To ask for a better response to this comment?

[SarahLucSc]

I work in education. Towards the end of half term I became ill with what turned out to be strep throat and ended up being off work for the the majority of last week. I went in briefly on Friday as I needed to authorize something that can’t be done from home.

Had to pop into the school office whilst I was there and one of the office ladies gave a tinkly laugh and said ‘Oh I’m always suspicious when someone is off ill straight after a school holiday’. I just gawped at her and she followed up with ‘We should check if your children were in school this week’ and another tinkly laugh.

I was not myself and just stared at her before walking off - what would you have said in this situation, wise mumsnetters,
had you had your wits about you?

(for info, I am very much her senior in terms of work higerarchy, she’s worked at the school forever and has form for these kind of passive aggressive comments)

Nothing. You did the right thing.

It's not worth engaging with her.

“That’s personal; I’m not going to discuss that with you.”

Nothing as it was clearly a joke.

So she has foot in mouth syndrome? Everyone is suspicious about sickness on the start/end of holidays.

I used to do tracking of sickness absences and looked for around weekends etc

"Gosh. Isn't it exhausting living with such high paranoia and anxiety around what everyone else is doing? I have such an interesting and busy life I struggle to keep up with myself!"

Simply hint than she's a sad cow with an empty life to have so much time to think about other's!

Although you did the right thing by ignoring as it's professional but sometimes in some circumstances it takes one person to stand up to people like this and others get the confidence.

The only thing is then they play the professional victim and everyone is bullying them. 🙄

“What do you mean?” would be my response, make her articulate what she’s implying. Act like you don’t understand what she’s getting at as it’ll probably fluster her.

A Paddington hard stare, and a request for clarification usually gets the point across.

Yes, almost always the best way when someone is rude. Ask them either to repeat it, neutrally, as though you didn’t hear, or ask what they meant and watch them explain. You still retain the option of ripping their tonsils out with your bare hands down the line, obviously.

ask for clarification "what do you mean"/"why do you ask/think that" and keep repeating it. Tbh dignified silence and ignoring stupidity is not the worst way to go either.

I'm a bit of a twat though so when a coworker kept making jokes about me being part time and leaving early while he had to stay behind (I left 20 minutes early, agreed in my hiring interview and I wasn't paid for it) I just did the super cheerful in your face "I know!!" Or "I'm sooo lucky" and even "sucks to be you 😬" . It took two weeks but it stopped.

I get what you mean but she has nothing to do with tracking sickness (she’s the Receptionist) and regardless I have never been off sick around school holidays before.

Working in Finance means that you don't actually see the significant numbers of parents/children who just happen to come down with something straight after a holiday. Or that staff who work with the kids are instructed (and experience supports it) to treat absence just before or just after a holiday as somewhat dubious - you only have to read here regularly to see the number of 'just tell them she's sick' type of posts to see that it is used as a means to getting cheaper/longer holidays.

That doesn't mean the staff member was saying you were on holiday - sounds like she was trying to joke with you because it's absolutely what happens after ever half term.

Thank you for all the responses - going forward I will take the asking for clarification option!

Also thank you for making me laugh 😂

She thought you were skiving.

Nothing you can do to change that so just ignore.

Exactly what I would do

God

How on earth do some of you get through the day!

Surely it was just a joke???

Nothing to do with absence except taking calls and seeing the office@ emails with the details (even if there's a dedicated line and email address, parents do contact Reception, sometimes because they're trying to avoid speaking to the Attendance Officer)?

This. Lighten up OP

It is hard to portray the nuance of her language and tone in written form but it 100% was a barbed passive aggressive comment and not a joke.

(And just for extra info I don’t work in Finance, I am SLT and so do have access to staff sickness records whereas she has nothing to do with sickness tracking and sits in a different office to the HR Manager so would be hearing very little about staff sickness)

It was obvious she was joking because it's what every parent does before and after half term.

She thought you were slacking off

So what?

she was very tactless

are you a speech and language therapist?

Good lord, this was clearly relatively lighthearted about an office situation.

Thanks to this of you who understood that and made suggestions.