Loathe my coworker, can I asked to be separated from her so I don’t lose my shit

[ThePunnyPeachPoet]

I have severe endometriosis and it took me and my partner 3 years to get pregnant. Got declined NHS IVF due to partner having a child from previous relationship. In process of saving up for private IVF we got pregnant naturally, which was a miracle as my inside have been essentially decimated by my endometriosis.

Had a bleeding scare at 7 weeks but in the end were assured it was normal and just things “settling” so to speak. Pregnancy was going well. Had a lovely textbook 12-weeks scan, healthy beautiful looking baby. We finally dared to dream we’d actually get a baby.

At 13 weeks pregnant, my coworker who I sat next to every day at work came in on the Monday extremely ill. Constant sniffing, complaining about brain fog and stomach issues, headaches, coughing and sneezing green mucus. I was on edge all day and worried about catching her virus, unfortunately working from home isn’t an option for me (entry level role) and it’s designated desks with no office space so I wasn’t able to ask a manager to let me move away from her. She was coughing, sneezing, not covering her mouth. At several occasions she sneezed without covering her mouth and droplets landed on my work equipment, I saw them. It’s a busy job with constant phone calls so I couldn’t always clean up straight away. I was so on edge and wanted to say something but couldn’t as I’m weak I suppose and she is one of the staff I report to. On the Wednesday she mentioned her daughter who is a nurse worked on a dementia ward and there was an outbreak of a bad virus and she mentioned that her daughter had probably given it to her. I was terrified for my baby. I didn’t want to disclose pregnancy this early as I’m still in probation period.

By the Friday I had the illness and it hit me like a truck. I couldn’t move, felt like I was going to pass out every time I got out of bed and could only eat grapes (I hadn’t had pregnancy aversions prior so I think it was the the virus). Had D+V, brain fog, general weakness. Temperature switching between low and hot. Ended up referred to A&E at one point by 111 for low body temp. Got a home Covid test which did confirm Covid. At one point I had a fall when stood at the sink brushing my teeth. I was like this for a 4 days, I still have the virus now as it’s lingering, it’s been weeks, gradually improving.

On the Sunday after I came down with it (still very ill) I woke up and my sore boobs that I’d had throughout the pregnancy had gone and I had a terrible gut feeling. I miscarried at home on the Monday. I don’t want to go too much into the miscarriage but it was horrendous, I was and still am broken. The staff I saw at the hospital said it could be just one of those things but did say also that my inflammation, infection, blood cell and stress markers were high and someone from the pregnancy unit did confirm it is possible my body couldn’t cope with fighting the virus and maintaining the pregnancy at the same time so may have terminated the pregnancy.

This was all a few weeks ago, I was able to take 2 weeks off work. When I went back the coworker was on annual leave. I saw her for the first time yesterday and I am so so angry at her. I know logically it’s not her fault, and she didn’t know I was pregnant, but I can help but think of her as a selfish scumbag for coming in knowing she was so ill. The real kicker is that she is my superior and the nature of her role means she is allowed to work from home whenever she likes, she chooses to come in for a ocial interaction. The first day I saw her I wanted to throttle her to be honest, of course I wouldn’t actually do anything. When she was ill she was so fucking casual about it, laughing etc about how she feels like death. Other coworkers are carers etc for ill relatives, I can’t help but think she’s fucking vile. I know I’m being irrational because of the miscarriage but I can’t bear her fucking face.

Today I’ve also been struggling to function next to her. I’ve been given extra rest breaks etc by management as they know of my situation but I am genuinely wondering whether to ask if I can be separated from her if I explain why. Would I be considered a bully if I requested this? I’m really struggling.

Or look at it this way, she’s ranting anonymously on a forum about her co-worker to get her feelings out and articulate them so she doesn’t do it to her colleague’s face. I think she needs to get it off her chest, personally. Get all the anger out in a safe place (well, safer than doing it at work!) and have her feelings validated somewhat. She seems extremely self aware, I don’t think anyone on this thread is going to cause her to confront the colleague.

Just to be clear I absolutely didn't insinuate OP was partly to blame. I'm talking about in the context of people blaming the co worker for the OPs loss, she didn't know about the pregnancy. That is very relevant.

