To complain about a thoughtless comment by supermarket worker?

[Sophiafaith63]

I was shopping with my daughter today and came across a lady giving out yogurt samples.

She asked if my daughter would like a sample then asked when her brother/sister was due! As I am not pregnant this was a very hurtful comment. I said I did not think that was a question you should put to a lady hoping she'd take the hint to leave the subject alone. However she then asked the same question again! I said I was not pregnant and repeated that this was not something you should say to a lady. Instead of an apology, she said it was just the way I was standing!

I was really upset by this and really want send an email to head office asking for this lady to be given training on how to speak to customers

Would this be reasonable or should I just let this one go as thoughtless rather than rude? Maybe I should toughen up but this really upset me.

No I haven’t @toomanyleavesonthattree 😊 I will definitely give it a go, thanks xx

I don't think she was rude, she just misjudged the situation.

Anyone see the OP update at 16:46, she’s decided against an e-mail

Funnily enough I was asked when I was going on maternity leave at work today. I was actually chuffed as I'm not far off 60 and have gone grey.

I think it's very rude to ask someone if they are pregnant. Lots of people have a round belly for all kinds of reasons

I agree. I have massive fibroids and look five months pregnant. I am so fed up and run down with them causing bloating, constipation, bladder weakness, anaemia, abdominal pain, vomiting and horrendous menstrual flooding that I think I would burst into tears if someone asked me when the baby was due.

I was in Dunelm last night buying a baby sleeping bag that was on offer (alongside new curtains) and the cashier asked me when I'm due. I'm only just 14 weeks so barely showing - I was just super bloated after dinner (and a bit fat anyway!!!)

I was a bit miffed

It has happened to me years ago but i had my twins so i guess i probably did still have a pouch but it did really upset me at the time.

But you are pregnant @Dec2019mumtobe???

I think you're massively overreacting.

Obviously you are sensitive about your weight, which is why you're feeling so hurt, but you just need to get over it and move on.

The shop assistant was just trying to be friendly and make conversation.

I have a tummy and in some clothes people can (and sometimes do, aloud) wonder if I'm pregnant. I really do wish women wouldn't collude in society's obsession with our bodies/looks by seeing it as some terrible insult. Why shouldn't our bodies look as if we've carried children? When people ask me I laugh and say 'no, it's left over from the last one'. I don't need them to be mortified either. End of.

This reminds me of a Simpsons episode (or something like that) where they had to do a 100 lines saying
“My teacher is fat not pregnant”.

I was asked once when I was due, shortly after my double mastectomy.
Fact - I was looking pregnant.
Fact - even more so with my concave decoltee.
Fact - I could have done with losing 6 kg and strengthen my muscles and posture
Was I insulted? No! Facts are facts - and the person was interested and kind.. Life's to short.

Hope you are doing ok now @prokupatas

Supermarkets have better things to do than counter your stupid complaint. Grow up.

I think we've all been in the position at one time or another where it had been said to us or we've said it to someone. It's embarrassing either way. I'd say she's mortified and will recall this story in future when people ask her about her embarrassing stories.

I was shopping with a friend many years ago when the lady giving samples of a cream liquor asked us if we would like to try it I accepted my friend refused ( recovering alcoholic) but the lady kept pushing for her to try it no amount of excuses would make her stop and my friend had to tell her the real reason. The lady then said there's only a small bit of alcohol in it and she could drink it. I guess the lady was embarrassed and her way of trying to apologise was to say something stupid about the small amount of alcohol. A bit like the lady saying to you about the way you were standing .

It's hurtful but you will laugh about it one day.

She can't have been embarrassed if she continued to ask the Question after clearly being told Op was not pregnant

@madammma
Thank you for asking it's been 15 years now - but I still look pregnant. Still the same 6 kg to lose.

Why are people defending the woman and not OP? I would complain, not for an apology but for an assurance on customer service relations. I've been asked this question, a week after a miscarriage. It's happened to my very close friend a couple of months after a still birth. A colleague some years ago was asked constantly when 'she's getting a move on with starting a family'. She was suffering from infertility with failed IVF. Women's bodies and their reproductive systems should not be up for general chit chat and making conversation unless instigated by the women in question.

Although she didn't mean to be insulting the problem with asking about pregnancy when it's not absolutely definitely clear that someone is pregnant is that it can be a very sensitive subject. Someone may be struggling to conceive or just had a miscarriage. Although it wasn't meant maliciously it's not the sort of thing you ask unless it's glaringly obvious or someone you know well

I'm with @Neron - as an IBS sufferer I've had this frequently, but I just can't be arsed to get offended by it. Seriously, there are more things to be worried about, it's not like she accused you of something nasty! Maybe she was trying to be helpful about the product and its benefits of digestion when pregnant? Leave it.

I think the woman was tactless and insensitive.

I'm on your side OP

It's never a good question to ask anyone you don't know. I was asked when I'd had a silent miscarriage and had to wait 2 weeks for my hospital appointment for the procedure. I was so upset. Worse because my elder DD was there and I hadn't told her I was pregnant so she then started asking me questions. But I agree with others that the woman in this case was being tactless and insensitive as opposed to deliberately hurtful.

Off at a tangent, but there definitely seems to be a thing on MN recently with certain posters using any opportunity whatsoever to chastise someone about being overweight (when the actual point of the post is not that). It's like they get off on being hurtful.

I'm with you OP. If it was a social setting and a friend of a friend made a comment that would be one thing, but this lady is in a public facing role and that is in no way an appropriate thing to say, especially as you gave her the chance to drop it which she ignored. I would send a polite email.