WIBU - colleague told me not to use pregnancy as an excuse

[ReginaaPhalange]

Not NC for this, don't care if this puts me!

During the week, I had a meeting with another colleague in my team to discuss something that I am involved in at work. It is in my contract to assist with this certain process, but it is not my main task and I am employed for another project.

Basically, she pulled me into an office and laid into me for small mistakes I've been making and I admit I have been and my explanation for that is I am on my own at work (other team member is on long term sick) and I am feeling the pressure with trying to make progress and meet targets. I did explain this to her but she just went on and on saying that the minor mistakes I made are not what she expects from the level of someone on my salary. I agree. I admitted to her that I am trying to get her small part of the process done quickly so I can go back to my main job and work on that.

Anyway, I got out of character very emotional and started crying - she just looked at me, sighed and shook her head then went back to laying into me.

She told me she's feeding this convo back to the main boss - fine, she's entitled to as the process I am involved in contributes to her main job.

At the end of the meeting, I apologised for getting overly emotional and told her that I would be telling my colleagues today that I am in my first trimester of pregnancy so clearly my emotions are all over the place just now and again apologised for the out of character emotional outburst.

Her reply? "Well having never gone what you're going through, and having no desire to ever do, I don't expect you to use your pregnancy as an excuse to continue making mistakes and I want to see improvement from you".

I have had time to reflect on the chat but to be honest, I'm actually angry at her comment about me using my pregnancy as an excuse.

WIBU to pull her up about it on Monday and tell her that her comments were completely unacceptable and I will not tolerate someone speaking like that to me, pregnant or not?

Feel free to tell me that I am being overly sensitive and that IABU. I won't cry (much 😉)

Not an excuse - a reason.

A good manager does not attempt to belittle a member of their team. If someone is that upset then the correct approach is to pause the conversation - berating someone achieves precisely nothing. She sounds like a poorly performing manager who simply isn’t up to the job.

@user145678945648945645789456 'conscious choice to rush and make mistakes'? Where have you extrapolated that from?
While there are professional standards conditions are not always ideal. If OP is picking up the slack of her long-term sick colleague as well and I spotted minor (MINOR mistakes, so obviously not something going to cost millions of pounds, lost lives or similar) mistakes I'd say she was doing well. If the team is under resourced person she should speak to is OP's manager. There's a limit to one person's capacity.

Also again depends on type of mistake. If it was grammar or anything that spell check would have picked it's sloppy. Forgetting to add something to an agenda, or sending wrong slides are the sort that are likely to happen when a team is busy or overworked. If I saw those sort happen regularly my first thought would be to check the workload of team , not to berate them.

Oh - and when someone is under pressure because the they’re doing the job of 2 people then a good manager should take account of that and give due consideration to how they can be supported during a challenging time.

But you were using it as an excuse! And I don't blame her for being irritated by the tears.

Get some support from HR first to discuss how you feel and report the behaviour. HR will outline the company procedures for dealing with complaints. At the very least, this individual needs an advisory meeting at which she is advised that such behaviour puts the business at risk and that she is required to attend coaching or training that is compulsory to equip her with the necessary knowledge to ensure she understands the error of her ways. She should also be asked to apologise to you in front of your manager.

🙄

Wrong thread

@user145678945648945645789456 and where did OP state she does not value her colleague's work and is consciously rushing and making mistakes? I can't seem to find that information in the thread, I'm assuming you just made this up out of thin air? Why?

Please can I come work there??? Please tell me your employer or any employer that doesn’t tolerate bullying, I beg of you. I’m getting bullied & sexually harassed at work in a care home, managers don’t do anything about it, tell me to ignore it, they also make me cry often & my mental health is awful now, I have ptsd but when I get bullied, it triggers me to self-harm, I wasn’t self-harming for many years, before starting this job. My mother died in March & I’m upset that I couldn’t go to see her, it’s so complicated & the work bullying is just something I don’t need & cannot deal with anymore.

