The Hardest Worker on a Construction Project: A Working Mom

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: And welcome everybody. Thanks so much for joining us. I'm really excited to get started. So my name is, for those of you who don't know, my name is Meredith Obendorfer. I'm a director of strategic communications for Autodesk construction business group. And I'm joined by several women here who I'll have introduce ourselves, introduce themselves, in just a moment.

But as I dive in, I just kind of wanted to set a little bit of context. I was spurred on with this idea, an idea for this panel by my own experience of becoming a mom. I, as many of you have heard me say, I underestimated every single part of it. And I just became passionate about talking about what it was like to balance the motherhood, my newfound motherhood, with my career, which was challenging. But challenging and exciting.

And as you know at Autodesk we serve the construction industry, and I conferred with my good friend Alison Scott about whether there were challenges unique to women in construction, and she gave me a resounding yes. So we put together this panel, which is being live. It's not being live streamed, but being recorded, as I understand it for future audiences. So if you're watching digitally, thank you.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to our participants. And they'll have them introduce themselves and tell us a little bit about what-- as you introduce yourselves why don't you tell us your name and your company and what you do for the company, and then maybe a little bit about what your day to day role looks like as a mom. As a working mom in construction.

SAVY FRANCIS: My name is Savy Francis. I am a journeyman pipefitter which is HVAC for the Boston local Union 537, and I work for a company E.M. Duggan. My day to day is I wake up at 3:30 most mornings, because I have to start work at 5:00 AM. My husband drops our daughter off to daycare. I work until 1:30 usually, sometimes 3:00, 4:00 if it's a push on the job site I'm on now, and then I go into Boston to pick up our daughter and head home and continue with motherly duties. Putting away clothes and cooking dinner, things of that nature. And then getting her ready for school the next day.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Savy, how many kids do you have?

SAVY FRANCIS: Three. One biologically for me, and two stepchildren.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: And what are their ages?

SAVY FRANCIS: One is 22, another one she is 12, and the youngest who runs the household is four.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Awesome. Jen, how about you?

JENNIFER SOURETH: Yeah, hi. I'm Jen Soureth. I am a senior vice president at Pepper Construction based in Chicago. It's a general commercial contractor, and I lead everything really around innovation, virtual construction, technology, except IT. So really just operations improvement. And I have a 2 and 1/2 year old boy.

We'll talk about this on the panel. I'm pretty fortunate to have a partner that does really well sharing 50/50 split, but the split looks different all the time. He is an attorney, so he's never stops working, like many of us. But he also has night meetings because of the clients he has. So typically mornings he'll try to do most of the bringing our little one into daycare, who just started daycare a few months ago. And then I'm working all day, and then I'm usually literally rushing last parent out at the daycare picking up my son.

But obviously in my role being a senior leader, have a lot of also network and client and other kind of things. So I like to say I'm the one in charge in the evenings during the week, but the reality is I'm also figuring out all the logistics of babysitters and coverage so that I can prioritize all things that are important. And it changes every day.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: The business of running a family.

JENNIFER SOURETH: Yeah.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Ruhi.

RUHI THAKUR: My name is Ruhi Thakur. I'm a project manager with Webcor Builders. I work at a biosolids plant. Basically it's a poop plant. Yeah, that always gets me a lot of laughs. So yeah, my day starts very early. I most times I think I wake up 5:45 AM. That's my alarm for every day, snooze it, 5:50, snooze it 6:00, and then run, run, run right after that.

I'm fortunate enough to have my husband, partner up with me with all the responsibilities. So it's a little different in my case. He works from home, I work in an office. So very different from how I grew up. My mom used to stay back home and my dad was in an office. And it's reverse. So interesting mix of things. And I help out on the days that I work from home. For like the daycare drop offs. And in the evenings he's generally the one picking her up during the week, and maybe it's like a Monday or a Friday I go and pick up my daughter.

