I have had a crap day at work yesterday and have been fuming ever since and have spent the last few hours lying awake so thought I might as well get up.
Please excuse the rant I just wanted to get it off my chest......
I work as a vet for a practice owned by 1 man- he is about 55, never been married, never had kids, has no friends with kids- typical male chauvinist boss. He probably really thinks pregnant women should just be shot which is a bit of a shame since approx 80% of his staff are females of child bearing age. There is no practice manager or hr dept or anything- basically just him.
A few weeks ago he started bullying a younger colleague who is now about 27w pregnant. We work in quite a dangerous environment really- xrays, drugs, anaesthetic gases and dangerous animals that are obviously very problematic if you are pregnant and we also do on call out of hours so I would need to go and do these type of things in the middle of the night too when there is no one else there.
He has not done any of the health and safety checks you are supposed to do etc and a few weeks ago I phoned and spoke to a local health and safety executive who said it was basically illegal what he was doing and what he expects us to do- ie exactly the same as before. We have no staff room etc so need to make drinks from the sink used to clean cat litters trays and stuff and eat lunch off the tables where we do operations and dentals. The health and safety man was obviously not happy with this and said he would do an inspection but I have said it would need to be anonymous as if he said that an employee had reported it then it would be obvious who it was and make life at work even worse- hopefully he should be round soon.
Anyway yesterday I was trying to discuss my maternity leave with him- I have 21 days holiday left to take as I have been saving them up this year so could take them all at the end which he previously said was fine. I also told him that I would want to take my next 2 on call week ends as holiday as I thought that I would be physically incapable of doing it. I will be nearly 29w pregnant for the next one and then about 35w pregnant the one after that. It would mean working a 40 hour week then working and being on call constantly from the Saturday morning and then working another 40h week immediately after with no break. Also I would be the only vet there so thought by that stage I would have trouble bending down to examine big dogs etc and certainly couldn't manage to deal with lifting dogs that might weigh 60kg in the middle of the night with just a femle nurse to help.
His response to this was 'well it is just an inconvenience for me for you take to weekends as holiday'
WTF? I was trying to do him a favour by taking it off rather than leaving him in the lurch at the last minute- he has plenty of time to decide to do it himself or hire someone else to do it for him. Its not as if I want to take it as holiday so I can swan off for a bloody weekend away somewhere!!
The next thing was I had said about going part time and basically job sharing with another colleague come Mid November- having mon\tues off when she worked and me working wed/thurs/fri. Now he had prev agreed to this job share but when I mentioned it yesterday he said- oh well it is too inconvenient I just meant when you came back after maternity leave. I pointed out to him that he let the other colleague start working part time when she was 8w pregnant with her first child and I thought I would be doing quite well to work up till 30 odd weeks full time but he was not interested.
I had worked out I would work part time for a few weeks then in the second week of Dec use the remaining days holidays to basically take the rest Dec off and start my MAT leave in the new year- that way he could get a replacement right through dec onwards as I thought it would be easier for hime to take my holidays in a block rather than all spaced out with the odd day here and there but he wasn't interested.
I then said to him- if you won't let me take the holidays or work part time if I brought the official MAT date forward would he pay me in a lump sum for the holidays that I am due but he is reluctant to let me take? He then tried to talk a lot of sh*t about that how he personally thought that would be fine but didn't think the law would let him- I have since spoken to someone else and they say that is rubbish.
Anway so bascially whatever I suggested was an inconvenience for him but he would not make any actual suggestions or plans of his own
Having never been heavily pregnant before I have no idea how long I will be able to cope with working full time when I am the size of a beached whale.
Sorry for the extremely long rant but I have been lying awake for hours furious over this.
At least it will have put everyone else to sleep now
Please excuse the rant I just wanted to get it off my chest......
I work as a vet for a practice owned by 1 man- he is about 55, never been married, never had kids, has no friends with kids- typical male chauvinist boss. He probably really thinks pregnant women should just be shot which is a bit of a shame since approx 80% of his staff are females of child bearing age. There is no practice manager or hr dept or anything- basically just him.
A few weeks ago he started bullying a younger colleague who is now about 27w pregnant. We work in quite a dangerous environment really- xrays, drugs, anaesthetic gases and dangerous animals that are obviously very problematic if you are pregnant and we also do on call out of hours so I would need to go and do these type of things in the middle of the night too when there is no one else there.
He has not done any of the health and safety checks you are supposed to do etc and a few weeks ago I phoned and spoke to a local health and safety executive who said it was basically illegal what he was doing and what he expects us to do- ie exactly the same as before. We have no staff room etc so need to make drinks from the sink used to clean cat litters trays and stuff and eat lunch off the tables where we do operations and dentals. The health and safety man was obviously not happy with this and said he would do an inspection but I have said it would need to be anonymous as if he said that an employee had reported it then it would be obvious who it was and make life at work even worse- hopefully he should be round soon.
Anyway yesterday I was trying to discuss my maternity leave with him- I have 21 days holiday left to take as I have been saving them up this year so could take them all at the end which he previously said was fine. I also told him that I would want to take my next 2 on call week ends as holiday as I thought that I would be physically incapable of doing it. I will be nearly 29w pregnant for the next one and then about 35w pregnant the one after that. It would mean working a 40 hour week then working and being on call constantly from the Saturday morning and then working another 40h week immediately after with no break. Also I would be the only vet there so thought by that stage I would have trouble bending down to examine big dogs etc and certainly couldn't manage to deal with lifting dogs that might weigh 60kg in the middle of the night with just a femle nurse to help.
His response to this was 'well it is just an inconvenience for me for you take to weekends as holiday'
WTF? I was trying to do him a favour by taking it off rather than leaving him in the lurch at the last minute- he has plenty of time to decide to do it himself or hire someone else to do it for him. Its not as if I want to take it as holiday so I can swan off for a bloody weekend away somewhere!!The next thing was I had said about going part time and basically job sharing with another colleague come Mid November- having mon\tues off when she worked and me working wed/thurs/fri. Now he had prev agreed to this job share but when I mentioned it yesterday he said- oh well it is too inconvenient I just meant when you came back after maternity leave. I pointed out to him that he let the other colleague start working part time when she was 8w pregnant with her first child and I thought I would be doing quite well to work up till 30 odd weeks full time but he was not interested.
I had worked out I would work part time for a few weeks then in the second week of Dec use the remaining days holidays to basically take the rest Dec off and start my MAT leave in the new year- that way he could get a replacement right through dec onwards as I thought it would be easier for hime to take my holidays in a block rather than all spaced out with the odd day here and there but he wasn't interested.
I then said to him- if you won't let me take the holidays or work part time if I brought the official MAT date forward would he pay me in a lump sum for the holidays that I am due but he is reluctant to let me take? He then tried to talk a lot of sh*t about that how he personally thought that would be fine but didn't think the law would let him- I have since spoken to someone else and they say that is rubbish.
Anway so bascially whatever I suggested was an inconvenience for him but he would not make any actual suggestions or plans of his own
Having never been heavily pregnant before I have no idea how long I will be able to cope with working full time when I am the size of a beached whale.
Sorry for the extremely long rant but I have been lying awake for hours furious over this.
At least it will have put everyone else to sleep now
Doesn't sound like a nice environment to be in though. Are you at a small animal practice? I take it you must be because I can't imagine it would be easy for a heavily pregnant vet to be treating badly behaved horses and psychotic cows!!
If you get stuck or need more info, lemme know. Otherwise, browse the DTI site (there are other sections on maternity/pregnancy too - 
silly man! Hope you get it sorted hun 