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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

did I say the wrong thing?

166 replies

itstimeforslime · 29/07/2019 19:04

I work for a large organisation and so does a close friend of mine but she works for another department. We have been friends since we were children so this isn’t a work friendship.

Anyway my friend finished up on maternity leave a few weeks ago and had an elective c section last Wednesday.

She’d told us all weeks and weeks ago what date it was and I’d texted her on Wednesday morning to wish her luck.

On the Wednesday morning on the way into work I bumped into my friend’s boss who I know and we were chatting and my friend came up in the conversation. Her boss knows we’re friends and she’s a lovely woman. When she asked about her I said “oh she’s having her section today.”

Her boss must have texted her to wish her luck and today I got a rather sharp message from her stating that I should never have mentioned her section date to her boss and it was none of her business and I should have known to keep it quiet.

I’ve had two elective sections and it wasn’t a secret about the date Confused but Obviously if she’d told me to keep the date a secret I would have.

My DH thinks she is being unreasonable and quite nasty about it.

I messaged her back to apologise and I did say that at no point did she ask me to not tell anyone what date her section was booked.

She responded to say I should just have known Confused

Aibu to just tell her she’s being ridiculous or was I being unseasonable to not know that I was to keep it a secret?

OP posts:
coolwalking · 29/07/2019 21:58

Also you assumed the message from her boss was a Good Luck message. It could have been something completely different.

Sagradafamiliar · 29/07/2019 21:58

It's just a date. She's having a baby. The baby has to be born on some date or other, there really is nothing personal about those facts other than as I mentioned before, she may have chosen to give the boss another date. But there's nothing more to it than that. OP didn't

Sagradafamiliar · 29/07/2019 21:59

Do anything wrong*

toldmywrath · 29/07/2019 22:02

Yanbu op.
I'd have done the same as you and mentioned that "friend" was having her baby that day.

You've apologised for the unintended mix up.
I'd probably give her a wide berth (although some one else mentioned wide birth... now that would have been unreasonable using this term Grin )

VenusTiger · 29/07/2019 22:03

Wouldn’t her immediate boss know though? HR would know her ‘due date’?
Either way, I would never announce a friends baby birth, it’s their news. But still wondering about the boss not already knowing through HR and maternity cover dates etc.

NakedBrainStrollingInManhatten · 29/07/2019 22:03

I don’t think you have done anything wrong. It was general chit chat. No different to saying that xyz has gone into labour.

But why on earth would anyone be telling people that someone has gone into labour? I've never had a section but I'd have been annoyed if I was in labour and receiving messages about it from people that I didn't tell.

Original poster
itstimeforslime · 29/07/2019 22:04

I have learned a lot tonight.

Namely, how weird mumsnet is!

OP posts:
Letthemysterybe · 29/07/2019 22:07

It would never have occurred to me to keep that kind of information a secret. I’m seriously weirded out by half the responses on this thread!

Original poster
itstimeforslime · 29/07/2019 22:09

When I say she is friends with her boss I mean she goes out drinking with her and is really friendly with her.

When she mentioned her last week she was talking about how unwell she’d been and how she’d been saying she couldn’t wait for it to be over. I said “yeah she’s having her section today.” and she said something like “ah yeah is that today?”

She knew plenty about how my friend was feeling. This wasn’t me telling her something about a random person.

I’m surprised she didn’t know about it tbh

OP posts:
Funguy · 29/07/2019 22:30

My friend told our boss that I had a chronic illness. I was well pleased considering it was my choice not to tell him for the last 10 years, it having no bearing on my ability to do my job.
No, you do not pass on medical information.

expat101 · 29/07/2019 22:31

People are queer. You had a perfectly normal conversation with someone who was already privy to private details, yet the woman who is on a friendship level with you both wants to have a moan that you gave a ''secret'' away... Bah humbug.

No wonder the art of conversation is dying.

Sewrainbow · 29/07/2019 22:31

I actually think the boss overstepped the mark, if she did send a good luck message or whatever. Yes you shouldn't have said what you did, but the boss shouldn't have contacted her about the birth until she'd heard from an official source.

Furrydogmum · 29/07/2019 22:55

Unless she's trying to fluff her maternity leave I can't see what difference it would make.. I work in education and I'm sure I gave my due date when organising my mat leave date - the only difference being her date was a given..

HappyLoneParentDay · 29/07/2019 23:01

@itstimeforslime she was telling the waitress she was going in for for a section and the date.

Yeah I’d be questioning her as to why that was ok, the Group Chat was ok but the honest mistake you made wasn’t? Yep. She was definitely planning to lie about the birth date!!!

HappyLoneParentDay · 29/07/2019 23:03

@Funguy You were not well pleased at being found to be not only breaking the law but invalidating your employers insurance? Hmm

Graphista · 29/07/2019 23:39

Not a legal requirement to tell your employer all your medical history, doesn't invalidate their insurance automatically either - where you getting that idea from?

fargo123 · 30/07/2019 00:13

YANBU

Your friend is being ridiculous.

Derbee · 30/07/2019 00:36

YABU.

You don’t need to be a mind reader to know that sharing other people’s medical information is not on. It doesn’t matter who or how many people she tells, it’s not your information to give out. You don’t get to make the decision to share medical information because you’ve decided she’s told too many people for it to be kept quiet from your side.

If she had the baby, and told your WhatsApp group, I still wouldn’t tell her boss that she has had the baby. It’s just not your news or your information to share. I don’t get what’s difficult to understand?

spacedone · 30/07/2019 00:57

She's told her boss something different and didn't want her to know. You weren't to know. Just distance yourself and don't get tied up in her drama.

IamtheOA · 30/07/2019 01:14

Hang on...
The boss felt close enough to her to text and wished her luck. Obviously they felt their relationship was close enough for that. Why should the OP think any different?

hairhair · 30/07/2019 01:17

Well you have to tell work your due date for your maternity leave and in my organisation my manager signs that form so surely they would have known already?

AmIRightOrAMeringue · 30/07/2019 03:28

Funguy I'm really genuinely sorry that happened to you and i can see why you think the way you do. I do think this situation is different though. Her boss knew she was pregnant. Knew roughly when she was having the baby. It sounded from updates like she knew she was having a section. It's only the actual date that she didn't know. Which while a big deal to the friend and her family, will be instantly forgotten by anyone at the OPs work.

OooErMissus · 30/07/2019 04:46

Wide berth needed to be honest.

Absolutely.

If your 'transgression' is that serious, I'd leave her to it, so as not to piss her off.

What a drama over nothing. She was, what, 40-ish weeks pregnant?

Clearly the baby was going to come out at some point. Confused🤷🏻‍♀️

dodgeballchamp · 30/07/2019 04:50

She’s being a dick. There are only two instances in which I wouldn’t share things other people have told me - if they expressly ask me not to, or they’ve divulged something traumatic or upsetting. Everything else is fair game as far as I’m concerned and I apply that principle to things I tell people too

TheRedBarrows · 30/07/2019 05:18

However friends of not friends someone is it isn’t your place to decide to tell someone’s boss something.

OK, you didn’t know she didn’t want her boss to know, or else make her own birth announcement, but now you do and still you are arguing the toss.

Yeah, yeah, Your friend is wrong and MN is weird and it’s everyone but you.