So it's a little busy once she comes back from daycare, then after that both of us are just like, oh, we're doing this, we're doing this, and now we've created a plan. So slowly we're getting hang of things. My daughter is 15 months old. So we're pretty new to this.

JENNIFER SOURETH: And that's an interesting point though, because I know I didn't mention this, but obviously you're in the field working. You're also not staying home. I also am mostly in the office. My husband also mostly works at home when he's not out at client meetings. So you're right, the dynamic has kind of switched. So I thought that was a good thing to mention.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Absolutely. So and Jen, how old is your son?

JENNIFER SOURETH: Son, yes, Ronan. He's 2 and 1/2.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: 2 and 1/2.

JENNIFER SOURETH: So also fairly new.

JENNIFER SOURETH: I've got a four, and then I've got a two-year-old as well. So why don't we just dive in with talking about returning to work. So I know it was a little sooner for us. And Savy, you've had a little bit more time. What was that like for you? Was it a struggle to come back? Was it-- were you happy to come back? Maybe somewhere in between? Talk to us about that. And why don't we start with Savy, actually.

SAVY FRANCIS: So the first time going back, I was going to take six months off. My Foreman called me in a month early. And I was fine with it. I heard stories from my other friends who are moms, like you're going to cry. You're going to miss her and everything. I was fine. I was like, oh, this is great. I'm going back to work. Like so I didn't cry.

But then the second time going back because the pandemic had hit in March, I remember we got called back in a week after Memorial Day in May. And that's when I started crying. Because I was like, oh my God, my baby's still young, and she's starting to be more vocal with things. So at that time I did cry. But once I got there and knew that my daughter was in safe hands with my dad at the time, I was relieved. So it took a little bit time, it took probably a couple of days for the reality to set in, but I blended in better with the guys knowing that there was different protocols on the job site.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: And what were you-- tell us about those protocols?

SAVY FRANCIS: We had to mask up every day. We had to do questionnaires, like there was like at the time I wouldn't even go to the supermarket because I was more scared for my child than myself. And she wasn't even a full year old yet. And I was-- we would do the Instacart just so I didn't have to go to the supermarket. We'd always wipe down our tools before and after the workday. Everybody drove in by themselves instead of like carpooling previously before that. We had to check out, they did a temperature check in and checking out. So it was a lot going on the job site.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: I think for a lot of us who have younger kids the pandemic definitely played a role in making motherhood a little more. I mean it's always difficult, right? But a little more difficult and challenging than it would have been otherwise. So Jen, how about you? How was your return to work?

JENNIFER SOURETH: Yeah, so we so at Pepper we have a very good leave policy. You get I mean essentially full pay for a few months, and then because we have private insurance there are opportunities you could extend past those three months. The precedent, though, has been people traditionally take three months. So as someone who and we'll talk about this later but somebody who was trying to move to that next level, I was very in my head kind of like, I want to come back three, 3 and 1/2 months.

You hear it same thing you hear all the stories of, oh, you're going to cry or this or that. And it kind of-- so when I was on leave and I had a very traumatic birth. So there was a lot of recovery. And then I felt like as soon as you start to feel normal, it's time to go back. But while that's short period of time I was feeling normal before I went back I was so like probably everyone in this room type A, like going through the motions, hitting milestones, doing all the different things. And I wasn't probably enjoying motherhood as much as I should have.

They say like time flies, then I feel like it was just flying because I was just like, I got to do this, I got to read x amount of books, I got to do this. I got to hit all the feedings. So when it was time to go back I also actually was really looking forward to it, because I knew for me and the type of person I am, I'm a better mom because I work, because I now when I'm with my son I just get to enjoy him and care for him. And yes, there's tons of challenges with that.

So I then felt this guilt of everyone says-- and I had tears the night before. Don't get me wrong. Like you're still a little-- but I felt guilt that I was happier than I heard most people say they were going to be going back.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: If you didn't cry, it would be OK.

