At her final job interview, this young woman reveals that she is pregnant. The boss replies calmly: "And what's the problem?"
There has been a lot of discussion about how many companies have increasingly tended to be explicit in wanting to discourage motherhood - even going as far as to reject excellent candidates just because they are pregnant or because they want to be. Thankfully, not all realities are so bleak and there are still some good stories of hope, which we would like to recount in order to motivate all young workers out there. 27-year-old Federica Granai successfully passed the 5 pre-selection steps before the final interview with the director of the company that she had applied with. At the key moment, in which she found herself face to face with the director, she stated that she was pregnant, as a matter of complete transparency. Obviously, when Federica she did this, she feared a negative reaction of the head of the company, who instead, surprised her: "What's the problem? That's great news!".
Anyone else, in the place of Federica Granai, might have feared a negative reaction from the head of a company, when reporting that they are pregnant. Unfortunately, this is a real injustice to working women who also want to become mothers. Work and motherhood should not be mutually exclusive in an advanced society, but, especially in a time of economic crisis, business owners aim more for profit than for human rights and humane treatment of their workers. This was not the case, fortunately, for Simone Terreni, the owner of the company "VoipVoice", in Florence, Italy. To Federica's "confession" that she was pregnant during the last interview before hiring her, Terreni replied like a real boss with a heart: "That's all? And what's the problem? That's great news!".
Federica's experience is important and not at all common in the society in which we live. She said: "For me, loyalty and transparency are the basis of everything. I could have signed the contract in silence and confronted the company with a fait accompli. But that is not who I am. The opportunity that was offered to me was too good, and I did not want to betray the trust of those who believed in me". And through statements like this, Federica's new boss knows that he has hired an honest and determined person.
Today, Federica is the mother of a child named Diego and her experiences continue to be important: "If I tell my story, it is so that other companies can take an example from the one in which I work. It is important that they understand that women, with or without children, are not limited in their abilities. And if a woman is a valuable resource for a company, what more needs to be said?".
And perhaps this is what a lot of companies should understand once and for all. Do you agree?
