Colleague told everyone I’m pregnant

[Peachylove]

As the title says, a colleague of mine has told everyone that I’m pregnant.. there’s a lot of background to this and it’s a long story but I’ll try to keep it concise without missing out info. We’ll call this person ‘colleague A’

I have a part time job in a shop and one colleague has had it in for me for a while, she’s been spreading rumours and gossip about me concerning another male colleague, we’ll call him ‘colleague B’

Anyway the other week I served a fellow colleague who is one of my close friends on the till and she bought a pregnancy test, I thought nothing of it. Not my business.

I came into work the following week and got pulled to the side by a manager letting me know that there’s a rumour that I’m pregnant with the baby of colleague B. I was livid to say the least. Did a bit of digging and found out that colleague A’s friend saw the till transaction and told her. A then decided it was my test, was positive and was the baby of this man and went round telling everyone.

I spoke to management as by this point I was sick of hearing these rumours that have been going on for months and this crossed a major line for me. You do not start rumours that serious, if you see someone doing anything with a pregnancy test it is not your business to talk about it with other people. Anyway management are now doing an investigation into it and I’m just wondering if anyone knows what could happen?

Could she get into big trouble for this? Do I need to take it higher than store management? Could she lose her job?

I’ve asked these questions at work but had no answers and the anxiety around the whole situation is killing me so I’d like to know the possible outcomes!

I'm assuming your not actually pregnant right?

@Theunamedcat sorry, no I’m not pregnant nor am I DTD with said male colleague

I would go above management tbh, that is totally inappropriate behaviour. It's very unfair on your friend too, it's reasonable for customers buying personal items to expect maturity and discretion from store staff.

Would colleague B also be willing to report?

Colleague A sounds about 12! I assume you don't have a union? HR department to discuss it with? Part of me would wait to see what management do, before potentially going above them.

Management are investigating - there is no reason to escalate it until they have failed to respond to the situation.

Nobody is going to tell you what the outcome might be - they can't decide that unless and until a disciplinary panel makes a decision. It could be serious enough for a dismissal, but it may not be. You have no right to know the outcome of any disciplinary. You might hear something on thje grapevine, but they certainly shouldn't tell you anything other than the situation has been dealt with.

This has happened to me! But it was a male colleague who then told everyone the baby was his!
I told the management who then did disciplinary proceedings with him. He threatened to kill himself. It was all a big drama.
Tell management. It’s unacceptable and misconduct in the work place. They need to deal with it. It’s bullying on a fundamental level

She's the one who should be feeling anxious, not you, you've done nothing wrong so let them investigate and see how it plays out. You and B may be asked to give statements or ask how badly this has affected you, the workplace, trust and stress.

Its impossible to say what the outcome will be, all workplaces are different and every possible outcome at this stage is just that - possible

Hard as it is it's best not to overthink it and see how it plays out