To want to leave my job because of how my boss has treated my miscarriage?

[Feliciacat]

I had a miscarriage last Wednesday and have been off work since. I tried to return to work today but saw that rather than my absence being stored separately as ‘pregnancy related sickness’, it’s been stored as normal sickness under menstrual disorders’. This means it will be on future references so will disadvantage me. I asked her about it and she said that she doesn’t think employers ask about sickness for references so it doesn’t matter. She then told me she was too busy to talk to me.

This follows her not being in contact with me while I’ve been off so not giving me any reassurance about returning to work and how things will be. When I felt unwell from ivf and requested to wfh, she said I couldn’t wfh just because I felt a bit ill (it wasn’t a bit ill, I felt really dizzy but could work if I didn’t have a commute).

Also, in my mid year review, she (having never discussed it with me) told me off because me and some coworkers were late for a train for a work trip and I ran on ahead and got on before them. She said that was sneaky of me but I thought we were all adults and responsible for ourselves? We all got on the train fine. In any case, you don’t bring up new information in mid year reviews.

She also puts me down when we’re alone and tells me my work isn’t good enough but will say my work is fine in front of other people. I think she gets off on saying what she likes when we’re alone.

I feel deeply unsupported and dismissed over my miscarriage. I can’t complain to HR because she is a senior HR worker and her best friend is head of HR. Another woman made a complaint about my boss being racist to her and she got her fired. I know it’s bad to quit but I can’t deal with her and nothing will change.

Tbf she shouldn't be in touch with you during time off for a miscarriage! That would be highly inappropriate.

I'm so sorry for your loss. 💐

It sounds like an awful place to work so I don't blame you for wanting to quit.

I’m so sorry to hear of your loss. I would get in touch with your GP who should be able to classify the leave as pregnancy related.

I'm so sorry for your loss. Totally unfair how your boss is treating you and has treated you. I don't blame you for wanting to leave. Hope you get something better. I had an awful boss and now have a decent boss. My happiness is so much better.

Absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to leave a job where you are feeling unsupported!

Good luck with the search for a new job!

I'm so sorry for your loss. You must be feeling so raw.

I don't think she was unreasonable not contacting you while you were off.

But she sounds very cold and unsupportive. You clearly don't feel as though she has your back.

I don't blame you for wanting to leave.

If I were you, I'd email her to ask her to change the sickness record to pregnancy related (presumably backed up by medical documentation). And then start looking for a new job with an employer who cares about their staff.

Why do you think it’s bad to quit? Just quit. I would never work with people that made me feel shit like this. Don’t burn your bridges but leave with dignity and say it’s time to go.

Thank you all very much. It’s partly that my husband is very stressed in his work and he’d like me to earn more money. I’m an HR Assistant and on £29000 in this role. Other equivalent roles are only £25000 or so. So it’s stressful for him if I leave this job. This job is only until March anyway though.

On account of my manager not being great then (although I initially did learn a lot by virtue of it being a new job) I’m not learning much now. She gives different work to different people so I’m always doing the same stuff. So I do think that if I took a lower paying job then I’d learn more and maybe get something higher paying in the future.

She’s knocked my confidence quite a bit. I do feel like I’ll be ruined if I don’t leave.

So sorry for your loss.
Your boss sounds like an ar$e. Speak to your GP for a sick cert. It will state miscarriage.

Your manager doesn’t sound like a nice person.

Does she have children? I only ask because she may not realise how traumatic a miscarriage is if she didn’t want children herself.

Firstly, sorry to hear your news.

What do your policies say about coding absence for a miscarriage? Pregnancy related should be excluded from Bradford scoring calculations etc, so if your policies define a miscarriage as being pregnancy related then I would push for it to be recoded.

ACAS have some guidance on this here:-

https://www.acas.org.uk/time-off-for-bereavement/stillbirth-or-miscarriage#:~:text=after%20a%20miscarriage-,If%20a%20miscarriage%20happens%20in%20the%20first%2024%20weeks%20of,'pregnancy%2Drelated%20illness'.

