To refuse to travel to head office in late pregnancy?

[ivanapoo]

Trivial post alert...

As part of my fairly senior and reasonably paid job role I am expected to spend some time in one of my employer's offices which is almost a 2 hour drive away - maybe three or four times a month for meetings etc.

As I get closer to my EDD (currently 32 weeks) I feel increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of being in the car by myself on such a long journey down mobile reception-free roads or on the motorway in case I go into labour etc. I'm also a bit concerned about tiredness as the commute turns my 8 hour day into a 12 hour day. I'm not crazy about driving at night either but that's another matter...

I'm due to work until 38 weeks.

WIBU to say I don't want to drive there after 35 weeks? Am I being precious? AIBU to want to work until 38 weeks but not fulfil this part of my job? Would a better alternative be to say I will travel there but want to leave early to get home at a reasonable hour?

While I don't think my employer would have a major issue with it, I want to appear professional and am sensitive to colleagues thinking I'm not pulling my weight because I am pregnant. I think i would feel guilty about suggesting it TBH - but I also want to feel safe and happy.

i dont think anybody is saying she shouldnt raise it as a possible issue

well if work require her to travel and she dosent feel being at such a later stage is safe etc she is not fulfilling her role

why was this not thought of before (regarding the travelling)

seriously why do the vast majority of women take time of before the birth ?????

No you are certainly not being unreasonable. As to some of the posters suggesting you start mat leave early, they clearly don't understand that you want max time with your baby. As you say, you can still do your job, so no reason to go early. Have a chat to your employer, I'm sure they wouldn't want you to do such a trip in late pregnancy. Good luck with everything.

im of to bed

op seriously ask your employee if there is another way round this and explain your concerns to them

if they agree then great you wont know till you discuss this with them

talking in peace... my first labour was 2 hours in active labour... perhaps one hour at most before that where it really kicked in.... (the midwife had an oh fuck moment when they finally managed to get access to cervix... 5 cm dilated and bulgiing membranes resulted in a ride on a trolley to labour ward.. pdq think they wanted to avoid mopping the floor)

my mobile phone copmpany is crap at coverage... maybe op has the same one... (suburb in city is a black spot (must get ound to changing it at some point)

Totally reasonable. I did the same and it's the law for employers to risk assess your work environment.

In my case travelling to London from Birmingham approx the same frequency wasn't determined to be essential.

I also wasn't to carry heavy boxes, lift things or cram 5 meetings into my day. I still fulfilled the requirements of my job with reasonable adjustments.

Jeez, I was doing farm visits and grassland survey work halfway up a mountain at 8 months pregnant. The only concessions were that the farmer got the landrover out instead of the quad bike .
On the plus side, most were experienced at delivering livestock....and I always got tea and extra cake.
I was in the office the day before DD2 was born as I didn't want to stay at home as I couldn't go outside much due to heavy rain. My colleagues phoned the Ministry vets dept to make sure someone was on standby just in case.

I fainted on a long train journey for work at 34 weeks. Employers agreed to local travel only and reasonable working from home thereafter.

its not really an issue if one person was dancing the fandango at 40 weeks and another passed out at 30 weeks what matters is if it is a actual legit risk and if the thing requested is reasonable as part of your normal dutys.

for some people travel may be a risk if it is for you then you should raise it as such and say why its a risk if it is genuinely a risk for you then they should make other arangements.

if its just that you would prefer not to do it,then that is not a risk and they shouldnt have to accomadate it.

Interesting reading everyone's views, good to know some of you have arranged similar things and what the law is. These trips aren't really essential to me doing my job although they can be helpful.

As for the people who've said "why didn't I consider this before", I had - but as I said in my OP it's only recently I've started to feel a bit uncomfortable both physically and mentally with the idea of driving long distances, especially alone, and i am concerned this will worsen the further I progress in pregnancy.

I should have pointed out that the office in question is indeed in a very remote area surrounded by mobile phone black spots. On a couple of occasions it has taken me more than 4 hours to get home too. Once when I called out the AA about 20 miles from the office it took almost 2 hours for them to get to me because I was in the middle of bloody nowhere.

If I could travel by train or it was a more populated destination I would feel more confident. If I can find a colleague going the same way perhaps that's a good compromise - although I'd then feel at their mercy which is why I've not considered it seriously so far.

YANBU, at all.

Some of the responses in this thread are staggering . There are some people on this board who seem to think their outdated and unsympathetic opinions trump the actual law...

Here is the Health & Safety Executive's page covering maternity. Under the risk assessments section, there is a FAQ page. One of those is about which risks should be considered. "Working conditions" is one of the subgroups of risks employers must, by law, consider... And travelling is specifically listed in that section.

I would be asking for your risk assessment to be updated with particular consideration given to the travelling involved your role. Sell them the teleconferencing idea on the basis they'll get more work out of you if you're not sitting in a car for hours!

Good luck with the rest of the pregnancy

This may actually be a good thing for the company. Maybe they can think about whether this meeting is really needed at all, and it might be smarter to do the whole thing by video etc. A lot of these sorts of meetings are often pretty pointless.

Is there anyone else from your office attending or who could combine a visit to that office who could drive you?

Astonished at some of the responses here. How the OP was meant to predict the effect of her pregnancy on her work is hard to imagine. Not every woman would feel the effects of the long drive, but the OP does.

No-one seems to have a problem with box-lifting women retaining their job while not lifting heavy boxes, so why not the extended travel?

As Zombiemix says, there's a law about this. Such laws come about as a consequence of bad things happening to pregnant women at work.

OP, YANBU.

