To think she’s faking?

[Appleofmypie]

One of my team at work is 14 weeks pregnant. She’s been off sick for 5 weeks with severe hyperemesis and still has a week left on her sick note (she’s being signed off for 2 weeks at a time)

By complete coincidence she is Facebook friends with a friend of mine.

My friend has put some pictures on Facebook this morning of her Greek holiday she’s still on, and my work colleague is in most of them - sunbathing, eating, swimming in the sea, playing volleyball. She has obviously blocked me as she is tagged in the pictures but her name is unclickable.

I’m gonna sound like a complete cow but I think she’s faking her sickness.
She’s on full pay from work and we’re having to pay an agency temp to cover her work too. It’s a small company that is struggling and I doubt we’re going to make any profit this month due to this.

My questions are:

Should I tell/show our boss?
What evidence of hyperemesis does a GP need to see to sign you off or Could it just be on her say so?
Is she actually doing anything illegal?
I know that pregnancy sickness is covered separately to normal in terms of disciplinary but if it’s proven she’s faking could it still be gross misconduct?

Thanks

What I do know is that boss has a meeting with HR about the social media issue (she uses an outside company) and that she has been advised (I think by Acas) that she has the right to either request to see colleagues medical records relating to this illness, or request that colleague sees an occupational health professional appointed by the company.

Why is your boss discussing this with you?

You really do need to think about getting this thread deleted

Because how she implements office policies isn’t confidential. This sort of info is outlined in most employee handbooks.

This infuriates me. I had HG with my son and was barely ever out of bed.
Morning sickness is one thing whereas HG is another. I was medicated, hospitalised a number of times and vomiting over 30 times per day and this went on for the whole of my pregnancy.
I spent a majority of my pregnancy signed off- would go back to work then be hospitalised again for the same thing. The whole pregnancy was a nightmare and I genuinely felt terrible for not being at work. I would bring this up to your boss in fairness. People milking pregnancy gives those who genuinely have a bloody awful time a really bad name. I would have given anything to enjoy my pregnancy, go to work and do all the things I had originally planned to do with my time before my son came, let alone go on holiday! I barely made it from bedroom to bathroom some days! SMH.

The reason for the sick note is a red herring - the sick note says the CF is too ill to work, therefore if you’re too ill to do anything at work, even ‘light duties’, then you’re too ill to be on holiday.
The OP has established the holiday was planned, holiday leave was not.
The CF isn’t screwing the big corporation nor ‘the system’ - she’s screwing the livelihoods of 8 people

Just here to find out whether or not the CF faking bitch gets fired. Can your boss see the horrible status updates from CF calling her names and complaining about her job? Is that alone not grounds to be fired?

I'm sick of women milking pregnancy symptoms for sympathy and their own gain while other people genuinely suffer and aren't listened too!

Hope your boss and her company can get through this, 15 years of hard work shouldn't be so easily ruined by one vile person.

Yes, get this thread deleted

She's probably seen it and is frantically deleting anything incriminating.

there is a huge difference between morning sickness and HG, this outlines a lot of them

here

if you were being generous you could say she had moderate sickness but not HG, she would not have even been able to bring in her sick note, I have cared for a lot of women with it, its just awful

Your boss needs to go down the social media breach re slagging her off and bringing her business not disrepute. Dismiss under this. Avoid the sick note issue as she'll end up with more aggro.

• name (not, not!)

I think it’s very dishonest and I completely agree with posters on here saying that people lying about this contributes to other women actually suffering not being believed. I do however think you have to tread carefully here, while she would have possibly brought this on herself by lying, if she loses her job whilst pregnant it could be terrible for her and I don’t think I could feel great about being a contributing factor in that

*Going on holiday is often suggested for depression.

By who? The depressed person. Bullocks. If you go on holiday, you take holiday pay or no pay. It's really really that simple.*

My psychiatrist and GP both suggested this!! I was signed off for over 4 months in total and this was roughly in the middle of that time. I didn't go away because I was too anxious though and even if I had wanted to / felt well enough I would have spoken to my boss as we were emailing one another every couple of weeks.

Your boss shouldn’t be discussing her course of action with you- it’s putting you in a difficult position as your CF’s peer and you’re not in a position to offer advice.

I really feel for your boss and you took the best course of action by reporting, but your boss really needs to protect herself and the business by keeping things confidential and following the advice given to her by her hr company.

Boss also said that colleague hasn’t accepted her friend request but hasn’t deleted it so there’s a chance she hasn’t even seen it yet

She's seen it. You don't have to do anything with those requests; you can leave them as requests and just ignore them forever...

Colleague is probably deleting pics, as people have said. Good think you took screenshots.

do keep us updated :)

when is CF due back ?

I think those suggesting she's seen this thread on mumsnet are slightly bigging it up. She's on holiday with friends, is she really likely to be sitting on the internet trawling through mumsnet in case she's mentioned? If yes she's got bigger problems than non existent HG!!
I hadn't even an inkling of MN existence until I was looking something baby related up online!

Agree @leighb23 !

And people saying get it deleted before it's brought up in court?!

All we know is a pregnant woman has gone to Greece whilst signed off sick, somewhere in the UK!

There is absolutely nothing in this thread that could be used in court. The OP has done nothing wrong.

Get screenshotting everything

Get those RECEIPTS

I think it should be deleted before the tabloids pick it up.

Agree @Appleofmypie needs to delete this

I had hyperemesis and actually had to be flown home early from a holiday because I was too ill to continue on the holiday. I had gone out feeling nauseous at 8 weeks, and by 8.5 weeks was lying in my hotel room vomiting into a dustbin, whilst DH went and explored. And by the time I flew home a week later it was full blown HG.

At the height of hyperemesis in both pregnancies I could barely stand, they struggled to distinguish my heart rate from baby's as mine was so high due to dehydration, I vomited in my sleep (i'd wake up vomiting), and vomited 25 times+ a day. Really I curled up on the bathroom floor, too weak to walk from bed to loo or to change bucket. I was on 3 or 4 different drugs, and needed frequent hospitalisations for IV drugs, fluids etc. Playing volleyball I was not.

However, HG can, in milder cases, be controlled to some extent with a cocktail of antiemetics, so it could be she's been started on these and is now starting to feel better. They can make you sleepy and unfit to work, but able to function on a holiday. Also in some women it starts to go after 14 weeks or so (though in many it continues for months), see Kate Middleton.

Later in pregnancy my GP and OH doctor actually recommended I go on holiday to get a change of scene, as long as my DH did everything, and as we just went to my in-laws abroad, it was manageable.

thank you @baxterboi! Sense prevails in some corners at least 😁😁😁😁😁