This is a bitch about pregnant women and how I have to do the work of one particular woman that is now “unable” to.
youre just 14 weeks pregnant, youre as fat as youve always been, but ive been doing half of your job for 5 weeks now. honestly…im fucking sick of it. if you find yourself having trouble doing your job at just 3.5 months pregnant, go off work and wallow in bed.
now if that sounds callous to you…fuck off. why should my workload be increased by 50% because my coworker made a life choice. if i made a choice to become an alcoholic would you do my work when i was hungover every morning?
ive known women that take brisk walks, done mild workouts, and have had little negative effect on everyday life up to 7-8 months of pregnancy. you seem to be content on getting even fatter, puttin on 90lbs and becoming generally useless.
so again, if you cant do your job…go the fuck home. im beginning to reach the heights of my tolerance level.
—john
This article appears in Feb 12-18, 2009.
callous? to say the least.
its not the woman’s problem your place of employment did not hire a temp. each person is different, just because someone can do what you describe while pregnant, means anything but that everyone can. someone can drink a 24 of beer, and be fine, someone else pukes after a shot.
you were not designed by nature/god to become an alcoholic, a woman was designed to bear children (if she so chooses). its like comparing apples and fridays.
John, you really seem like an asshole.
During the first and third trimesters of pregnancy, some women in particular experience extreme exhaustion (no matter how much sleep they get).
Now, not every pregnant woman experiences the same symptoms and you said yourself that you have known “women that take brisk walks, done mild workouts”, so I think you were wrong to start your bitch by saying “this is a bitch about pregnant women…”, i think what you meant to say was “this is a bitch about one pregnant woman in particular”.
You seem like a fuck tard anywayz, have you any idea how hard it is to grow a baby inside your body for 9 months? Get some compassion. What would YOUR mother think if she heard you talking this way about someone who is bringing life into this world? She put up with all of this shit for you.
Idiot.
exactly the response i expected…you seem real intelligent there i need a coffee…fucktard and spelling it anywayz. is your hat on sideway”z”?
and compassion i have. tolerance for doing someone elses fucking job i have not. i dont care if youre a drunk, a pregnant woman, a drug addict, or any differently abled person…if i have to do any part of your job then you should not be currently holding this position.
pregnancy leave exists for a reason. and if im a “fucktard” for suggesting she take some..than so be it.
oh and by the way there need a coffee…if you read the whole motherfucking sentence i directed my complaints at this particular woman. i think i know what i meant to say. so before you comment…read the full goddamn sentence.
you still seem to be oblivious to the fact that its not the womans problem a temp has not been hired.
how can she be away if shes not on the leave anyways?
its interesting you assume i work in a job they have temps for…comical. i do not work in an office based job where there are many trained temps available nor do i work for an employer that will hire a temp. while my job does not require someone with genius level intelligence, it is one that is quite specialized and requires months of training. this means reduced productivity and increased cost for my employer. which at this time id doubt they would incur…even if i did have the type of job which a temp can move into. is that addressing the temp issue enough for you?
oh and ps…i do not have a job there are temps available for.
Look, John…
I get extremely frustrated when some men do not understand how difficult bearing a child can be, and I am actually happy that your co-worker has not quit her job because of her pregnancy. We have laws to protect pregnant women because of people who share your attitude. Now she cannot get fired because of her “condition
Thank god for that.
And since you work somewhere that is so “special” that only certain people are capable of handling the responsibilities, I guess this is just a situation that you are going to have to deal with.
whatcha gonna do about it
I agree with most of what you said john, just curious as to what type of slack are you taking up for her?…i.e. lifting boxes, doing deliveries…ect. Also wondering if you are being told by your boss to “help” her out, or you are just feeling guilted into it?
its a manufacturing job Kernalbob. we both work in the same area and have indentical responsibilities.
ive been told that since her abilities have changed that it is the responsiblity of the others to adapt and do what we can to accomodate her.
I’m not sure how I feel about this particular bitch…I can’t see myself being too pleased about having to take on extra, unpaid responsibilities because someone chose not to take mat leave. I have issues with labeling reproduction a “lifestyle choice,” but it WAS her choice, so why should he have to pay for it? At the same time, maybe she is having money issues and can’t afford to take mat leave? I don’t really know much about it. Could it be paid mat leave or would she have to go use gov’t assistance? Do you know anything about your company’s mat leave policies?
My girlfriend is 7 months preggo, and in an office setting, she needs no additional help, even though she has really rough days, she toughs it out. sounds like this one your working with is embellishing her pregnancy a bit for her advantage, maybe she thinks your an asshole, but hopefully she thanks you for the help at the very least.
@ i need a coffee
im going to come on here and complain about it. have you not an understanding of how this place works???
and do you not understand the difference between leave and termination. im not suggesting she be fired genius. im suggesting that if she cant do her job maybe she should consider leave. LEAVE….not firing.
im aware of the difficulties of child bearing…believe me. i would not want to do it. but…READ CAREFULLY PLEASE…i should not have to be negatively impacted by decisions that are made by others on a daily basis. simple as that.
theres nothing you can say that can make me think that doing someone elses work is cool.
