32 weeks pregnant and treated like crap at work

[mrsfredweasley]

Posted this on a couple other boards but decided to go here for more traffic...

This will be a long one to avoid drip feeding, so I apologise in advance.

I work in admin in a school and I'm currently 32 weeks pregnant. I started having issues when I was around 13/14 weeks. I was off sick for 2 days (before anyone was aware I was pregnant) and during this time, a colleague went onto my computer (shared log in at the time), accessed my emails and read through my sent messages. None of which were bad but there were a number to my husband. She then told the head teacher what she'd seen and I had to go through a formal investigatory process for emailing my husband and "wasting work time". Because of this, I was forced to tell work of my pregnancy (because they'd read about it in my sent emails) before I was ready; before I'd even told family. My colleagues were also aware that I had previously had a miscarriage (about a month before) and should probably have realised that I might need the support of my husband during this time, but they clearly didn't.

This has all since been sorted after resulting in me having 4 weeks off work due to stress, and I made sure to let them know that reading my emails is actually illegal and the formal investigation was unnecessary, and the log ins have become individual. However, since then, the atmosphere and relationship between me and the colleague who "told on me" has been frosty and awkward. She unintentionally made it very clear that it was her.

Fast forward to 32 weeks pregnant and the attitudes of my colleagues towards me have gradually become worse and have really begun to grind me down. There are 4 other women in the office and they have started excluding me from everything and made me feel really isolated. No one says good morning to me when I arrive, no one offers to make me a drink even when asking the rest of the office by name, if they have general chit chat I'm never included and they always end sentences with each other's names to let me know nothing is directed to me. If they want to find out some information that is to do with my role, they'll go above me to the head teacher to ask her instead of turning to me on the desk next to them. The receptionist has become increasingly rude to me; demanding that I do work for her and when I say I am a little busy but will try, she gets incredibly nasty. These are isolated incidents that have resulted in a big thing. They also plan trips out together and events like candle parties, and openly discuss them in front of me without ever inviting me.

It's just made me feel shit, to be honest. I sit doing my work with tears in my eyes and come home and break down to my husband. I'm obviously very hormonal, which isn't helping. None of them ever ask how I'm feeling re: pregnancy or even get excited with me about it. It's putting me under a lot of stress and anxiety.

I leave for maternity in 2 weeks but I'm struggling to feel confident enough to make it that long. When I'm there I feel nauseous and dizzy, I don't eat and I just feel so alone. I've contemplated getting signed off sick until then and going to speak to the head teacher in the meantime to let her know how I'm feeling. But I'm conflicted because that just makes me feel guilty for going off sick and leaving my work load. So I guess what I'm asking is wibu to do this or should I just suck it up and get on with it?

I'm so sorry for the length of this post, if you've made it this far, then thank you!!

Bluebell op is unlikely to have resolved this over the weekend given that she works in a school.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do op. They are rude and bullying you, maybe they perceive that their work load will go up without extra pay while you're sitting around at home. Presumably they had a taste of an increased work load of you weren't replaced for those four weeks. Whatever their reasoning, they're totally unreasonable to isolate you in the way they have.

I would definitely talk to the HT and/or get signed off work. If you're not going to do either, could you consider wearing headphones and say you're listening to some hypnobirthing/relaxation tracks while you work. Would allow you to ignore them ignoring you.

Something had to have triggered this. It's not normal that you would be good friends one day, then not the next day without someone doing something, triggering something, or saying something. I think there is a lot more to this story than is being presented by the OP.

This is true, but that doesn't mean OP is privy to that information.

I had work friends who were friends one day and did a complete 180 the next with no reason I could understand. I asked them about it, they just smiled said everything was fine when I tried talking to them about it and started treating me like shit. Now I've heard via grape vine they were upset about a file I used thinking I was copying their work when the boss told me to use it knowing they did the original. They could have talked to me and got that sorted in a few sentences, but chose not to. Their loss.

If they're mad, it's probably nothing personal that she's done. There's a good chance that the person who read through the emails was disciplined for it, or given a strict warning and is salty. They may even feel OP is getting special treatment (again, nothing OP did wrong).

You might feel better after maternity leave. You said the TA's are excited for you, why not chat with them instead? I would start hitting back when they're rude to you. The foot tapping, I would tell them to cut it out. They don't have to like you, but they do have to treat you with respect when they work with you.

balloon no, the emails to DH were about how I was finding it difficult and reading them back, I was generally just miserable and needed him at that point. They were more ramblings of a hormonal woman in the early weeks of pg when nobody else knew so I had nobody else to ramble to.

As for the situation, I've been back and forth all weekend about what to do because I appear to have a conscience and I worry that I'm letting people down if I go off sick but I think I'm going to go with the advice of the majority, which is the same advice DH gave me, and book an appointment with the GP today to see what he says. Then following that, I'll email the ht and ask her for a meeting where I'll explain everything. I shouldn't be feeling this conflicted and worried about something so trivial right now and doing so is really getting me down. I might see how I feel about going back on the day before half term, as it's an inset day, to handover to the person taking over my role while I'm off and also to collect all the bits and bobs I've left at work. I want to do that so I can leave on a somewhat positive note and they can see I don't want to just abandon them with no information about what needs to go on in my role while I'm off.

Good luck OP

Good luck.

I was off sick 5 weeks before I went on maternity leave and felt guilty about this, when I returned to work a year later no one even remembered I went off early.

Work bitchiness is horrible and it completely undermines your confidence - and that's if you not pregnant.

So exciting that your little one is nearly here :-)

Apologies for the directness....

Maybe they're not batches, maybe they just don't care about your pregnancy.

I don't understand how jotting down every perceived slight will do anything, are you going to formally launch a complaint?

I've been bullied at work before and know it's quite a fruitless endeavor to pin bullying on people when they can quite easily explain away that you're anti social (not saying that's true in your case). Not inviting a colleague to a private night out isn't bullying, it's just bad manners to bring it up in front of you. Although I'm a little confused why you care about that as they hardly sound company you'd seek.

I'd ride it out for a couple more weeks and just get on with it. Leave the job during your maternity.

Batches?...... Bitches