I miscarried, colleagues at work gossiping me being pregnant and miscarrying

[mrsmb03]

Hi all

Please advise, I miscarried end of January. A few weeks ago, out of the blue a former colleague of mine texted me and said I'm so sorry for your loss. I didn't tell him I miscarried in fact I only told a few people at work and told them to keep this information in confidence. This former colleague of mine said that an ex employee who used to work there told him, this ex employee just visited our workplace place recently as he is wanting to come back he has spoken to the colleague I have told I miscarried.

When I came back to work after my wasted restday she saw that I was upset she asked me why am I cross. I couldn't stop my emotions and told her about what happened and told her I was upset and that I don't want to talk about it anymore. I just want to move on that I spent my whole rest day crying because I was unprepared when I receive that text. She admitted that she was the one who told this ex employee but she justified her divulging my miscarriage apparently due to the fact that the ex employee knew that I was pregnant. She didn't apologised to me even though I have told her this has upset me. I also have not told anyone at work I was pregnant. So I feel like this is a double whammy. I feel so disrespected. I told myself I will give myself time and see how I feel but a week or so has passed and I am still upset about it and cry and grief comes back. So I am now thinking of complaining to the area manager who I did talk about the miscarriage. I told her only because obviously I needed to tell some one in management as I have obviously been off and also to save me from been questioned by my line nasty rude vile manager. So basically, everything that I have feared or prevented from happening is actually happening. I don't even know this ex employee, aside from what I hear from my colleagues. So gosh knows who else he has told about my pregnancy and now miscarriage.

Please, am I being unreasonable by complaining? Am I being precious?

If my line manager suspected I was pregnant back in January I think she was out of line telling this ex employee. I don't even work with him. I don't know how he knows. I am now going to ask him or this colleague I have told in confidence about my miscarriage so I can carefully discern my next steps.

Sorry for the very long post.

Thank you for reading.

@FlyingByTheSeatof

I had my miscarriage when I worked in a large organisation and loads of people would have known and spoken about it. Another woman had a stillborn and her friend an colleague who was pregnant at the same time didn't. these things happen all the time and people will talk about it as people care and work in a close environment it would be wierd if people didnt talk about it. It's a truly horrible thing to go through and hormones and emotions are strong but this really isn't something to be making an issue out of with regards to making a complaint as you will drag on your emotions and make everyone feel more uncomfortable than they do, why do that to yourself or others it's bit OTT.

Agreed - when younger I had two miscarriages at two different places of work (one large one smaller) and the larger one - it got out as I was off for recommended 3 weeks to recover. No one actually spoke to me about it apart from a woman who asked if I was ok when I got back. She did work in my team though.

I agree that although this is a horrid thing to be going with and that hormones and emotions are up in the air and making things more intense but I wouldn't make a complaint as this will just drag it out, exhaust you emotionally too and make feel feel uncomfy.

I'm so sorry for your loss.

But you seems to be "suspecting" and "assuming" a lot of things here. I would let it go, if I were you, or your risk making a much bigger issue of it, and possibly accusing others of things they did not do.

And the minute you tell one person who isn't legally bound to keep information confidential, you lose control of your information.

People talk. It happens in every working environment. It doesn’t mean it’s done with any malice. An ex colleague can be simply asking after someone and how they are or what’s happening/happened with the team.

I told my line manager I was 6 weeks pregnant and a week later over a team lunch she announced congratulations were needed as I was expecting and everyone congratulated me. I was mortified. I told her because we had a fantastic working relationship and a really close knit small team, I didn’t expect her to tell the team. And then 3 weeks later I had a miscarriage. No one said anything to me about it because everyone felt so awkward but it was obvious they would’ve spoken about it to each other.

I can understand your upset but I wouldn’t escalate it. Let it go.

On the opposite end of the spectrum I worked for a different company and with a very odd, unfriendly team and went on maternity leave and no one congratulated me, sent a card or anything. When I returned from maternity leave 6 months later colleagues told me they thought something had gone wrong, perhaps I’d had a stillborn because my line manager never spoke about me or made any announcement when my baby was born and they didn’t want to ask.

I am so sorry for your loss. I've miscarried twice, and it was awful.

But can you think of the converse side of this? If you'd found out that someone who'd known about your pregnancy had subsequently found out that you'd miscarried and NOT sent any kind of message of condolence? Would that not be worse, in a way? Even after nine months?

