My co-worker just announced this week that she is pregnant, which is really awesome news and I am very happy for her! But now that everyone knows that she will be leaving on maternity leave starting in January she has been making sarcastic comments to me regarding who will take over her work. Also a very important side note, our boss left at the end of May and the hiring team has been dragging their feet and rumor has it that we may not have a new boss for many months ... or maybe never. Not even having a boss at the moment has put a huge strain on our team (we manage a very big global health care brand), so when my co-worker starts going on in a rude way about filling in her gap when she is gone, it really really makes me stressed out.
What has really been irritating, in addition to her comments, is that she plans on not coming back to work after she has the baby (which I fully respect all women who decide to be stay at home moms, this post is most certainly not attacking those women who have made that decision and I fully support it), but she said that she is NOT going to tell anyone on our team that she doesn't plan to come back and plans to take her full maternity leave (paid and un-paid) and then come back to work for a couple weeks and then quit. The infuriating part is that while she is gone for her entire maternity leave the rest of us (we are a very small 3 person team) will have to take over her role, mind you without a boss, and then she is just going to come back and quit anyway, so then that will take at least a month or two to hire a new person for her job. All in all this would be a 6+ month nightmare for my small team, when she could be respectful of us and just be honest upfront that she does not plan to return and allow us to fill her role. She has constantly said to me over the last year that she absolutely hates her job and likes to mention how her husband makes "sooo much money" and he tells her all the time that she can quit and stay at home, so she has already been thinking about this for a really long time. I am just so mad that she even has the nerve to pull something like this.
The other side of this is that I truly believe she is hurting other women, like myself, who continued to work after having children. We have to fight so hard to get equal pay and equal respect. Pregnant women are discriminated in the workplace for the exact way that my co-worker is acting. Everyone starts treating a woman like she is worthless and doesn't add value to the workplace anymore just because she is now pregnant and like other women will probably screw the system and then not return to work. I fully respect women that choose to be SAHMs and they also receive discrimination because what they do is not viewed as a "job" when it most certainly is. So basically what I am saying is that this co-worker should be honest enough to say that she is not returning and not make my life and my other co-workers lives a living h$ll for six months next year and instead choose to take the high road and go spend time with her new baby.
To add fuel to the fire, there are also other side annoyances about this co-worker, in addition to her now sarcastic comments about who will take over her work, one being that she shows up to work with clothes that have holes and tears in them and looks incredibly unprofessional (I am not saying that everyone should wear Gucci to work, I certainly do not, but we work in a professional environment where looking presentable is important!). Also, she has told everyone that her doctor said she was too overweight to gain weight during her pregnancy and has been bragging that she lost 10 pounds so far since she got pregnant (she lost this weight because she was throwing up so much, not because she cleaned up her diet. losing that weight is nothing to brag about, that is downright scary and can lead to major complications during pregnancy and delivery!!), yet she sits at lunch eating deep fried food and desserts and constantly shaking salt on all of her food. I have no idea why anyone would take care of their unborn child that way! Nutrition is so important! It just makes me extra disgusted that her appearance is so sloppy and she takes care of herself so poorly.
Overall I feel bad that this negative situation is happening like this, especially since I have had a really great working friendship with this person and I really am happy for her to become a mom. I just wish that she would handle it in a more respectable way.
Blogs & Forums