JENNIFER SOURETH: Yeah, exactly. So there was that piece, then I go back and the other piece, and I still actually was one of the first times I probably vocalized publicly that I had a child. Came back to work and I didn't want anybody to think differently of me. I literally wanted to be, I have a child, that's at home. Like I'm not going to put pictures in front of you. I'm not going to talk about them, and all everybody wanted to do, because there's good people in this world, is I want to hear about them. Show me pictures.

And I didn't want people to think of me differently. But the reality is I am different. And so I struggle-- right, like?

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Audience participation.

JENNIFER SOURETH: And so I struggled a lot in the beginning with recognizing that. And so literally last year at AU I was on a panel and I mentioned it was like my first time, and I had a son. And I feel like people that knew me were like, you have a child? Like I had no idea.

And so I've been really coming to terms with I'm like I am different, and it's all good, and we all have struggles. And so now I feel like I'm kind of figuring out who I am.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: One of the things I've done, and you bring up an excellent point. So one of the things I've purposely done is not hidden the fact that I've become a mom. Maybe it's because I'm secure in my career. I have an excellent boss who's in the audience. But especially now that I work from home as opposed to in the office, and daycare is sometimes daycare is not available. So I've always said, my sorry if you hear a toddler in the background, because he's known to push open the door and say hi, in his little toddler voice in the background, and I can't hide it.

So have you had to compartmentalize or how have you incorporated being a mom into who you are at work?

RUHI THAKUR: Yeah, so I don't hide it at all. And to begin with I had a lot of mixed emotions when I went back to work. And so I've been with Webcor for, I think, more than six or seven years. And people have seen me grow from a young senior project engineer to an assistant project manager to a project manager. So I know a lot of people, familiar faces, but I was returning back to a new team, a new manager.

So I was a little nervous how would that go. Like will they understand my situation, will I have to explain it a little bit more. So one thing that I just said is, I love working. I want to go back. But I think I'm loving being a mom. And so let me just talk a little bit about that right on my first day, first week. And I just planned a plan how my work would progress. How I could work from home some days, work in the office.

So it was pretty much thoughtfully coming up with a plan, discussing it with multiple individuals to whom my work would impact, especially my manager. And then hearing me come up with this whole plan, and the whole idea of how I would ramp up to where I need to be. I think my manager was on board. And they're still on board and understand me. So

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: And so I take it Webcor is a particularly supportive company when it comes to parent?

RUHI THAKUR: I would say so.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Yeah awesome. Jen, you were going to say something?

JENNIFER SOURETH: I mean, I think more people, bosses in general are more accepting than we realize. It's in our head. And I waited much later in life to have kids because of many different reasons. But one of them being in my head. And I found similarly like as soon as I just started talking about it like at work, or just saying, like not being apologetic. Like hey, sorry, not sorry. I just said it.

But hey, daycare is closing early and my husband is out of town. I got to go pick up. And people get it. My old HR person used to tell me, because I struggled when I wasn't a parent with that challenge, like wow, that person's leaving early and I'm staying. And she's like, pretend they're going to yoga. Pretend everyone's just going to yoga. You're entitled don't care about people-- like is it kids or not. And so now I'm like I'm going to say kids, but you can pretend I'm going to yoga, but I got to leave.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: I feel more entitled to because of kids than yoga.

JENNIFER SOURETH: I know, but she was like, don't, it doesn't matter good or bad. Like everyone's entitled to have a life outside of work, whether it's a kid or not. And so that helped me just be like, all right.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: What have you I'm hearing the need to draw boundaries Yes do you want to tell us a little bit about that. How do you I mean what other boundaries are you do you find yourself needing to draw for between work and career. Or work and being a mom?

JENNIFER SOURETH: Yeah I mean some of the boundaries are mainly with myself, I would say? Like when you think about it, we talked about some of us had talked about this a little bit earlier, but we are not the same person anymore.