She sounds awful. You've got enough on your plate without having to deal with her and worry about work. If it's only til march anyway I'd definitely quit and tell her some of the reasoning when you leave! Your mental wellbeing is more important at the moment, take care of yourself x

The crazy thing is that she has had about three miscarriages and she has two children. They’re grown up now. Maybe policies weren’t so nice when she was of child bearing age. But she’s a senior Employment Relations advisor so I would have thought she’d know the updated policies?

I didn't think work were allowed to contact you if you were off sick, so that's not an issue.

It’s a common misconception that this is the case. However, it has been proven to help people feel better about returning to work if they are contacted to see how they are. Certainly in the company I work at, my boss is always saying how important it is for managers to show care by checking in with their colleagues who are off sick. But she hasn’t at all. It has made me feel uncared about.

The far bigger problem is penalising me by putting it down as normal sick leave for ‘menstrual disorders’. That’s going to harm my future job prospects. Plus I feel really invalidated by having a miscarriage dismissed as menstrual disorders.

Was it a very early unannounced pregnancy? I could understand that being store as normal sickness, to be discreet sort of thing. If you'd told everyone you were pregnancy then should have definitely been as pregnancy sickness.

It’s unlawful to store miscarriage as regular sickness because then it adds to the individual’s sickness absence and that’s sex discrimination as men don’t have the same issue. I had told everyone since it was an ivf pregnancy and I’d needed to work flexibly so everyone knew what was going on. It was at six weeks and clinical pregnancy is defined as five weeks plus. So it’s definitely discriminatory. ACAS say miscarriage should be stored separately from regular sickness and should not be classed as regular sickness.

It's not a company policy thing, it's pregnancy related sickness and is required to be recorded as such. Individual company policies can't circumvent that.

Sorry for your loss. Are you in Scotland? I had help from the charity 'baby loss retreat' for a similar experience. Give them a message if you're based up here. Sending love to you either way.

Thank you @KoalaCalledKevin; this is exactly right. I’m not asking for anything unreasonable but my boss is making me feel so stupid and undervalued. Plus it’s going to harm my job hunt. I am very new to HR and I can’t believe there are senior people like this. It puts me off!

Thank you so much for the recommendation. I’m not in Scotland but I’ll look into doing something nice anyway.

What else would a miscarriage be other than pregnancy related??

I'm very sorry for your loss. I agree that miscarriage should have been recorded as pregnancy related, and I would ask again for this to be amended. You can provide medical evidence to support this. Under GDPR, employers have an obligation to ensure that any information they store about you is accurate, and a miscarriage clearly isn't a menstrual disorder, so you have every right to ask that your record is corrected.

I don't agree that she should have contacted you while you were off, unless you made it clear that you actually wanted such contact. You were not off for long enough to warrant that kind of contact in my view, and under the circumstances, I would have assumed that you needed some uninterrupted time to process your loss. I would contact someone who was off for a much longer period, though... just to check in on them.

I don't think it was unreasonable for her to suggest that, if you're ill, you should take sick leave rather than wfh.

And obviously, it wouldn't be appropriate for her to criticise your work in public in front of other colleagues. I would expect her to address any issues with you on a 1:1 basis. Would you really prefer it if she aired her concerns in front of everyone?

With regard to not letting me wfh, she wouldn’t let me take sick leave either. She just point blank refused to let me wfh. I agree with you that refusing wfh if an employee should be off sick is the right thing to do. That’s not what she was doing.

In the mid year review, she said my slides for my presentation weren’t good enough, I asked how I could improve…she showed me some different formats for the slides…the same feedback she’d already given me which I’d acted on and had approved by her when I’d made the changes…I do believe she was trying to be spiteful as that day, she’d been telling my team about another colleague’s sex life. I looked shocked and she asked why. I said the colleague would not want us to know about his sex life (he was religious and newly married). She talked down to me and said it was ok as she was friends with this guy and they’d had the conversation on a train away from work. I said it was still a work-related conversation and she didn’t like that.

I don’t see how it would affect a future job. The reason for each individual period of sickness aren’t noted down in a reference. When I write one it’s very factual .. dates and job title, nothing additional.