To think this complaint against myself and a co worker is ridiculous?

[Lovebargains]

I work in an office with 5 people, all women. On the day in question, I was in the office with one of the women. Another colleague came in and excitedly talked about how her and were husband were going to try for a baby. This was particularly good news for her as she had some serious gynaecological problems in her early twenties and she was told she may never be able to have children. She had just been given the all clear. We spent some time talking about children. The woman who I share an office with stayed silent, didn't turn around from her PC and then just walked away and didn't come back until the colleague had gone. I didn't think too much of it.

Later my line manager called me to a meeting and said the woman in my office had made a complaint against me because I had been chatting to my colleague about pregnancy and children and she felt we were both very insensitive as she can't meet anyone and is unlikely to have children because of her age. Luckily my line manager didn't take it too seriously but I am astounded that someone can complain about this? We did not seek to offend her or anyone. It was simply sharing some good news.

AIBU to think the woman in my office had no right to complain about this?

Sounds like a few people on here

I agree with SGB and I think your manager could reasonably have pointed out that you are in the office to work not gossip. Wasting time and poor professional boundaries seem more pertinent to me than this woman being personally offended.

Is having sex without contraception an amazing event ?

Fwiw I've struggled with my fertility and if I could give advice to anyone starting ttc would be to keep it on the down low. Support you think you'd like can quickly turn into irritation when everyones expecting you to get pregnant and it doesn't happen for a while.

We were asked not to discuss diets once because one girl in the office was on the large side....we weren't exactly of model-like proportions ourselves!

The complaint is ridiculous.
The fact that your line manager has taken it as a complaint is ridiculous.
If your colleague had felt bad about her singleness and unlikelihood of having children, then she could have gone to the loo while you were talking, or moved out of earshot, or put some music on or pretty much anything. Her failure to do so is not your fault.
It's unreasonable to expect anyone to be able to mind-read that it was a sensitive subject for her, and it's crazy that she felt justified in making a complaint about it!

Moaning about it to another colleague in an informal setting would have been fine though. Mildly irritating, but fine - everyone's allowed to let off steam once in a while.

Well it all depends of whether you were made aware of the fact that she found the subject upsetting or not.

If you knew she found this difficult perhaps you could have reigned it in a bit. She may have felt this was insensitive to her situation.

If this is the first you have heard of it then of course YANBU. You are not a mind reader so the topic of conversation is irrelevant

Unless she felt that you'd spent too much time gossiping instead of doing your work as you did state that "We spent some time talking about children"
I.E. it was more than a passing "Congratulations!!" kind of thing.

YANBU and I think your manager acted very stupidly by even playing along with it. He should have told her she was being ridiculous.

I think I would have got obnoxious and requested a list of topics I'm apparently not allowed to talk about.

Sometimes it's draining when it's day in day out personal conversation. Like people who talk all. Day. Long. About diets and what they've had to eat and it had this many calories and oh no I bet I've put on a pound can't wait to weigh myself. I just had a snack oh no that's ten twenty how many calories? God I'm so fat. It's tiring to listen to and can make people feel uncomfortable. I guess for some people baby talk is the same. Maybe she was preempting months of ovulation talk, eggs, sex positions, testing, poas tomorrow teehee moments and couldn't cope with it.

We spent some time talking about children. - How much time? Maybe she was frustrated you were chatting, not working?

It doesn't really matter buffy, her personal problems shouldn't be projected onto other people's conversation. Nothing they are doing is offensive. She hasn't lost a child. It's not a grieving thing (in which case they should be sensitive) it's just the fact she hasn't got one yet. It's not nice especially when you're yearning for one, but you can't let it control other people.

It is offensive to not consider that you are making other people uncomfortable. Like those people who sit and discuss sex lives while everyone around them cringes and wishes they'd shut up. People should feel comfortable at work and not like they have to dread going in for an all day reminder of how they'll never have children. Save it for break times and keep work time to safe topics. Easy.

YANBU Absolutely ridiculous. You can't talk about fuck all these days without someone being offended.

All 3 of you were unreasonable. Excitedly announcing in an office in earshot of others that you are trying to conceive is ridiculous behaviour.

Your carrying on the conversation rather than saying "great let's go for lunch to talk about it" is ridiculous behaviour.

Your colleague complaining rather than not going off to get a coffee whilst you ninnies prattled on is ridiculous behaviour.

buffy talking about having a baby is different from talking about sex.

People seem too concerned about censoring other people rather than dealing with what makes them feel so uncomfortable.

The conversation was perfectly reasonable.

But Buffy then where do you stop? A safe topic for nearly everyone might not be for one person. The only solution if we take your logic to its natural end is to stuff everyone into cubicles and only allow interaction at break time. Brrr.

Talking about anything personal that could annoy other people is all the same. Sex, diets, ovulation, babies, weddings. If it's all the time it's dull dull dull and can affect how comfortable people are at work. Maybe this woman was preempting all the months of it constantly ahead and wanted them to stick to personal time for it.

There's a few things I find uncomfortable when people discuss them.

Depression, autism, soldiers dying, anything to do with my phobia.

I wouldn't dream of being so self centred as to try and stop people discussing these subjects. Me feeling uncomfortable is my issue. These can be general topics of conversation, not something taboo so there's no chance I'd expect to be able to censor people because of my personal feelings. That's ridiculous.

And I really don't see the big deal in sticking to talking about personal topics at personal times. Is it going to make a massive difference to OP and her friend if they talk about it at break times? Meanwhile it makes enough of a difference to this woman to ask her manager to step in.

Well Buffy it doesn't really matter if it's dull or annoying, it's not illegal to talk about dull or annoying things otherwise I'd never have to hear about Emmerdale

Pointy I'm sure many, many employers and probably a surprising number of employees would be delighted if inane personal chit chat (and sorry other than the person to contact that is what this is) was reserved for break times.

Sorry phone changed"ttc".I think some of you are forgetting this happened at work, you know that place you go to do work.

Well, as someone who works in an open plan office I have learned the esoteric science of tuning things out. It really isn't rocket science. Do we really want to be treated like drones and bound by rules? Next thing you know we will all end up like people in some call centres - penalised for taking more than the maximum number of toilet breaks.

We are all adults in the work environment. Where I work, if it gets too noisy, we just politely ask for quiet - and we get it.

Sounds like it's a v sensitive matter to her but it was OTT and inappropriate for her to put in a complaint.

I had problems ttc and it was very, very difficult to work with people who were pregnant/had babies. I never complained though, just walked out of the office for a few minutes or smiled and put up with it. It was particularly hard when a woman was going off on maternity leave and there was a big presentation etc for her. Ditto when they brought their babies into work to see every one.

But that is what you have to put up with. It's like someone at work is going through a divorce and another person announces their engagement. That's life and it sucks but causing a ruction isn't going to help.

I think some of you are forgetting this happened at work, you know that place you go to do work

Yes and since I'm capable of doing more than one thing at a time it's perfectly acceptable to pass the day having a chat every now and again. We're adults, not children. Fingers on lips all round?

The OP mentioned that the complainant didn't turn away from her PC. I read that as she was working and the others weren't, therefore they weren't multi tasking.