Some days, my job wins. Some days, my kid wins. Some days, I win. Some days, everybody kind of wins, but small batches. And so I think for me, it was setting boundaries more with myself because we're all especially-- we're all in this room, right? We're working. We want to keep moving to that next level. And so the other piece is setting-- talking with my team and creating more transparency around it. So one of the things that happened right after I gave birth was I am now--

Let's see. So he's 2 and 1/2 years old. I've had three team members have babies since I've had a baby. And one is a female. And she came to me and said, look. Before I tell my own boss and this and that, I want to let you know I'm having a baby. And I just said, oh my God. Congrats. That's amazing. And I helped set boundaries for her. I was like, look. You will come back on your terms. I won't bother you for three months. Three months, I'm going to check in. If you want another month, we'll figure it out.

I said, when you come back, she was coming back to be full time on our largest project in our company. So we said, all right. We're going to figure out your schedule. And so like, setting those boundaries, and it works, and everybody's accepting. So I think-- I felt like my boundaries were more with myself. But then I became setting boundaries for others, if that makes sense.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Absolutely.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Because people don't know what they don't know. And if you're a good worker, you're going to figure it out.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Savy, you're in a unique position because you're in the field. Do you feel like you're in a position to be able to set boundaries? Or does you-- I know you've talked to us a little bit about the-- how supportive your manager is. Tell us more about that.

SAVY FRANCIS: So I am involved with my union. I'm involved with a pre-apprenticeship program building pathways also. I'm involved with the mass building trades. I sit on many boards. But before I decided to take on all those roles, I knew I had to talk to my husband as well because a wise man I worked for in the field told me, yourself and your family comes first. You're not married to your career. Just make sure that you make time for yourself and your family as well.

So I know I have to pick and choose what to do on certain nights. I-- we have a calendar at home. So that way, if-- because my husband could be very forgetful at times. And he'll be like, where are you? Look at the calendar. I wrote it down.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Look at the calendar.

SAVY FRANCIS: We went through this. But other than-- I know there's times where I'm like, all right. If I get a call like, hey, can you come to this board meeting, and I know it's last second, usually I'll have to decline that because, like I said, I like to go through my team before I just make an executive decision on-- for myself. Because I'm not the only provider at my household. I also-- we also--

I do have a great support system where I can call my mother-in-law or my mother to see if they can grab my daughter from daycare for me. But usually, I will take her with me and I'll call my husband like, hey. I'm taking my daughter, our daughter, to an event. I'm just letting you know you'll have to fend for yourself for dinner at this point. So-- and usually, he's grateful for that that I'm giving him a heads up. But that's more so of the boundaries when it comes to doctor's appointments and everything.

My husband also works from home as well. He's a social worker. He has a lot of time with his career. So he's able to take her. Also, sometimes if I get asked to work on a Saturday with my job at the site, my husband, he's usually lenient, like, go ahead. Take it. Whatever. But at times, my daughter's in dance. And I'm like, I don't want to miss watching her practice for this either because they only stay so little for so long.

So sometimes, that's up in the air. And the good thing I work with-- the foreman's I work for are all married men. So and they all usually have daughters, which is hilarious about it too. So they're like, go, go. That's more important. It's more important for your child's face to have a smile than the overtime. The overtime is always going to be there. That-- they help me also decide on my decision when it comes to picking and choosing certain things to that nature.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Yeah, you-- that goes back to I was saying, setting boundaries for myself. One thing I stumbled on when I first went back to work was like, I was so used to having a really great partner that I kind of took advantage of it. And I learned really quick that I was like, oh, if someone asks me to go to this client meeting, I know it's important. But he doesn't know that. So check in. And it's-- and that-- it was very quick before I realized that. But setting-- yeah. Checking in and making sure it works for us was really important.

SAVY FRANCIS: Right.

RUHI THAKUR: We share calendars.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Yep, same. Same. We share calendars.