For those people who think of you're not able to fulfil your duties you should go on maternity leave, what do you think should happen for women working in environments not compatible with pregnancy? For example, radiation environments? Do you think maternity leave should start with pregnancy (so the woman has no time with the baby And probably a period of enforced no pay) or should women just not work there in the first place? (This is effectively what would happen anyway with that rule.)

OP, YANBU. Where i work pregnancy, is classed as a temporary disability for the purposes of work place assessments, evacuation plans and mobility expectations. Ie slightly different rules (eg using the lifts if there is a fire alarm) and expectations (eg travel). There are very few office based jobs that can't find alternative duties for a few weeks before starting maternity leave. Good luck

FYI, if you are in a mobile black spot for your network and need to call 999, your mobile will search for any available network to make the call. So, if you are on orange and have no signal, make the call anyway as O2 or tmobile (or whatever) may have coverage and will connect.

Thanks Zombieminx and the rest for your kind words and informative replies. Also Birnamwood for the info on the phone if I find myself in a tricky situation.

Pleasure, we're not all vipers on here! will you come back and update when you've spoken to your employer?

I hope it all goes smoothly for you (it should do, you can quote the relevant HSE rules now!) but just to say that I've has very good advice from the Employment board on here while pg. hopefully you won't need it but just in case! There's a lovely lady on that board called flowery who helped me.

I've learnt something too on this thread, thanks birnhamwood

Gosh some of the responses here are really depressing and show a distinct lack of understanding about employer's obligations and risk assessments. I am hoping that those people dont employ others or work in HR.

One thing that hasn't been mentioned. If you are in a senior role your employer would probably much rather you continued until 38 weeks, if you can, with some concessions to your role (eg less travel) than you disappeared earlier. That way they have access to your skills for much longer.

My work is in senior management for a private company where I am largely client facing, usually at the client location. My employer has always made it clear that they are really happy to be flexible as they would rather I can work later (I am finishing this week at 37+6 weeks, worked till 39 weeks with first DC for the same employer) than lose me a month or so earlier because the role was too tiring. As many employers including mine arent hiring maternity cover at the moment, they would much rather keep you for longer and make it attractive for you to come back.

Concessions my work have put in the risk assessment is working at home one day a week working around clients (I work part time, 3 days a week so its just to avoid the hellish London commute), no international travel past 28 weeks and no travel more than an hour away from home or office after 32 weeks, making things conference call if possible. Obviously, in return I am being as flexible as I can, ensuring clients are happy and sticking to the leaving date I suggested at three months pregnant.

Surely, this is how it should work between employers and employees and anything else is just bad for business.

I think how you feel and what you are prepared to do in pregnancy is very individual. Some people continue to commute by bike and do ashtanga yoga at 40 weeks, some have bumps the size of zeppelins and squish their lungs into pancakes at 30 weeks. If you do not feel comfortable driving long distances at 32 weeks, it's your call and the employer should really accommodate. Why not a skype meeting? It is so easy to arrange.

Even for the unsympathetic folk, why don't you think of it exactly as, um, the law seems to - as a temporary disability? You wouldn't expect the guy who's broken his leg to drive four hours' roundtrip to a non-compulsory meeting, but if he says he's happy to work his full 9 hrs in the office, teleconference, whatever it takes, with a bit of extra support, you wouldn't force him onto 4 weeks sick leave because he can't drive for a little! Even if you think pregnancy is self-inflicted, that same guy may have broken that leg skiing! It's about dealing with people as human, and maximising the amount of work they are able to do in a sensible way, even when they're not 100%.

I think that knocking off long drives would be totally reasonable - do teleconferences or video conferences (I can video conference on my laptop) and pop into your local office.
My job has a 30% (hah!) travel built into the contract, but I stopped international travel at 30 weeks, UK flights at 33, and was supposed to be stopping other travel at 35. I had ds the day after I'd been away for 2 nights, and if it had been a day earlier, I'd have had to go straight to the nearest hospital and would have had a prem birth on my own, a good distance from home.

Down with the pg woman who dares to find driving tough!

Come on people, maybe the OP didn't realise 9 months ago how tiring she would find the drive. Or anticipate how worried she would be about being in a car on her own away from home. Also to all the phone reception nay sayers, loads of places have no/patchy reception.

Totally reasonable to ask to video conf.
Totally reasonable also, if they say no, to go onto ML early.

No harm done either way. Probably the co would rather have you at worn for the last few weeks and not travel to the other than going on ML early.

YANBU. See if you can make alternative arrangements which mean you don't have to travel. I am sure your employers will be accomodating, especially when there are such things as skype readily available.

My employers were really good when I was pregnant with DD1, I was able work from a nearer office for 2 days a week. It still didn't stop me passing out from low blood pressure whilst driving home from there one day!
(I went on leave at 30wks so there wouldn't be a repeat).

I am also staggered at some of the replies here.

I truly hope that those posters such as thekidsrule do not manage pregnant subordinates in any way. By the way are any of these posters Katie Hopkins because your views seem remarkably similar... And that's not a compliment.

Just because some women are tramping all over farms or conducting overseas travel or driving articulated lorries at 40 weeks does not mean that every pregnant woman can or should.

And just for the record, I was one of those women who worked up to 39 weeks. But I have been blessed with two remarkably easy pregnancies. Not every woman is unfortunately.

I really cannot see why in this age of conference calls and Skype a heavily pregnant employee needs to drive long distances for meetings anyway.

OP YANBU and I am sure your HR Department will agree with you and support your needs at this time. Really, why wouldn't they, it shouldn't be a big issue to resolve and as others have pointed out, IT'S THE LAW!