Manager stands up for employee after she gets a poor performance review returning from maternity leave: ‘She’s being unfairly judged’

Author image for Bar Mor Hazut
Bar Mor Hazut • Senior Editor
Sep 28, 2026 9:45 AM EDT

Have you ever gotten in trouble for standing up for someone else?

We're not ashamed to admit that we judge managers a lot here at Fail Blog, and we fully believe we have a good reason to. Even though a manager's role is basically to guide and be there for their employees, we all know most managers do the exact opposite. It's very hard to find a good manager to work under, and most people find themselves quitting their jobs not because they don't like the work, but because they can't stand their boss.

So, it's easy to find us criticizing bosses and managers for their inability to do their jobs. Every time a manager refuses an employee's PTO request or unjustifiably fires someone, we are there to call them out and make sure everyone knows how wrong that behavior is.

When we stumble across cases like these, where the manager is actually a decent human being who cares about their reports, we feel the need to shout to the world that there are still some decent people out there. Bosses who risk their necks for their employees and truly care about their happiness in the workplace. Reading stories like these, where a manager does everything in their power to keep their employee from getting in trouble for her low performance after returning from maternity leave, makes us see that there are two sides to every story. Hearing that this manager was told by HR that they would be put on a PIP if they didn't put their direct report on a PIP too, opens our eyes to the hardship of being a manager. After all, they have to report to someone too, and it must not be easy to do so when one of their employees is not doing their job properly.

We want to shout out this manager for trying to give an employee who's clearly struggling the benefit of the doubt and the time to recover from a challenging time. We hope neither of them will get fired for trying to do the right thing, but only time will tell…

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  • 01
    A woman standing in an office with her arms crossed.
    via Vitaly Gariev

    A woman standing in an office with her arms crossed.

    Model portrayal.

  • 02

    Direct Report Cried After Poor Performance Review from Another Manager

    My direct report is a marketing analyst who's been at the company for around 4 years.
    via eraque123
  • 03
    I joined a year and a half ago and she went on maternity leave a month into the job.
    via eraque123
  • 04
    She extended her maternity leave so ended up rejoining around 3 months ago. I only had the month of experience with her. but upon her return, her performance wasn't great.
    via eraque123
  • 05
    I gave her a lot of grace in the performance reviews because I understand how difficult it is for mothers to return to the workplace and I know it takes time to get back up to speed.
    via eraque123
  • 06
    I marked her as satisfactory for the first 2 months then went on vacation for 3 weeks so last month another manager took on the performance review in my absence.
    via eraque123
  • 07
    Upon my return, I had a meeting with the other manager and she said that my direct report was awful.
    via eraque123
  • 08
    She made loads of mistakes, her knowledge wasn't good enough and she couldn't actually believe that I'd marked her as satisfactory in the last two reviews because she was that bad.
    via eraque123
  • 09
    Sad female employee.
    via Getty Images

    Sad female employee.

    Image depicted solely for explanatory purposes.

  • 10
    Harsh but whatever. I then had a meeting with my direct report and passed on the feedback in a much nicer fashion, this lead to her breaking down and crying profusely on the call (on teams) and saying that the manager was horrible. and that she's being unfairly judged and she quote "hates her job".
    via eraque123
  • 11
    I managed to calm the situation down and she retracted the statement but she basically said she was going to ask to go part time and she couldn't handle the pressure being applied.
    via eraque123
  • 12
    I relayed this to the other manager who gave me the feedback, then she started crying too saying that we need to be careful with employees who react this way because it could be a sign of something deeper.
    via eraque123
  • 13
    Both very uncomfortable calls. The second manager already told HR that they disagreed with my rating for the past two months and that I've been too lenient on non performers.
    via eraque123
  • 14
    HR pull me into a meeting and tell me she has to now go on a PIP.
    via eraque123
  • 15
    And if I don't deliver that, I'll be put on a PIP. I'm a bit lost to be honest, I was trying to be careful with handling the employee who had just returned from maternity leave, I have another manager give me feedback which causes a breakdown who then in turn also breaks down when I deliver the news about her feedback and the HR department now intervenes to tell me I need to deliver more bad news or I'll be reprimanded.
    via eraque123
  • 16
    What do I even do here? I've never in 15 years ever had 1, let alone 2 calls where the people on the other side are crying and it's turned into a complete s show.
    via eraque123
  • 17
    Advice welcomed!
    via eraque123

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Tags

boss maternity leave employee manager work performance review performance pip
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