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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think she’s faking?

670 replies

Appleofmypie · 27/05/2018 14:34

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

OP posts:
Tink2007 · 27/05/2018 17:27

For me pictures, statuses etc on Facebook paint a very different picture to that of real life.

For instance, a friend of mine posted pictures of her, her husband and daughter at a wedding; all smiles just as usual. She told me two days later she had suffered a miscarriage four days before the pictures. You would never know.

moofeatures · 27/05/2018 17:29

I think her blocking you is significant - it suggests she knows she has something to hide from colleagues.

YearOfYouRemember · 27/05/2018 17:29

Hmm Carycach100 - the name calling of course.

Peanutbuttercups21 · 27/05/2018 17:30

I had a boss like this, I was practically offered the job to cover for her and collude in her stories

She got any sick day going, due to whiplash and back ache (she told me it was made up and laughed her head off. Just looking after number 1 was one of her phrases Hmm)

When she got pregnant, she calculated how much sick pay she could claim and managed to get a whole year off in sick pay/maternity leave/disability problems (big company)

I just left, never told anyone. It really opened my eyes though!

ittakes2 · 27/05/2018 17:31

I had severe sickness too - but not enough to consider signing off work. My job was very understanding and let me come in late. But brushing my teeth could make me vomit, I couldn't go on buses - even some car journeys I had to stop the car and vomit at the curb.
I was in hospital (for another reason) for a time and the poor lady in the room next to me had severe sickness and was vomiting constantly. I would report her - going on holiday when you have been signed off for sickness like that is wrong and unfair on all the women who have genuine sickness. She must have booked this holiday in advance to.

greendale17 · 27/05/2018 17:34

@Carycach100 calm down

You say you were too ill to walk to the bathroom yet you are defending OPs colleague who has managed to get on a plane posting happy holiday pictures claiming to have the same illness.

FilthyforFirth · 27/05/2018 17:34

I'm not defending her, but I don't think it's easy to get a HG diagnosis. For me personally, I was very sick from week 7 and not 'officially' diagnosed until week 13. I was in hospital on a drip as I couldnt keep anything down. I was also down 10 pounds from pre pregnancy weight. Only then did they accept I had HG.

Still, there is no way I would have been playing volleyball.

Greyponcho · 27/05/2018 17:34

Not terribly related to your AIBU, but depending on the nature of the roadworks, (for example of its for water mains) your boss may be able to claim for loss of business resulting from their work...
it might be worth looking in to?

greendale17 · 27/05/2018 17:35

Also the fact she blocked OP on Facebook speaks volumes!

Gemini69 · 27/05/2018 17:35

is Carycach100 perhaps the woman on sick leave the OP refers to in her Posts... Hmm

SoupDragon · 27/05/2018 17:36

A few holiday snaps probably taken on a 'good' day mean nothing

How lucky that she had a “good day” to fly. How lucky that she was too ill to work so that she didn’t have to book any leave from work - it would have been far less suspicious had she already had the leave booked.

If she is genuinely ill then there will be no problem.

MrsEricBana · 27/05/2018 17:37

I agree screenshot photos, show boss, leave it with her/him.

halfwitpicker · 27/05/2018 17:40

Absolutely bloody despicable IMHO.

There's gall and then there's gall and that lass has it. Stupidity in spades too, apparently.

Making a mockery of lots of people.

MrsSchadenfreude · 27/05/2018 17:41

I'd have done what you did, particularly in that situation.

But I was signed off sick once, and told to go on holiday by my GP (and he put this in my sick note). I had had glandular fever, which lead to a number of other issues and infections, and he thought that two weeks on a beach would do me good.

Aeroflotgirl · 27/05/2018 17:42

I agree, and have said that there is a reason why she blocked you, as she is up to something. I would screenshot the page, and leave it with the boss. Not everyone is honest, some take the piss, and she sounds like one of them.

Carycach100 · 27/05/2018 17:43

If she is genuinely ill then there will be no problem.

what does that even mean? She has a sick note - what further proof will she or should she produce?

TheMonkeyMummy · 27/05/2018 17:43

@Carycach100 no need to all OP a bitch! I didn't have HG but I had terrible all day morning sickness. No way would I have thought about getting on a plane. This isn't a random day out so having the odd good day does excuse a foreign holiday.

OP isn't second guessing anything medical but has forwarded evidence to suggest that an employee is holidaying whilst claiming sickness pay. That's the issue here.

Aeroflotgirl · 27/05/2018 17:46

You did the right thing, op, people can fake sicknotes, or lie, it means nothing. It sounds like a small business, this is costing the boss.

ItsNachoCheese · 27/05/2018 17:49

Well done op you did the right thing telling your boss

halfwitpicker · 27/05/2018 17:50

This reply has been deleted

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Namechangedtoscream · 27/05/2018 17:51

It's not like a bad back where a doctor will actively encourage you to move more whilst signed off (I was signed off for a month once and told to join a gym and go swimming and get fit in this time - which I forewarned my boss of!) This is a debilitating condition that leaves you lethargic, nauseous, causes dramatic weight loss, dehydration and muscle wastage. Rest and rehydration are the usual recommendations for it.

Fifthtimelucky · 27/05/2018 17:52

I think the OP did the right thing. It's up to the employer to decide what to do with the information, if anything.

No-one is suggesting that the pregnant employer wasn't ill when she was originally signed off. But if she didn't have to keep going back to the doctor it would be very easy just to phone in, say that she was still ill, and send her husband round for a new sick note.

MiddleClassProblem · 27/05/2018 17:53

But she put it on fb so it’s not like OP found her holiday snaps that fell out of her bag and popped them in the boss’s in tray like it’s 2002?

If I were her I wouldn’t have put it let pics of me playing volleyball be put on fb if it was just a genuine good day.

PetulantPolecat · 27/05/2018 17:53

“she should not be second guessing professional opiniom. ”

Professional opinions are second guessed all the time. And she’s second guessing her colleague’s intentions, not a medical GP.

She’s also got plenty of reason to second guess. Her colleague didn’t request any annual leave yet had booked a holiday. Yes, because when you’re so unwell you can’t work from a physical ailment, a doctor is going to suggest flying to another country is just what you need to relax.

halfwitpicker · 27/05/2018 17:54

I had light morning sickness and getting the frigging bus each morning was a huge effort - genuine HG and volley ball in Greece? Having a giraffe.