Boss Reaction to Pregnancy

[chellemcf]

Hi All,

wondering if there are any other stories of how bosses reacted and if it was bad, did they come round?

My Story...

I have been careful about telling no-one about this pregnancy. Which has been hard as due to only carbs helping my sickness I have ballooned a little!!!

So, I had booked the day off for my scan on a Wednesday. One the Monday I had a meeting with my boss. During this meeting he asked why I was off on Monday (he has never asked this before) So i simply said I had a family commitment. He just asked me outright if i was pregnant. I replied that I wasn't, I simply wasn't ready to tell anyone until I had my scan.

I had my scan and all was well, strong heartbeat, even a wave!!! lol

So on Thursday I was keen to let them know. I asked him for a meeting. When we went into the room I sat down and he refused. I stated I was pregnant and he waved his hand at me and said ' Fine, tell HR, they deal with this ' I tried to continue speaking to explain my dates etc, he just kept saying 'fine, fine' as he moved to the door and walked out and just left me sitting.

Since then, he has refused to speak to me. Cancelled all our meetings and has taken work off me.

Everyone else has been lovely. My head of department cheered and hugged me. HR were wonderful.

Really confused by his reaction. Normally we would have had a good working relationship.

Has anyone else had such a reaction? I am a bit worried over the coming months I will have NO work on and just be internet shopping A LOT.

Any advice? Should I speak to HR or someone else more senior to highlight my concerns or would that make it a million times worse?

Could it be personal? Could he have feelings for you which he is struggling to deal with?

It's difficult with this - perhaps (and please believe me when I say that I don't agree with his reaction if this is the case) he is upset that he asked you a direct question and you didn't tell the truth? Maybe he thinks you have the sort of relationship where you would tell him?
Whenever Ive told work that I'm
Pregnant, I have done so, in confidence to my boss, at around 6 weeks - to give notice that I will be starting to attend appointments etc. this has always gone down well - but I can understand you not wanting to say anything until a good scan.

He could be upset that you didn't tell him the truth about your scan (he shouldn't have asked the question, and you are entitled to say what you like, so no judgement) or he could just be upset overall...

However, it is discrimination for him to take work off you as soon as he's knows you are pregnant. What relationship do you have with your head of department, who I assume is his boss? Or is someone in hr sensible who might be able to have a quiet chat with him?

Never been in this situation, I have generally told my boss almost before my family, as I feel so crappy from 7 weeks that my work suffers and he has 4 kids, so he knows the risks... It sounds a horrible situation to be in, and it's hard to know why he has reacted that way... If he won't talk about it with you, you may have to go over his head... Good luck...

What age is he? Is he married? Does he have children? - just wondering if there's an outside chance him and his wife have struggled to conceive?

Whether you tell hr depends on the type of organisation you work in and if it would be the norm to do so?

I had a similar sort of thing with my boss. He wasn't taking work off me, ignoring me etc but he started to dictate when I should come back and telling me how much mat leave the company would be happy with. Basically he said if I didn't come back within 3 months I wouldn't have my specific job role to come back to!

He also said they would stop paying me my car allowance once on mat leave.

I contacted HR explained what he said, they then very quickly informed me it was all BS and also had a word with him. He didn't bother me again for the duration of time I was there

On a serious note, this type of behaviour must be reported, it is discrimination and this is what HR are there for. Unfortunately this type of stuff is very common.

Taking work off you and cancelling meetings is really unacceptable. He is discriminating against you because you are pregnant. Even if he was annoyed at not being told the truth, he should still act professionally. Not talking to you is ridiculous. I would speak to HR about it - have you got emails (or other evidence) that document him taking work off you and cancelling meetings? If it's a big enough company they should be very aware of what the law is in this area and realise that he is discriminating against you.

Hi, Sorry changed my username and can't change it back.

I don't think he has feelings for me, it is just a working relationship. Emails and work time. Nothing personal that I could see.

I do think he is probably pissed that he asked me outright, and to be honest I was probably just a little taken a back to be asked outright. I did tell the same employer (different boss) early with my previous pregnancy. Unfortunately we had a lot of complications with that pregnancy and although I told them at 7 weeks in confidence it was office gossip at the Christmas party.

So they lost my trust after that!

I did think he was being unprofessional. I do have all the emails which have taken me off projects (projects I have already started). Also of the cancelled meetings.

My department head would probably take it very seriously. As would HR I think. It is a pretty big company so I assume our HR department are well versed.
I was just wondering if I should give him some time to come round and perhaps default back, or I just go straight to HR and risk him being even more of an ass???!!

IMO I would ask to see him face to face and apologise about not being straight with him. You're under no obligation to do so but it would be an olive branch which he may accept. If he doesn't - then yes I would definitely go to HR.

My boss managed a rather strangled congratulations then asked me if I'd be taking more than four weeks maternity leave. Yes, four weeks. Agog, I was.

She then took my most responsible reporting line off me and stopped inviting me to anything vaguely senior or good for career progression.