RUHI THAKUR: My Outlook calendar at work has everything about my personal life, I think, right now. And that's the-- I think that's the only way I can survive and remember things.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Yeah.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Is your calendar-- it's digital versus-- we have a whiteboard.

SAVY FRANCIS: We have a whiteboard too.

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

JENNIFER SUERTH: We have both. I guess, like, is it on the calendar question? He's not big on technology.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Sunday night, we go through the calendar.

RUHI THAKUR: The food calendar is different, which is on the kitchen.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Meal calendar.

RUHI THAKUR: [INAUDIBLE]

SAVY FRANCIS: Yeah.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: So I mean, that's a great segue to our next question. What role does your partner play in your success, whether it's childcare or emotional support?

RUHI THAKUR: Yeah. It's a loaded question. I think the best thing that I can say to that is attending this conference today, here, my husband was invited to this conference. And he had everything planned months ahead of this date. And I think I got invited maybe around August, September, so which was much later than when he made his plans. And both of us, we came from India. We don't have a lot of family here. The closest family I have is my brother in San Diego. He has a sister in Phoenix. So where did we leave our daughter?

There is no one. Daycare is only during the day. We asked if they could do extended times. But they wouldn't cover overnight, or things like that. So how do we make this work? And I-- my first reaction to Ali was maybe, you know what? I'm just going to pass. I'm not going to come here. But I said, OK, let me think about it again. And so I spoke to him. He's the first person I spoke to. And he's saying, yeah, maybe we can make it work. I'm like, how? And he said, well, you go do your thing. I'm going to hang out with her in the room. And I'm like--

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: So she's here?

RUHI THAKUR: She's here. Is [INAUDIBLE] the best place to take a baby? He said, yeah. We'll take her. And so-- and then I was like, OK, let me-- I didn't have that confidence even then. Then I spoke to my manager at work. And I told her, I've been invited for this panel. And she said, it's a great opportunity. You should go. And then I started explaining my situation to her. And she's like, but yeah, yeah. You should go. I think she motivated me to the point where I felt a little more confident that I can take this step.

And so today, I am here. He is in the room with our daughter or next to the pool. I don't know. But that's how-- that's the role of the partner, how important it is. I'm-- I mean, I'm doing the flights with her, which is terrible. But at least I could make it here. And I think later on, maybe we will have role reversal. He'll have something like this come up, and I'll step up. So really thankful to have someone like this in my life where we don't have the immediate family support. But I guess we made it work. So--

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: That's exciting.

RUHI THAKUR: Yeah.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: So you actually can't be here in the room.

JENNIFER SUERTH: I know.

SAVY FRANCIS: That's so cute.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: But I have a two-year-old. So I know how that goes.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Yeah, running around. Yeah.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Savy, how about you? You've talked a little bit about your husband. How is he-- I mean, I know he's got a busy day-- busy day.

SAVY FRANCIS: Right. So he helps out a lot. So we have in my daughter's closet the days of the week, like a shoe compartment thing, where we put her outfits in for the week. So that way, when I leave for work, he's getting her ready to bring her to daycare. And like I said, there's times where I-- he's like, are you sure you want to take her to the event? Drop her off at my mother's. I'll pick her up after I'm done working. Because he's been doing 12-hour days.

He helps out a lot. I'll do the washing for the clothes, drying. I come home, it's all folded up neatly on the bed. And I just-- I put it away. He takes-- we have pets that love-- adore him because he's the one that feeds them, and takes them out. We have a dog and two cats. So he's busy even though he's working. And then I like the point that you made about having your son during a meeting because sometimes that kind of gets him out of meetings when he has our daughter like, oh, my daughter is here or whatever. And she's in the Zoom camera like, who's that? Pointing.

But he's great. If I'm not there to take her to dance, he takes her. I just make sure everything's laid out. Sometimes, I let her help me lay out the stuff, which-- good luck when your kids are at that age where they want to wear certain things. But it's good for our daughter too because it expresses her at that age. But he's great. If he knows I'm too tired to cook, he'll ask, what do you want to eat? I'll go get it. He's not going to cook it. He'll cook breakfast. I'll give him that. He cooks breakfast every weekend.