I think everyone only had good intentions. People don't really 'gossip' about pregnancy or miscarriage, except to compare their own experiences or to sympathise. I am sure any talking about it came from a good place, even if it was slightly mishandled.

[quote lyralalala]@mrsmb03

Am I missing something that I cant see how it is justifiable for current colleague to talk about my miscarriage because he thought I was pregnant because if that situation happened to me and I was told to keep miscarriage in confidence. what in would do is

If someone mentioned a colleague's pregnancy to me, especially given that they presumably (if they have known you were pregnant in January) mentioned it in a "Has X's baby arrived?" or "Y can't have long left to go now" then I likely would tell them quietly that there had been a miscarriage.

It's not a colleague's place to say, but having had someone who'd not seen me for months bound up to me saying "Ooh no bump, where's the baba then? Boy or girl?" three months after miscarrying, I think it would be the less horrible option to potentially betray a confidence than to allow a colleague to face that situation.

Whoever told the ex employee about your pregnancy, assuming they told them outright, was in the wrong, but I don't think your colleague (again assuming the ex employee mentioned it first) did the wrong thing there.

Ex employee shouldn't have told ex colleague any details. That's not their place.[/quote]
Yes, I would also do this. Purely because I would judge that this would be FAR less upsetting than the colleague asking loudly about the pregnancy, baby, gender, due date etc when there is no baby.
My motivation would be protection of the woman’s feelings. If this is the case I think you are wrong to make a complaint.

I’m very sorry for your loss 🌹

YABU sounds to me like you are just wanting someone to blame. I think you would look abit silly complaining tbth

I wouldn't be texting a close friend about a pregnancy loss they experienced 9 months ago let alone a passing acquaintance. What a plonker.

Exactly what a PP said: going forward, be careful divulging personal information at work. I hid my first pregnancy for 5 months in a gossipy workplace (it was an IVF one).

The most likely scenario is as lyra said. He asked about the baby/maternity leave and it was much more appropriate for her to quietly tell him than have him ask you about your baby!

I'm very sorry for your loss but in the gentlest way, I think you need to consider counselling. You're still this angry and grieving this much 9 months on so it might be wise to speak to a professional about your feelings.

It's not that I don't understand. I had a miscarriage and then had to have a hysterectomy in my early 30s. And it really messed me up!

But I think in this situation you're projecting. I really do.

Am I right that the person who texted you had actually never met before? If so what a strange first contact.

I can see why you are upset, it sounds like a little talking took place and it's brining up really painful memories for you. Why someone would text 8 months after is beyond me.

People talk, its not ideal but it happens. Its often not for malicious reasons either, they might just care about someone they work with.

You could escalate but ask yourself it this will help ease your pain or make you feel any better? How will it improve the situation for you?

xx

@stairgates

Am I right that the person who texted you had actually never met before? If so what a strange first contact.

I missed this?!

If that's the case then yes that's really inappropriate and weird.

If the ex employee is wanting to return to work, then isn't the most likely scenario that he asked if they needed anyone to cover your maternity leave, which meant the manager had to mention the miscarriage?
I mean if you didn't know the ex employee well I doubt he would've thought to bring you up unless it was related to him returning to work.
And sounds like he then braught it up in conversation with the other colleague, but noone is really at fault here if he didn't know it was privileged information and the manager had no option really as she couldn't just not respond if he already knew about the pregnancy.

I think OP says that the person who texted was a former colleague.

It may also be that a partner of his had been through something similar recently and he had first hand experience of how affected you may be. He may have been trying, clumsily, to open a dialogue.

You are not unreasonable to feel sad. But, as a PP said, counselling may be an idea to help you through the feelings.

It was a former colleague who texted.

OP, I’m so sorry but your obvious grief and sadness is skewing your judgement. People talk about this stuff, not maliciously but out of concern. And so others don’t put their foot in it.

My son was stillborn at 34 weeks. Nobody knew what to say. People crossed the street to avoid me or stared at their shoes and shuffled their feet. Needless to say, it made it all worse. Or they asked what I had and I had to tell them there was no baby.

I think you need to let this go and you need some counselling to help you deal with your loss. I’m so sorry this happened to you. 💐

I'm sorry for your loss, OP. It's a difficult situation that shouldn't have happened, but from an HR perspective, there's not a lot that will happen re a formal complaint if you make one, if I understand the chain of events correctly.

