Betty Buyside: Low maternity pay means I'll soon be back at work

Well, that's it, folks. This is really the first day of the rest of my life.

I am sitting at home in the study, having cleared enough of Anthony

Academic's papers away to be able to set up my new laptop, bought for me at great expense by my employer.

This is the first day of my maternity leave, during which by law I receive 90% of my salary for the first six weeks. I then have a statutory right a paltry 75 pounds a week for a further 12 weeks.

After that I have no right to receive any money at all. So I think

I will be back at work before the middle of 2003!

(For babies born after April 5, 2003, the statutory minimum will go up to 100 pounds a week, payable for 20 weeks rather than 12 - so perhaps my timing could have been better.)

Anyway, when I am back in the office a nanny is probably going to cost me the best part of 2,000 a month out of my take home salary, so I may have to move back to the sellside to pay for one!

I worked harder than ever before over the last week. I made sure that all my company information was filed in the correct places and all my financial models were stored on to CD to take home with me.

I have great hopes of

being able to get results forwarded to me as they are announced.

Then,

while the infant is sleeping peacefully or being tended to by Anthony, I

shall be able to keep all my company models up to date, thus making life

much easier when I do get back to the City.

I have also forwarded to myself on email every document that I think might be useful over the next few months.

I did of course have to endure a farewell party in the local wine bar. I am not sure who footed the bill for this, but it wasn't me.

Needless to say I

didn't actually have anything to drink but it was very jolly all the same.

Anthony Academic turned up to take me and my computer home for the last time this year, or indeed for a few months.

Thank goodness for the computer. I shall be able to read Financial News online, and keep up with who is doing what where to whom in the City. In insisted that they maintain my subscription while I was on maternity leave.

To be fair, the party in the wine bar wasn't just for me. One of my

colleagues who runs the North American part of our portfolio is also

leaving, rather more permanently.

He is going to join what I describe as a 'real' fund management company. By this I mean one that is managing pools of money that people have actively chosen to hand to them.

We by contrast are managing money within an insurance company where our work is only an adjunct to the main company activity of underwriting risk. We manage pools of money that our employer has to have on hand to maintain their solvency.

Somehow it doesn't feel the same as if we were the mainstream reason for the

company's existence.

I don't know if we are expecting a boy or a girl, but I can honestly say

that I don't really care. I just want it to be healthy and sleep through

the night almost from the first day of its existence.

I have chosen to have

Baby Buyside privately, and if there are any complications it will be

covered by the private health insurance that my employer so thoughtfully

provides.

I hear that all the private healthcare providers are stopping this

benefit as so many mothers are suddenly electing to have a caesarean section and mysteriously developing 'complications'.

But all that is before me, probably the week after next. I shall now put my feet up and send Anthony Academic around the corner to buy the FT, before he makes me a cup of tea.

You can contact Betty at: bettybuyside@efinancialcareers.com