But other than that, if he sees I'm drained sometimes, I'll doze off when I get home on the couch. And he's like, what do you want? I'll go get it now. I'll take my break from work now to go pick up something, get ready-- get ready-- go lay down. And he motivates me every day, especially the gym. I'm horrible at it. But when he says things, I'm like, you know what? I got to do it. Because you're in there with a messed up arm. Let's go do it. Whatever.

But he's just great with her. Like I said, that's her world. I'm her world when he's not around. But when she knows he's around, she could sniff him out. It's, daddy, daddy, daddy. But yeah. He-- I-- it-- I can't even describe in words how great he is. When-- we're alike, but we're not. I'm the more nice person. I'm the good cop. He's the bad cop person. He keeps me in line with things, especially when I do get the phone call for an event, he'll like, listen. This needs to be taken care at home. And then I'll sit there and think about it. I'm like, you know what? You're right. I'm coming home.

Let me decline this now while it's still early enough where they can find somebody else in my place. The communication part, we have a good communication. I think if the communication wasn't there, then, it would be upside down from there. But he's great to me, he's been there before I got into the union. He's came to events. He's actually walking around Vegas right now. He jumped on because he was like, who are you going with? I was like, I'm going to fly in myself. Whatever. He's like, I'll go. I've never been.

And then the other day, he's like, I'm never coming back to this place. He's like, even if you're not-- we're not gamblers. He's like, even if you're not gambling, somehow, Vegas is taking your money. So but he's a great-- he's a great support.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: That's awesome. Can you replicate him?

SAVY FRANCIS: Yes. I can. I'll try.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: So I mean, one of the things you said reminded me of-- I don't know if you guys remember being in the early days of the pandemic and there was a CNN reporter. He it was a expert-- he was giving an interview about, it was like international diplomacy. It was a weighty topic. And his kids toddled into the background on the little roller. And his wife ran in, like ducked behind, and tried to roll them out of the-- it was on live TV.

I feel like it was such a minor thing, but it was almost like a-- I hate this word game change-- it was a game-- everyone who's a mom, it was a game changer. It was a game-changing moment to just allow that normalized being a parent in the workplace. So it just-- it reminded me of that.

Jen, what do you think-- both of you have talked about-- I know that Savy, I remember you talked about being supportive-- supported by your managers. And Jen, you're in a leadership position. What do you-- what would you say that employers as a whole, I mean, you're a lot closer to the top, get right about being a working mom, particularly in construction? I think a lot of what we're talking about applies to working moms regardless of the industry you're in. Right? But what about-- what is a construction company, what do they get right? Start with that.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Yeah, so obviously, being more male dominated, they surprisingly relate to moms more than you realize. I think I had more male colleagues coming to me and asking how I'm doing than even females, probably because a lot of the females were struggling figuring out their own journey in life. So I'll give you the story of a little bit of what I thought was going to happen when I was announcing I was having a baby.

So I talked to my boss. I waited exactly to the moment where the doctor says, all right. You should tell people. It's safe. And I was so nervous to tell my boss, who has the Pepper last name at the time-- well, he still does. But I have a different boss now. And I called him. And being a leader in the company, the-- I'm in my head like, how is he going to react? And so when I mentioned to him, he right away just says, congrats. That's so exciting. How are you feeling?

I didn't hear a second of panic, which was so refreshing. And even when we started talking about my leave, he's like, all right. When are you due? Let's back it up. He goes, because, Jen, when you go on leave, that's it. We're not calling you. You could be in the middle of a meeting-- You're somewhere else. He's had three kids of his own. So he gets it. And I was like, wow. This was way easier than I thought.