Luckily, I'm protected well under law here but I' suspect she'll be making sure I'm edged out of my role when I do get back from mat leave - there's always a way to get rid of you if they want to.... Incredibly depressing really, after two promotions and stellar reviews over the last couple of years...hey ho. I'll be keeping my eyes open for other roles while I'm off.

The only thing you can do is to act with total professionalism, keep him and HR in the loop for anything related and keep all your emails. Contact your Union (you are in one, I hope?) if you do get any further bad behaviour, log everything!

Remember also that HR aren't there to protect you, they are there to protect the company.

Hi Skiptonlass,

Unfortunately our contracts specify we can't be part of a union!! Crazy.
However, I do have a sister that specialises in employment law. So if they screw me, I think she will help me.

He is my direct line manager. There are two other managers which can provide me work. I have a similar progression through the company. My reviews have been great.

I honestly don't think our dept head would allow him to phase me out (although, I may be fooling myself!!)

I have a log of everything to date. So I do have evidence if I need it.

confusedandemployed I did start my meeting with an apology for lying. I will try again, however, he has refused a meeting request so far.

You need to confront him on this but there needs to be some sort of record of it in case you need to escalate it. Therefore face to face won't work, unless you bring along someone to take notes, which might be seen as a slightly aggressive position at this stage.

I think an email is in order here, along the lines of ' on (date), I informed you that I was pregnant. Since then you have removed x, y and z pieces of work from me and have not explained why to my satisfaction. You have also cancelled several meetings with me. Is there a problem?'

If he's smart enough, he'll see this for the shot across his bows that it is and start behaving,hopefully starting with reinstating your work.

If he doesn't respond or does, but unsatisfactorily, then you move your complaint it up the line to his manager and/or HR, in writing. But the most important thing just now is that you need to start documenting what is going on.

I specialise in employment law. It's illegal to prevent you from being in a union so that clause in your contract is unenforceable.
If you have already tried, try once more. Then - HR. skiptonlass is right, they are there to protect the company but that includes pointing out to them when they are acting unlawfully.

My work were really unhappy! They didn't even bother saying congratulations. I asked for it to be kept between me my boss and his other PA until I had my scan and my boss promptly announced it to the entire office and every visitor that came in! I was in floods of tears and he has been really nasty to me since I've become pregnant! I have come close to handing in my notice. Don't know if I can take another 26 weeks of this!!

I agree with Skiptonlass about acting with total professionalism. Log everything and don't dwell on the fact that he isn't congratulating you but concentrate on the excluding you from meetings and so on. Have you any idea about why he is reacting like this.

Confusedandemployed that is amazing to know. I will mention it to them.

Red193 I am so sorry! It is horrible isnt it. Is it a small company? Do you have an HR Dept?

Viviennemary I think he is pissed. He has in the past stopped speaking to people when they hand in their notice. I wasnt aware of that. Another colleague told me this afternoon. We have a weekly management call so I think that my being taken off projects will be highlighted there. My dept head is in that meeting, so perhaps I can raise it with him after this meeting.

I have just come off the back off a really good review of where I am going within the company so perhaps he is dissappointed with my news.

I am wondering if I am reading into this too much. My husband pointed out he might be having a bad week and something personal is going on. To be honest, we wouldnt be overly close to share that kind of things.

Thanks for all the advice. I havent responded to anything in an unprofessional way. I still keep him updated via emails on the work I am doing. So I am think I am doing ok on that front.

What a dick. He shouldn't have asked you outright and now he's discriminating? Go for blood.

I hope they take heed. Do as skiptonlass says and keep paper records of all your dealings from here on in. It's pretty clear from your side of the story that he's discriminating against you (but obv we are only getting one side so it may not be 100% accurate, despite your best efforts) so you have aa strong case for sex discrimination.

AJ my boss owns the company! I'm trapped now until I go on Maternity leave!

Unfortunately our contracts specify we can't be part of a union!!

If you're in the UK, that's not legal (didn't wal mart try this when they took over asda?) Join a union.

You also have no need to apologise for lying to him. It is neither professional nor right to ask an employee sensitive medical details. If this comes up you reply something like, "obviously such a direct question put me on the spot. It's a very personal question and as you of course know you never divulge a pregnancy until you're out of the first trimester due to the high risk of something going wrong. Although I didn't need to tell you until x weeks before due date, I did want to tell you as soon as possible after it was safe to do so, which I did."

Written records of everything! If you have a verbal run in with him, follow up with a recap email.

It's a shit situation I know. I know I'm good at my job but it's pushed me to the limit and been very stressful. I ended up working through hyperemesis and spd up to the point I nearly collapsed because I was so afraid of repercussions if I took even a day off. I lost all respect for my boss due to her shockingly bad and borderline illegal handling of this and I will be looking for another job.

I'm an employment lawyer and what he's doing isn't right.

He's already started discriminating in my view so you have two options - hope it pans out okay and that he calms down or raise it with HR.

If he's an ass to you after raising your complaint with HR then you can also add a victimisation claim into the mix.

It probably won't come to that so I have my FX for you that he gets over his little man strop!