If I have, then I've dealt with similar issues a lot over the years and the upset nearly always comes back to a misunderstanding about how 'confidentiality' in a workplace actually applies.

If I have this correct, then you shared the news with your colleague. This is someone who is, to all intents and purposes, either a peer of yours or your junior. They are not your line manager, or in any management role towards you, and you made the disclosure as part of your ordinary 'chat', 'just in case'.

This is fine, and happens a lot, but it's important to understand that you chose to disclose, and that you did so to someone who has no actual, formal responsibility towards you in the workplace. You may have had 'reasons' to do so, but it remains that you offered the information directly, unprompted, to an individual who, by way of only being your co-worker, has no duty of confidentiality towards you. They aren't, and shouldn't be, expected to be holding or managing sensitive information about you in a workplace context.

From the viewpoint of your employer, if you felt the information needed to be known by someone in case of emergency, this should have been your manager, not a general colleague.

Disclosed this way - to your manager, in a closed meeting, with you stating you were telling them only so they were aware in an emergency - then, yes, there would a serious issue with the 'leak', but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Morally, your co-worker possibly shouldn't have said anything, although it sounds like they were trying to be helpful, tbh, but formally - from a company perspective - the information is classed as gossip between co-workers, and, as the information was put 'into the public domain' directly by you to the other person, then they're not held responsible for it past that. It doesn't actually matter if or how many times you said, 'don't tell anyone but....'. your employer can't police private gossip, they won't try and they aren't reasonably expected to.

I fully understand that it's upsetting, and I can completely see why, that it's being discussed, and you can ask for a message to be put out to ask people to stop , but other than that, there's not much that will be done.

I’m really shocked at some of these replies. I’ve line managed for many years and often told people that gossip comes back to bite you and In this instance it has. It’s not a discussion about a snog at the Christmas party it’s a discussion about someone’s health and well-being and a serious emotional subject that is absolutely none of anyone else’s business. The person who messaged you spoke out of turn and in the process has highlighted a serious set of breaches of confidentiality which are at best well intended and at worst a GDPR issue that is cause for disciplinary action. Gossip isn’t something that should be an accepted element of the workplace for precisely these reasons. It’s harmful and information gets lost in translation I’d speak to HR they may not take action but a few formal conversations might make everyone grow up and be careful about what they speculate about and discuss in future. Don’t feel you are making a fuss or getting anyone in trouble they can feel the consequence of their hurtful behaviour.

not digging OP (another one who has sadly been in your position and it was the worst time) but I'm not sure what you truly would of expected your colleague to say and what you would have done differently. have to be honest, if I was put on the spot like that by an ex colleague asking about had OP had their baby yet etc. I wouldnt of known what to say. what do you say!? I'm honestly struggling to think. would I suggest it wasnt my place and to ask OP (but no because why would you want reminding) would I lie and say oh I'm not sure (again, risk of colleague asking you themselves which would be worse in my opinion) I also cant imagine saying oh I cant talk about that because again, risks colleague asking you themselves.

I actually think you should be more annoyed at your former colleague who messaged you because that is ridiculous and inappropriate 8 months down the line, not the colleague who told them, I dont think they told them out of spite.

x

Please let this go. I know you are upset, but there is nothing to be gained by reporting this. Sorry this happened to you.

Firstly, I'm really sorry for your loss, it's very insensitive of your colleagues.

However, I have to say that you have to expect it if you tell people. Don't tell colleagues then they cannot gossip. If you need time off for sickness related to this just tell HR only. People just won't/can't keep their mouths shut so if you don't give them the info in the first place they can't do anything with it.

@mrsmb03 exactly this ;
I’m really shocked at some of these replies. I’ve line managed for many years and often told people that gossip comes back to bite you and In this instance it has. It’s not a discussion about a snog at the Christmas party it’s a discussion about someone’s health and well-being and a serious emotional subject that is absolutely none of anyone else’s business. The person who messaged you spoke out of turn and in the process has highlighted a serious set of breaches of confidentiality which are at best well intended and at worst a GDPR issue that is cause for disciplinary action. Gossip isn’t something that should be an accepted element of the workplace for precisely these reasons. It’s harmful and information gets lost in translation I’d speak to HR they may not take action but a few formal conversations might make everyone grow up and be careful about what they speculate about and discuss in future. Don’t feel you are making a fuss or getting anyone in trouble they can feel the consequence of their hurtful behaviour.

Well said @Ponypizzy