Thats dreadful behaviour from her. Bullying. You should take out a grievance against her. You would have a case I think.

@AutomaticMoon

Please can I come work there??? Please tell me your employer or any employer that doesn’t tolerate bullying, I beg of you. I’m getting bullied & sexually harassed at work in a care home, managers don’t do anything about it, tell me to ignore it, they also make me cry often & my mental health is awful now, I have ptsd but when I get bullied, it triggers me to self-harm, I wasn’t self-harming for many years, before starting this job. My mother died in March & I’m upset that I couldn’t go to see her, it’s so complicated & the work bullying is just something I don’t need & cannot deal with anymore.

I'm really sorry to hear of your situation, it's dreadful that you are being treated like this and no-one deserves that. A workplace should be a safe place. Bullying can and does happen in many places of work, but a good organisation will not tolerate this behaviour. I suggest you leave, there are lots and lots of care jobs going at the moment, so you should easily find a different care company that will not only value you as an employer but also as a human being.

DrinkFeckArseBrick this is exactly it. Can I work with you?

[quote Freecuthbert]@user145678945648945645789456 and where did OP state she does not value her colleague's work and is consciously rushing and making mistakes? I can't seem to find that information in the thread, I'm assuming you just made this up out of thin air? Why?[/quote]
To be fair, in the OP she does say that this piece of work is not her main job and as she is feeling under pressure (presumably in the main bit of her job) she is trying to do the bits of work for this woman as quickly as possible in order to get back to her main job, and seems to imply that she offered this as a partial excuse for the mistakes. However, presumably this activity is the other woman's main job and OP's mistakes are causing issues for her.
Op is clearly overworked and that isnt her fault...but she is also showing disregard for this woman's role and making her life harder.
I must admit, I do agree both parties dont come out of this exchange well and I think it's a bit harsh to try to "bring this other woman down" for her slightly irate comments after an emotional encounter for both and to try and get her reported for "bullying" to HR, as some posters seem to be suggesting. Her comment was out of line, but it was OP who brought up pregnancy not her, and it sounds like they both agree that it is not an excuse for poor performance.
I think much better and less escalating way fo dealing with this is for OP to talk to her manager about workload and that this other woman is upset at the errors, felt the need to speak to her about it, and therefore OP needs either more training or less pressure/workload. If the woman continues to do act this way, that is bullying. But one exchange where she is clearly frustrated at her own job being impacted and then had to deal with OP crying, which some people are better at dealing with than others, seems a bit unfair to try to tarnish her whole character and reputation with. It may have seemed like a dressing down but maybe she thought she was doing OP a favour by speaking to her directly before escalating her repeated errors higher up...

It may have seemed like a dressing down but maybe she thought she was doing OP a favour by speaking to her directly before escalating her repeated errors higher up...

If she genuinely thought that then she’s really not up to the role. A conversation with HR and the OPs manager will be an excellent learning opportunity for her.

To clarify. This is not a one off. Colleague has history of treating people like dirt for years. There's another colleague in the team who is having issues with her with the way she speaks to people. She is not friendly, she is not approachable and doesn't believe in feedback, so if I am making the same error, she should tell me there and then, otherwise I'll use my initiative when she says "do what you think"

It seems to me that, particularly if this woman is not the OP's manager or senior to her, her attitude was totally out of order. OK, there were some mistakes but a reasonable first approach to the OP would have been more on the lines of "I do appreciate you helping me out with this while (other employee) is off sick but I have found it a bit of a problem that one or two of these things weren't done correctly. Can you be extra careful in future please?" not a full throwing of toys out of the pram. Then, if the problem had continued, the other person should have probably gone to their manager and said "Having Regina doing this doesn't seem to be working out as she is really too stretched" or said to OP "How can we sort this out?" Even if she were the manager it sounds as though her approach was far too aggressive and confrontational.

