Male colleague. He's not my direct line manager but he is more senior than me. Doesn't have children and has always been a bit scathing of situations where people having children interferes with work (ie very intolerant of people having to leave early due to childcare failures etc). He's an outlier in a female-led office which is relatively chilled about this. It's a hard, long-hours job but people are fine for senior people to set their own hours as long as the work gets done. I'm relatively senior and have been with the company over seven years.
I've been drafted onto a project which he is leading and which has just kicked off. Only started up last week. I had to miss the first meeting because I had to take my DD to A&E for an asthma attack. I will also be missing the next meeting because I'll be on annual leave (booked long before this project was even thought of). So effectively I will have missed the first two sessions with this project, through no fault of my own. There are others on the team and its not an especially critical project, so it isn't as if he or the firm were massively inconvenienced by my not being on the call.
He marched up to me last week and, in front of all our colleagues, said: "why have you agreed to join X project if you aren't able to attend any of the sessions?" It was said with a bit of a wry smile and I think in his mind its acceptable banter. But actually I was pretty pissed with this. Am I supposed to apologise for having taken my daughter to hospital in a potentially life-threatening situation? I'm a single mother so there's no-one else who can step in in a situation like this. And for then -- quite by accident - been on pre-arranged holiday the following week? Am I supposed to cancel the leave?
I've been stewing on this for a bit. This guy has form for this sort of remark and in the past I just thought I had to suck it up but now I feel I shouldn't have to put up with this sort of thing.
I'm not going to make formal complaint now as it wouldn't help me but would I be U to start noting this sort of thing down and maybe complaining if it happens again? Or am I being precious and do I need to just chalk it up to experience and let it go? Aside from this guy I have no problems with anyone I work with and have never had issues like this from anyone other than him.