And I know that not everybody is that way, but I do feel like it's kind of like how we've talking a lot more about mental health in the industry. I think things are becoming more normalized. And I think if someone isn't talking about it, they just don't know how to. It's not-- yes, there's still always going to be those jerks. But in general, people just-- they're good. So I had that experience. Then fast forward to, I'm coming back from leave. And it's right around our comp time. So it's when you're finding out about your salaries, and your bonuses, and all that.

And I find out that I got my full bonus. And I literally said to him, which is stupid, but I said, wow. I-- because I was gone for 3 and 1/2 months, I really thought I wasn't going to get my full bonus. And he looked me dead in the eye and said, Jen, the fact your team did so well while you were gone is an even bigger reason why you deserve this bonus. What you're doing-- he's like, I can't even believe that thought went through your head.

And I was just like, well, glad I have the letters. You can't take it back. Stupid me. But it was just really nice to hear that he was like shocked I even thought that, and probably also said it out loud. And then fast forward, I'm back figuring out being a mom. And I was a VP at the time, and was having very great conversations with the c-suite and my boss about moving to that next level. And I, in my head of course, was, man. Are they-- is this going to delay anything?

And I still-- there were no promises. There never is until that thing is in front of you. But I was very concerned that, oh, are they going to now want to delay this because, let's see how Jen is as a mom? So I was very in my head, which probably caused me to also shut down more, and not talk about my son, and just be fully work Jen, work Jen. And I ended up getting promoted in January. So I've been now a senior VP since January of this year.

The timing all worked out exactly, whether I had left to have a kid or not, would have-- did not change. And I actually feel like I'm a better leader and contributor to the company now that I am a mom because I've learned different skills that-- or and things that I think I took for granted that I didn't realize before like time. I probably get a little more frustrated at work because every second counts.

And it should. It really should at work. But when you're working and, oh, I don't know, chit chatted by the coffee pot, now I'm going to stay an extra half hour. Not a big deal. It is a big deal now.

And so every second counts. And I'm just always in work mode, which means I need to balance also finding that time to say, by the way, you want to see a picture of Ronan? Because I'm just like, every second counts. So there's a balance. But yeah, it-- yeah. I mean, it's been a really positive thing. And to hear my team now who are younger having kids and I'm like, hey, I know what you're thinking. I bet you're feeling this. And like, we had a-- sorry. We had one more thing.

We had a female at work, not on my team, had a baby. She was in a almost completely-male group. I didn't know her. I came back-- or she came back from maternity leave. And I made a meeting with her in a conference room. I went to that office that day and said, I had an agenda for work. But really, my main reason was to sit with her and say, hey, how are you doing? Because you've been back a few weeks. I've been in your shoes recently. She broke down in tears and said, that means the world to me because nobody else had done that.

And so those little moments, even if it's small, just a couple of people, have made things-- and I'm hearing my male counterparts starting to do that when they hear these stories. So we're all good people. And the construction industry is full of good people. And so these moments just need to keep happening. And they'll get comfortable.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: You said so much that resonates with me.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Yeah, one of the things-- I have a close friend of mine who has four kids. And she talks a lot about the mom tax. One of our questions we had was, how has being a mom, has it helped your career, or stalled your career? Do any of you feel like you've-- your career stalled a little bit, or you've paid the mom tax? Because-- and I will say, one of the things that I'm very cognizant of as we're having this conversation is it's a very US-based conversation. Right? And in that we feel a certain level of obligation, or guilt, to come back to work after three months, five months. If we're lucky, it's five months, right?

Where our counterparts around the globe, nothing made me feel like the US is like-- I don't know. I'll save the expletives. But like sucks at maternal health care and parental leave policy is having a child. You're like three months, I eked out five months, and it still didn't feel like enough. So--

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: Even parental males. A dad getting two weeks--

RUHI THAKUR: Yeah.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Right. Huge, like, three weeks. You're like, whoa.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: But even three months.