@LilMidge01
I feel like the OP made it very clear that she is working alone so understaffed, that training is inadequate and she is receiving little guidance regarding her colleague's main work, but this poster chooses to ignore all of this and instead embellish information and twist what the OP has said. Her colleague is also not her manager and I would not expect colleagues pulling up other colleagues in such a manner, very unprofessional. OP did not use pregnancy as an excuse, she was very upset and then explained she is hormonal due to the pregnancy. The woman then had to go further with this and mention the possibility of this being used as an excuse in the future for poor performance? There was no need for that. It may very well be that this woman is under pressure too and went about things the wrong way and I don't disagree with that and it's not something I think should be punished. It still needs to be brought to the manager's attention though to ensure this does not happen again. The OP also needs to be better supported at work, the staff shortage and lack of training is not her fault. Besides, from what OP has said the errors seem to be minor. None of this would have happened if the woman reported to the manager in the first place for them to deal with this. Circumventing that and playing manager is not doing a colleague a favour.

@Freecuthbert THIS!!!! You have hit the nail on the head.

She was out of order speaking to me the way she did. It was not justified and I felt backed into a corner to explain why I was so emotional when usually I can let things slide.

I am so busy with my main role, the job which I am employed to do- I work through lunch, I'm in well past 5:30pm every night and there's just not enough hours in the day to get my work done and I don't need the extra pressure of this on me, especially when I've had no training, told to do what I think which is clearly wrong. I have no experience with her field of work, so how can I possibly know what to do. I can't ask for help from her cause she just dismisses me, asks me "what do I think" then let's me get on with it thinking I've done it right, only to bring it up a matter of weeks later to say it was wrong.

She has feedback to my manager which is fine, but I will be having the discussion with the manager to say I do not appreciate the way she conducted the meeting and how she spoke to me.

@ReginaaPhalange
Just seen your update. Anyone having continuing issues with her professionalism should follow the relevant complaints policy and procedure. I would try and stay out of whatever other feuds she is having, and don't discuss what she did to you with other colleagues. You do not want to get caught up in this and be accused of gossiping or even bullying. I have seen people be bullied relentlessly by someone and they discussed this amongst themselves rather than complaining properly, they got pulled up for gossiping and bullying and they ended up coming out of it really badly. Not a dig at you in the slightest, I am very much on your side in this! Please speak to your manager

I wish you the best of luck with all of this OP. Hopefully you have a supportive manager

She went too far. She was unprofessional. You are doing more than expected and not properly supported. YANBU

That was bullying. And pregnancy is a protected characteristic so she is a double bitch. And doubly stupid. While you decide what to do, please write yourself some notes of the conversation which took place. Anything you remember as a direct quote, put in speech marks. Email it to yoursself. Separately please email yourself a statement about how it made you feel. Both of these will be useful to you should you pursue disciplinary action. Keep them on separate emails though as you may only wish to use the notes in evidence, but the statement will remind you how shitty she made you feel - even if you don't choose to submit it. You may very well not be thinking of taking action, but this buys you time until you decide. Or something further may happen and you'll wish you had "proof" of previous behaviour.

YANBU what an awful woman!!!

[quote Freecuthbert]@ReginaaPhalange
Just seen your update. Anyone having continuing issues with her professionalism should follow the relevant complaints policy and procedure. I would try and stay out of whatever other feuds she is having, and don't discuss what she did to you with other colleagues. You do not want to get caught up in this and be accused of gossiping or even bullying. I have seen people be bullied relentlessly by someone and they discussed this amongst themselves rather than complaining properly, they got pulled up for gossiping and bullying and they ended up coming out of it really badly. Not a dig at you in the slightest, I am very much on your side in this! Please speak to your manager[/quote]
Also, all of this.

Has she spoken about this mistake with you before ? Sounds like she went from 0 to 100! Inappropriate for sure regardless of the pregnancy comment that is extra rude !