How do you know she isn't? Covid is constantly evolving so even if you have all the jabs you can still get a bad case. It's quite common for this to happen

I can't believe people are just ignoring the social pressure to turn up for work regardless of illness. It's not "obvious" at all that you should stay at home with a relatively mild illness - there's generally speaking more social reward for turning up regardless.

This is a Tory Party spokesperson criticising Labour's plan to give every worker sick pay from Day One

Baroness Noakes, the Conservative peer, said: “Extending the days for which payment is made is likely to increase the number of days lost to sickness, as the current incentive to work if the illness is mild will simply disappear.

Have a look at this thread and how many people feel unable to take sick leave as their employer makes life so unpleasant if they do

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4812506-do-you-go-into-work-poorly

But if you can WFH you do that, like the colleague could
our work asks that people WFH if they have a cold but are ok to work, and there’s no issue with it
yet people still keep coming in.
That’s why I WFH now FT as I’m immunocompromised and my colleague has a child with cancer so he WFH too as people can’t seem to realise it’s not ok to come in coughing and snotting everywhere

people always say oh I can’t stay home with a mild illness but you’re forcing other people who are immunocompromised to stay home for the rest of their life - I understand people have to work but in a situt where you CAN wfh with no issues, why aren’t they?

"She 100% has the option to work from home when she likes, she has told me this in conversation. Her job role is manning a drop-in support chat for lower-level colleagues on Teams."

Drop in to the support group and talk about the situation speaking about her in the third person?

If your organisation is large enough to offer this type of support, do they have an EAP scheme? Most of these can offer six weeks of counselling that you may find helpful to support your grieving.

The world doesn't revolve around the immunocompromised and they can't expect the rest of society to go into lockdown when they get a sniffle. The onus is 100% on those people to avoid public spaces.

How could the OP have avoided the “public space” that was work? The vile coworker who was clearly ill could have worked from home, but they chose not to and then furthermore chose to have disgusting hygiene habits.

In addition, Covid has been shown in some studies to increase the risk of early miscarriage. Therefore I don’t think it’s completely crazy for the OP to make the connection.

OP has a long history of miscarriage. Are we going to look for something tenuous to blame that on as well. I’m surprised none of you have blamed her partners sperm yet.

What happened to OP is precisely the reason people should be more considerate and not spread their germs around them when sick. You just don't know who might be immunocompromised, who might be pregnant, who might have a vulnerable parent at home who should not catch it etc. Being considerate means at the very least wearing a mask for the benefit of OTHERS and not just think about oneself. I would be very angry with this woman too.

What an insensitive post. What do you think a post like that accomplishes on a thread where someone is grieving?

I really don’t think that it is helping the OP to have her hatred of her colleague stirred up and validated as so many are doing on his thread.
The facts are that it is a tragedy that the OP lost her baby but it really isn’t her colleagues fault even if the virus contributed to the miscarriage.
I think it would be more helpful for the OP to get some grief therapy to work through her understandable but irrational grudge against her colleague so that she can work along side her and not have to change jobs.

Another fact is that OP is getting a lot of validation because a lot of us share her anger that this person came in ill when she didn't have to. It's not possible to know for sure whether this selfish colleague's insistence on coming to work while ill when she could have wfh, simply because she wanted social interaction, contributed to OP's loss. Maybe it did, maybe it didn't. But this ties into the wider issue of whether people should come to work ill when they could just as easily wfh, personally I feel very strongly that they shouldn't. Some people are immunocompromised, some may be expecting like OP, some simply have a tendency to catch everything going. It's not fair on colleagues for someone to insist on coming in ill when they don't need to.

I definitely agree that grief therapy could be helpful for OP as well, but we honestly can't say for sure that the colleague's actions didn't contribute to the loss of her pregnancy, and for that reason I personally think her anger is warranted and not an 'irrational grudge'.

But either way, the pp I objected to wasn't expressing anything constructive whatsoever but chose instead just to snipe at other pps. That's of no value to OP whatsoever.

You poor poor thing.

My heart genuinely broke for you when I read this. I've also experienced losses, a MC and an ectopic.

The government have now instilled Bereavement leave for baby loss, take a look and see if you can take it when your dental issues are sorted.

Then use that time to find another job.

Look, we'll never know if it was this selfish cow or not, and I think when you're ready some counselling to come to terms with that could really help, but for now fuck this woman and fuck this job.

I'm so sorry. 💐