In the midst of dreaming of a time where PTO could mean period time off and more companies would incorporate menstrual leave policies, few of us expect to be encouraged to go home while menstruating. Especially not because of the fact that we’re in pain but because our pain makes other employees uncomfortable.
That’s the scenario a woman who goes by the username Snuffalo painted on the parent forum Mumsnet last week. According to her, she was having horrible menstrual cramps and medication wasn’t helping. Remembering she had a hot water bottle in her desk drawer, she filled it up, put it in her lap, and went back to work. Then this happened:
“My sort-of-supervisor* we’ll call Guy comes over to talk to me about something, notices the hot water bottle, says ‘there’s no way you’re cold today, are you?’ I say ‘um, no, just for the pain relief.’ He looks confused and then literally horrified and then he walks away.
“Less than ten minutes later, I get a Slack message from one of the HR admins (HR is based in another office a few hours away) to say ‘Guy says you’re not well and should go home, everything OK?’
“I say ‘I’m fine, this is sort of weird, he just looked a bit shocked that I had a hot water bottle, I’ve got cramps, you know how it is.'”
“She goes silent and then offline completely, ten more minutes later, the HR Director calls me and asks me if I can find a meeting room, which I do. She then tells me that I shouldn’t disclose my medical problems to anyone who isn’t part of HR as it can make them uncomfortable. I’m literally shocked, I explain exactly what happened, she says ‘yes I understand, if you’re so unwell you need a hot water bottle you should be home, Guy is extremely uncomfortable and it’s unprofessional.’ I say ‘this is weird, ok, anything else?’ She’s quite breezy and professional – ‘No, that’s all, if you’re feeling better that’s great but if you need to, please do go home, OK bye!'”
Snuffalo goes on to say she was “completely flabbergasted” by the way things spiraled, “especially considering that Guy has been known to take meetings with clients whilst laying flat on the floor on his back because of back problems – which seems to me both unprofessional and likely to make people uncomfortable, not that I really cared personally,” she wrote. She also added that she would’ve never taken her hot water bottle in a client meeting or had it out if clients were in the office.
Normally, I’m not one to fall in line with the period-shaming movement and, honestly, I was a bit naïve to the fact that some women are treated this way in the workplace while menstruating. HR should’ve been asking Guy why a hot water bottle makes him so uncomfortable, perhaps it was a sign of dwindling patriarchy which he hurriedly snatched back by reporting this woman and making her private “medical problem” far more public than a water bottle tucked in her lap.
The post Woman Scolded By HR Because Her Period Cramps Made Male Supervisor Uncomfortable appeared first on MadameNoire.