To want to leave my job because of how my boss has treated my miscarriage?

Bless you, OP. Bad enough going through all that without this pointlessly shitty woman making it worse. Good luck with your interview!

It sounds like you’re on your way out anyway (fingers crossed for this interview on Monday). I honestly wouldn’t worry about your sickness records, as I can’t imagine they will be shared with future employers. Just say your current employer don’t know you’re looking for work and don’t give them as your reference.

I think you should write to HR with your complaints and outline what she said to you. That way it’s on record. Once you have a new job, hand your notice in and get your doctor to write you off sick for stress caused by this evil woman!

I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, OP.

I can’t complain to HR because she is a senior HR worker and her best friend is head of HR.

Given that this is a fixed-term role, I would consider doing this anyway and logging a copy with senior management. If you don’t complain and she finds some way of forcing you out of the contract early, it will be too late to say anything.

In terms of the number of sick days on your record, I honestly wouldn’t worry. A reference won’t include details of why you have off sick - and to be honest, most references aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on anyway.

Good luck 🙂

Flag it as a breach of GDPR - your organisation is storing special category data about you that isn't correct.

If the system doesn't allow for pregnancy related sickness to be recorded, then this is a weakness in the system that needs to be addressed.

And if it is their policy not to record pregancy-related absences at all, then tell her that you'd like the incorrect record to be deleted.

It probably won't make much difference in practice if re absence is incorrectly recorded, but that isn't really the point. It's your information, it isn't correct and you're not happy about it. There is a legal duty on the employer to address this.

She sounds very unprofessional.

I don't see how she could "not let you" take sick leave though? Surely you just tell your boss that you're too sick to work? They can't force you in. And if your absence is pregnancy-related, they can't even discipline you for it.

That’s really sad. She may well be treating you the way she was treated. Some people like to pass on the pain!

I would push for the time off to be coded correctly as a PP suggested. But otherwise try not to let this make a difficult time more difficult. In the grand scheme of what you’ve been through, this is tiny 💕

I don’t see how it would affect a future job. The reason for each individual period of sickness aren’t noted down in a reference. When I write one it’s very factual .. dates and job title, nothing additional.

I'm very sorry for your loss. I agree that miscarriage should have been recorded as pregnancy related, and I would ask again for this to be amended. You can provide medical evidence to support this. Under GDPR, employers have an obligation to ensure that any information they store about you is accurate, and a miscarriage clearly isn't a menstrual disorder, so you have every right to ask that your record is corrected.

I don't agree that she should have contacted you while you were off, unless you made it clear that you actually wanted such contact. You were not off for long enough to warrant that kind of contact in my view, and under the circumstances, I would have assumed that you needed some uninterrupted time to process your loss. I would contact someone who was off for a much longer period, though... just to check in on them.

I don't think it was unreasonable for her to suggest that, if you're ill, you should take sick leave rather than wfh.

And obviously, it wouldn't be appropriate for her to criticise your work in public in front of other colleagues. I would expect her to address any issues with you on a 1:1 basis. Would you really prefer it if she aired her concerns in front of everyone?

What else would a miscarriage be other than pregnancy related??

Sorry for your loss. Are you in Scotland? I had help from the charity 'baby loss retreat' for a similar experience. Give them a message if you're based up here. Sending love to you either way.

It's not a company policy thing, it's pregnancy related sickness and is required to be recorded as such. Individual company policies can't circumvent that.

Was it a very early unannounced pregnancy? I could understand that being store as normal sickness, to be discreet sort of thing. If you'd told everyone you were pregnancy then should have definitely been as pregnancy sickness.

I didn't think work were allowed to contact you if you were off sick, so that's not an issue.

She sounds awful. You've got enough on your plate without having to deal with her and worry about work. If it's only til march anyway I'd definitely quit and tell her some of the reasoning when you leave! Your mental wellbeing is more important at the moment, take care of yourself x

Firstly, sorry to hear your news.

What do your policies say about coding absence for a miscarriage? Pregnancy related should be excluded from Bradford scoring calculations etc, so if your policies define a miscarriage as being pregnancy related then I would push for it to be recoded.

ACAS have some guidance on this here:-

https://www.acas.org.uk/time-off-for-bereavement/stillbirth-or-miscarriage#:~:text=after%20a%20miscarriage-,If%20a%20miscarriage%20happens%20in%20the%20first%2024%20weeks%20of,'pregnancy%2Drelated%20illness'.

Your manager doesn’t sound like a nice person.

Does she have children? I only ask because she may not realise how traumatic a miscarriage is if she didn’t want children herself.

So sorry for your loss.
Your boss sounds like an ar$e. Speak to your GP for a sick cert. It will state miscarriage.