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 😉)

So awful of her.

You had already apologised for the performance issue (despite there being fault on both sides and difficult circumstances) and promised to make changes.

You then made a separate apology/explanation for crying when basically being bullied under the guise of 'management' from someone who shouldn't be managing you. You gave personal health information to do so.

She uses that as an excuse to return to the original bullying, using the personal health information as ammunition, anticipating mistakes you hadn't yet made (either by not addressing the performance error, or by using pregnancy as an 'excuse') and implying you might make them. She also bizarrely justified this by implying that your choice was an undesirable one as she would never make it herself and implied this allowed her to treat your disclosure with the utmost suspicion.

A bizarre, unprofessional and inhumane person. I don't know what you should do about it, but ideally she should be spoken to by someone.

bluntness you're a nasty piece of work.

But ultimately, she's still going to be a sad, embittered, unprofessional individual and you are going to be a very happy mum....

Okay so she pulls you aside, "laid into" you over mistakes made. You explained they were made due to you being under pressure and having to do the job of 2 people. I assume she was rude/unpleasant. Her approach lead you to become upset. You then apologised to her and explained you were maybe more upset than usual due to you being in early pregnancy.
Instead of accepting your apology and listening/understanding, she then got a cheap shot in and said she has no desire to ever be in your position (pregnant) and you better not use that as an excuse for making mistakes. Which, you didn't do anyway.

This woman lacks tact and people skills. She's also a bad listener and has twisted what you said about being emotional into "you're not capable of doing you're job correctly because you're pregnant".
You're not being overly sensitive, but pregnancy can make you feel vulnerable and sometimes you doubt how you're feeling. YNBU to feel how you are. How she's approached and dealt with the situation is poor.

@namechangingforthis19586 I found the comment she made about pregnancy not being desirable for herself quite concerning as well and you've explained why better than me.

She sounds a right bully. You weren't using your pregnancy as an excuse for work mistakes, you were saying it was a reason for getting emotional. But you are entitled to get upset when someone is rude and nasty to you.

namechanging has it spot on.

Write down exactly what happened, as much as you can remember, factually and then go and see your manager. This is bullying behaviour.

Depending on the culture at your work, and how supportive / effective your mutual boss is - you can see if it ends there or if it goes to HR as a formal complaint.

Tbh your manager probably isn’t that effective given she has a history of this.

You can also have a conversation about it your workload with your boss and get this other responsibility removed from your job whilst your colleague is on long term sick.

@ReginaaPhalange. SHE NEEDS A DISCIPLINARY AND YOU TO MAKE A FORMAL GRIEVANCE ASAP

It's not surprising mistakes are being made if your colleague is on long-term sickness and you're picking up the slack It is nigh impossible for one person to do a two-person job, effectively!

Could they get someone, on bank, to ease the workload?

Bluntness’s late night shitty posts make me think she’s a drinker. 😂

Mind you, all of her posts tend to be quite nasty and always contrary.

Pebbledashery

"BUT you shouldn't have mentioned your pregnancy at all. Especially early pregnancy. She didn't have to know. You didn't use your pregnancy as an excuse for mistakes, but there was no reason at all to mention it to her."

Except that the OP wanted to mention it and tell someone the reason for being extra emotional at work. We do not need an excuse for crying if upset. It's a perfectly legitimate response to someone bring shitty to you. But if you also have a biological reason as well, it's fine to mention it. Being pregnant at work isn't a yahoo topic.

I think it would be a good idea to write brief bullet points in advance of your meeting with your manager, and send an email. You already know that you’re tired from being overstretched in your main role, and early pregnancy can really take a toll on your body- there’s no need to put yourself under additional pressure by trying to explain yourself in the meeting.

It might look something like this:

• You have continued to work on this additional role despite having to work unpaid overtime on your main role due to staff shortages.
• You have repeatedly asked for additional training and advice from colleague, but each request has been met with a response to act on your initiative. Errors have not been brought to your attention until several weeks later.
• On colleagues list, items ABC are your errors and you are happy to undertake training to understand this process. Items DEF were completed as required. Items XYZ were allocated to another colleague.
• To move forward, you would like to request a directive from your manager about time allocation for your main role and the additional role. You also wish to undertake formal training for the additional role, as the initial approach of ‘do what you think’ suggested by your colleague hasn’t worked.

OP you said you do not take breaks and stay after work. Please make sure this changes or you will run yourself raged.

NHS? Email her and get a paper trail. It is good practice to email and set out expectations anyway after a conversation like this, but now it's even more important RE: the comment.

"Further to our conversation about XYZ [set out a list of improvements she wants from you and what you are doing to achieve them].

"In addition, please refrain from [insert part about pregnancy here]"

CC in your boss as she was so keen to involve them anyway.

You can fill in the blanks but Public sector orgs are all about written evidence, keeping diaries etc. If you don't, it is hearsay and "he said/She said".

Everything in writing OP.

Sorry OP, I see you have already decided to do this! It's a smart move. From here in in document everything in a diary and follow ANY verbal comms up with an email.

I have been there and it's not nice

I'll get flamed for this but I employed a lady throughout her pregnancy and she was bloody useless from the day she told me she was pregnant, she was perfectly ok prior to this.

It was excuse after excuse of baby brain, hormones etc and I was totally trapped with a useless employee as I couldn't be seen to discipline her.

It wore very thin with me and the rest of the team. It's a very tricky situation for women on all sides, I've had two babies myself and couldn't fathom the excuses. It was like I'd employed two different people at one point she literally forgot she was employed to be doing a job and not just being paid to be pregnant in the company.

Yeah, totally not the same - but thank you for sharing your completely irrelevant story there omgwhy

@omgwhy
Not sure why you felt the need to share this story, but has it occurred to you that the woman was badly affected by her pregnancy? So what you've had two kids, no woman's experience is the same. Maybe she needed more support rather than judgement from you and the whole team. As you say, she was perfectly ok as an employee until she was pregnant.

@Freecuthbert she had full support, days off reduced hours everything she needed and wanted.

She was also judged silently because of the non stop excuses, the story is relevant to the OPs post that's why I shared it.

No it’s not relevant at all - in fact, it’s completely and utterly different and bears no relevance to the OP, other than a pregnancy.

This woman is a bully. She needs reporting.

Eh...bloomin' use pregnancy as a reason if needed. It is not an excuse. It is a reason though! It is exhausting and hormonally so tough! Does your colleague know pregnant women are a protected group under the Equality Act???

One pay band senior or not, she’s not your line manager and she should not be treating you like she is. You explained the reasons for the mistakes, these are unrelated to your pregnancy and had you not been outwardly emotional you would not have mentioned the pregnancy and she’d be none the wiser. Presumably she’s intelligent enough to have listened, processed and separated the two parts of the conversation so there was no need for her to make the comments she did about you being pregnant.
Frankly she’s setting herself up for a grievance hearing treating you like that and I’d advise you not to hesitate pulling her up if you feel she now discriminated against you for being pregnant.

She's a horrible bully - report her to HR

[quote ReginaaPhalange]@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.
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Bypass your manager and just raise a grievance with HR and if in a large company write a tipping off letter to your CEO that this manager is a bully and using your pregnancy against you. If you have kept a good diary of events this manager may be asked to resign fairly quickly.