, and I am Bandy Woodard Santos, your co host, and I will see y'all next week.