JENNIFER SUERTH: Yeah.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: We rush back. There was an episode of Succession. It was like the last episode. I don't know how many people watch Succession. And she's like, oh, I'll start work right from the labor and delivery room. It's so-- so one, we're having a fairly US-based conversation where other countries get-- I think it's Canada gets nine months, or a year-- Europe gets a year. And I'm not sure they quite feel the rush to get back.

But also, similarly, to back to the mom tax comment, or feeling stalled, because you figure we've taken-- for us, it's only three months but for my friend who's had four kids, that's equivalent of a year. So how does that-- any of you have any thoughts about it even if you haven't experienced it?

RUHI THAKUR: Yeah. I think for me, I took more than three months, almost close to six. So that's a lot of time, staying away from work. Yeah. And I think a lot of credit goes to, I guess, San Francisco policy and California leave.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: It's great. It's generally great.

RUHI THAKUR: Yeah, that's what I hear. Then I was a little worried about, what does this mean in terms of getting promoted, going to the next level? And I mean, it bothered me a lot. And I might have stayed awake nights thinking about it. But then I also started thinking, a career is a lifespan. And it's not this one year will define my career, or just two years. And I was telling myself, if I need to take this one year and dedicate it towards a different goal, it's not that I'm not building anything in that process. I'm still building a skill set, just like you said.

A skill set of maybe managing my time better, learning how to be more productive. These are things that I'm still building. And maybe I have different goals for this one year. It's not extremely professional-level goals, but I will get there in some time. So yes. An impact by a year or two. But in this 30-year span of a career that I will have, hopefully I have, I hope I have opportunities where I can make up for the time that I have lost maybe one year not concentrating on a professional goal.

And sometimes, I feel it's not going to come to me easily. That opportunity is not going to come to me. I may have to take an extra step, work towards it, just like how I'm making an extra effort to work towards my daughter and enjoy motherhood. The same thing will happen to me professionally at some point. So that's the way I've been dealing with it. I know there is an impact in the short term. But what does it mean in the long term? And what do I want to focus more on, a sprint or a marathon? So that's how I'm thinking about it right now. We'll see what happens.

JENNIFER SUERTH: We're rooting for you.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: And so I think-- I'm actually keeping an eye on time. We've got about 20 minutes left. And so I figured we'd open up to the audience for questions, or just open conversation. Does-- I mean, does-- do the points resonate with anyone? I mean, we've made a lot of points, whether it's the-- I would say, let's do this. Before I open it up, let's ask one last question. What do you wish leaders knew about being a working mom, in particular in the construction industry?

We've talked-- I asked a little bit about what they've done right. We didn't really get into what they've done wrong. But what do you wish they knew?

RUHI THAKUR: One thing right away that I want to say is I wish-- I see a lot of tech companies, other industries, have a ramp-up program. And I feel I created my own program. But maybe we should formalize that a little bit more and come up with a plan to support a woman to get where she wants to become-- where she wants to go. So that's something I would like to see in most companies.

MEREDITH OBENDORFER: That's excellent. Savy, how about you?

SAVY FRANCIS: The leadership with my company, I don't think there's anything wrong with them. The guy that owns the company is a father of two young sons. And even when I was pregnant, he'd always ask how I'm doing, how I'm feeling, and everything. A lot of the higher ups in the company would text me to see if I needed anything.

Because I worked up until I was 8 and 1/2 months pregnant. So from the time they found out I was pregnant up until the day I left for-- to have my daughter, they made sure that I wasn't on a ladder, I wasn't doing any work that would harm myself or my child, they made sure that, listen. Whatever day you need off, we will not penalize you for it, for ultrasounds--

So I made sure I did it in the afternoon after work just so I didn't have an excuse to not come into work or leave work extra early to go to my doctor's appointment. And they-- like I said, they've always taken care of me, even till now. I still get phone calls from the outside super and from the owner of the company asking about my daughter. They'll ask on a first-name basis. They'll ask about my son and my other child as well too. They keep asking me when my son's going to join the trades because he's home from the Air Force right now.