To secretly think friends colleagues are right?

[LackingEnergy]

Feel bad saying that but... Friend is 9 weeks pregnant with her first dc, her partner is the store manager. They have both told their co workers that she will be unable to perform her normal duties on days when there is a delivery so the co workers will have to do her job and vice versa as lifting slightly heavy objects will put too much strain on her stomach...

She's just overheard her colleagues moaning about favoritism and talking about refusing to swap jobs as the ones who've already had dc couldn't do this until much later in their pregnancy. They've also apparently talked about the fact that she still smokes at least 10 a day yet can't lift anything due to the risks to the baby?

She's furious and now believes that they are out to get her due to her relationship and her baby I can't help but feel the same as her colleagues. It does seem like she is getting special treatment and is making no effort to stop smoking even though smoking also poses a risk to her dc. I go into that shop regularly and have heard a lot more about it than she's letting on, her colleagues are basically doing her job and their own as she apparently always makes excuses.

I'm a bad friend :(

If it's a job with heavy lifting and being on your feet all day, I think h and s advice is that you don't do the lifting whilst pregnant. Was told I wasn't to push patients in beds, roll patients, push wheelchairs whilst pregnant as a care assistant. But getting other staff to support you was a nightmare. The matron wanted us pregnant ones to work in the isolation ward nursing those with norovirus, because we weren't much use anywhere else. Imagine having norovirus in the early stages of pregnancy. It's horrible when you're in that situation. It should be a rule across the board and I think it's shitty that her colleagues don't support her. Whether she smokes or goes out with the boss is irrelevant.

Well I dont think that YABU. When I was PG with DC2 I had the most horrendous MS, I was being sick several times a day (in fact looking back, I wonder if it was HG, I couldnt keep food down at all and lost almost 2 stones in 10 weeks). My manager couldnt have been less sympathetic and moaned that me constantly running out to dry heave was disrupting the office . Then another colleague was PG who coincidentally was the bosses DD. All of a sudden she was getting hourly breaks, longer lunches, sent home early if she looked tired. At no point did I get any of this, even though we were pg at the same time, and I was further along that her.

Now I would raise merry hell about it but I was in my 20's and green as a cabbage, so I just put up with it.

The shop owner has laid down the rules and the manager is choosing the break them because she is his OH. HE needs to be very careful because if one of the staff complains to the owner then they will both have a lot of explaining to do.

Oh ignore typos! Doing 3 things at once :o

It should be a rule across the board and I think it's shitty that her colleagues don't support her

But it isnt across the board. The others had to work to the rules laid down by the shop owner, and this womans OH has chosen to totally disregard those rules because it suits them. I would be bloody fuming at such blatant favouritism.

But surely youd be fuming at shitty management, not the pregnant woman? Way I see it surely the treatment she is getting should be the expected level and what anyone else got was below par, in which case they should have complained that they were getting the shitty treatment?

Well yes at shitty management but the fact is that she is shagging the boss and is getting better treatment than the others. If she was a decent person she wouldnt be swanning around the place insisting others do her work for her because it might hurt the baby while she buggers off for another fag.

She would be doing exactly what the others have done and not making a fuss, but she isnt. That is what is getting on their nerves I would imagine, alongside his shitty attitude.

She sounds like she is acting like she is the first person to get pregnant.

Tell her to get a grip & get on with her work & normal life like everyone else does.

I always do risk assessments with any health requirement from my staff. I don't let pregnant lift anything of any real weight. I advise them to take stock from crates & replenish stock at their hip height to a gentle stretch.
Smoking is not done in the workplace & is not relevant. However,I really judge women who continue to smoke in pregnancy & I guess they do too. She needs to look at it from their pov & judge how she would feel.

I was transferring unconscious patients till 35 weeks, and my belly started to get in the way. I worked for two Obstetrician/Gynaecologists and they were happy for me to do it and did no harm. They said if I was high risk or had any bleeding I couldn't do it. She's being a drama queen if she's having healthy normal pregnancy

she wouldnt be swanning around the place insisting others do her work for her because it might hurt the baby

She's been told not to lift slightly heavy deliveries. A cautious and not unusual approach by many companies who by law are required to carry out a H&S review once they are aware of a pregnant employee. Because yes, there is a minute (or even bigger chance if she is prone to mc) of it affecting her pregnancy. Her work is doing the responsible thing. Her having relations with the boss or smoking whilst pregnant have fuck all to do with this.

What would happen if she did lift something heavy and it caused her to mc. Are you going to console her with "well i lifted 50kg till i was 5cm dilated and i never lost my baby?". How anyone else coped in their pregnancy is fuck all to do with this. And if they didn't feel they got the right treatment when they were pregnant then they should have said this at the time when they were pregnant, not gripe about it now.

ACtually her smoking has a lot to do with this. If she tried to sue her employers because she, God forbid, lost her child after lifting a heavy load, their lawyers would be onto her like pack of hounds due to her smoking. Smoking is far more likely to cause a mc, still birth or premature birth than lifting a box of tinned tomatoes.

However, I agree that if their risk assessment/pg protocol is wanting then the other employees would be better to take that through official channels than bitching about it. But then, especially these days, no one wants to be the one that sticks their head above the papapet in case it gets shot off and they are left with no job.

I suspect her (and her partner's attitude) are probably really to blame here, rather than the heavy lifting issue. If she said to her colleagues that she's been advised to avoid heavy lifting, but she still mucked in and carried the lighter items, or offered to swap tasks with them so that she was still doing a fair share of work, then I'm sure the attitude in the company would be completely different. There's plenty of non heavy lifting tasks that can be done in a store - stacking shelves (put the items on a trolley so no bending required), changing labels, sweeping floors, all perfectly within her capabilities.

Pregnant or not, people don't like slackers.

Smoking has nothing to do with them imposing a limit to what she has to physically lift. It has no bearing on it whatsoever. Her employers want to cover their backs at their end. They cant stop her from smoking but they can limit how much physical activity she does under their employment. It reads to me upthread that people are thinking that since she is continuing to smoke she might as well carry on lifting heavy things. Thats not how h&s works.

She doesnt have to say that she has been advised to avoid heavy lifting. Why should she have to explain her medical history? And the OP says that she is to swap duties when heavy lifting is concerned, its the other colleagues who dont want to swap because they were able to carry heavy loads when they were pregnant. Nowhere in the op does it suggest she is a slacker?

i chose not to tell work until i was around 26wks, so from when i found out until i told them i did my normal duties which included crawling round floors rewiring and moving servers. I was very much of the "i'm pregnant, not ill" camp. looking back, i feel stupid about adding an extra risk.

I don't think it's about the actual risk or advice, but about the way the news has been delivered to the rest of the staff. They will feel that they had to carry on, but boss's pwecious pwincess gets special treatment.

One of OP's later posts clarifies that she already has a reputation for slacking, and that the staff are aware that the owner's advice and the manager's advice don't tally. That makes it a management issue, not a health issue.