I went to register for job seekers allowance last week for the first time after just being made redundant. I arrived on time with my seven month old son, my 2 year old is in nursery).
Anyway during my meeting my son's nappy needed changing and there are no changing facilities or even toilets so I popped him on my shawl and quickly changed his wet nappy(Not Poo). If a baby is crying and there are no facilities then as a mother I believe that to be exceptable to change their nappy in the best available place which was on the floor,not the table and I was thinking of the point of view of others around me as if he got uncomfortable then he would have started crying which would have disturbed the other interviewees.
In short, I was told, You can't do that here, I responded saying there are no facilities and was told that this is an office environment, you would have thought that you would have arranged childcare!!!
I have written a letter of complaint and been informed that the lady who approached me was in fact doing her job as a health and safety professional, fair enough and, "there are Public Facilities within 100 yards of our building and in the future we will endeavour to highlight this when appropriate." It was also communicated to me that they encourage customers not to bring children to their interviews.
Am I being unreasonable to think that they should offer changing facilities, even special access/lockable? I really don't like the idea of going down the road to some public toilet block, there may be facilities in there I will have to check.
I also feel that they have no place to tell you that children are not really welcome in this environment, it is certainly not ideal I know. I do not plan to take my son to job interviews and have only just been made redundant.
Should I just back off and except their response, I have other important things to think about I don't plan on having to go there very long or on the other hand should I escalate this within their internal complaints procedure
as this is a bit mother and young baby unfriendly.
I would really appreciate your comments