@ molerat…i believe it goes like this at my company. standard 55% unemployment topped up for first 17 weeks to 66 2/3%
not great i know. the 66 2/3% is the exact amount any other worker would get at my company. sick, injured or pregnant. i beleive that percentage is from workers compensation. now i dont have first hand knowledge as ive never been sick, injured nor pregnant during my six years at my company but i think thats how it goes.
O.K. I do understand what you are saying John, however what is your attitude going to be like when she actually does go on mat leave? since you said you work as a manufacturer, and are unable to hire temps… i’m assuming at this point she is actually making somewhat of a contribution? so when she’s gone, she will be doing 0%??? Not sure why you are so excited to see her go.
anywayz i think this is a stupid complaint. If you don’t like the politics of your workplace, you should find somewhere else to work.
are you offering me a job coffee?
and i think spelling anyways with a “z” is stupid
Hve to agree with “coffee” on that one
spelling anyways with a “z”, is pretty gay, coffee is probably a chick, nevertheless, its fuckin dumb, and childish
i like spelling anywayz with a “z” because i can tell it is annoying you.
thanks kernalbob.
well ill clarify that one. when she leaves we have whats called shop extras. we have two…they fill in for people on vacations/callins/modified work etc. so they arent always needed 100% of the time.
when she decides to go off on leave i will acquire one of those “extras” in my group. now is my desire to have her take leave clearer?
Coffee – If you are spelling anyways with a “z” to annoy somebody. Then that is acceptable.
Understood John
I’m with John on this one. If an employee, male or female, for any medical reason, is unable to perform their duties as laid out to them when they were hired, they should be placed on medical leave until they are able to return to work at full capacity. This woman has made a choice to either get or remain pregnant (we all know there are options to either prevent or end a pregancy, but let’s not argue that). When she was hired, she was hired at a given rate of pay to do a given amount of work. I am assuming John that your place of employement is an equal opportunity employer and you both make roughly the same wage (depending on how long you have worked there). Now that John is expected (be it spoken or implied) to do more work and she is expected to do less, doesn’t that change the cirumstances? If she is only able to do say 80% of the work she was hired to do, doesn’t that mean she should only be paid 80% of the wage/salary? If you think this is unfair, then it is also unfair that she be paid 66.6% of her wage for however long she is on maternity leave, while doing none of the work she was hired to do. John having to pick up her slack (for lack of a better term) without recieving any kind of compensation for it is unreasonable and unfair to him. She is still recieving the same pay for less work, while he is recieving the same pay for more work. The biggest focus of today’s women’s lib movement is the phrase “Equal Pay For Equal Work”. What about when the work is no longer equal? John may not have phrased his displeasure with the situation in the most eloquent manner, but he is right none the less.
I once suffered a back injury at work (I too was working in a semi-industrial environment), and was unable to do any strenuous physical work for several months. I know my coworkers weren’t thrilled about picking up the slack, but they didn’t mind being relieved of any and all paperwork for a while. Still, not entirely a fair trade, but sometimes we all have to suck it up in situations like this.
Has the lady in question been given additional duties that are within her current abilities? If so, then you are being petty. If not, you have a valid beef with your employer, but not with your coworker.
Why should John be responsible for this woman’s job just because she got pregnant and chose to stay pregnant?
And why should John have to do extra work without being paid extra?
Not his fault she can’t do her job.
as kernalbob mentioned earlier i feel she may be embelishing her pregnancy a bit to her advantage. her work ethic has been called into question by others in the past…thus my reasoning for titling the bitch “lazy ass”
now when pregnant she has reasoning for doing less than expected. she has not been offered other duties because she has not requested them. she is perfectly happy with the current situation. i should have posted all this in original bitch. but didnt want to make it the “to A” boring diatribe.
Never wrong – exellent point on “equal work for equal pay” to bad there would never work out a system of percentages, since women like my g.f who dont have a problem at work while pregnant would make it impossible. Anyway, this is some of the shit that people must put up with in workplaces with alot of women.
p.s Too bad “equal work for equal pay” didnt apply to lazy fuckers at my place of employment makin as much as me but dog fucking all day playing crib while I am producing.
Since your coworker has not been assigned additional duties, John, I would agree that you have a valid beef. But that beef is with your employer more than the pregnant woman. I would suggest you request a meeting with your supervisor to discuss the situation.
Those who seem to feel a pregnant woman should be penalized in some way for choosing to get or remain pregnant should consider the Slippery Slope model. Employers are required to provide reasonable accomodation to employees who become temporarily incapacitated. It is this requirement that prevents employers from sacking any of us when we bring in a doctor’s note saying no heavy lifting for six weeks. Some of you say pregnancy is a “lifestyle choice”. If you go skiing and break your leg, is that not also a lifestyle choice? You didn’t go skiing with the expectation that you would break your leg, even though you knew it was a possibility. Likewise, a woman doesn’t get pregnant with the expectation that she will suffer complications. If we withdraw this protection from pregnant women, we better all be ready to give up skiing.
KernalBob: women like your girlfriend are the ones that all others should aspire to be like when it comes to pregnancy in the workplace. Unfortunately, just like us men, there are plenty of lazy women out there who wiil take every oppportunity to do less work. The sad thing is, pregnancy is one of the times when you can’t call them out on being lazy, as they can simply attribute their laziness to their current “condition”. I live in a house that has been divided into 3 apartments and I am at the back/bottom. Each apartment is responsible for the snow removal of their own section. I clear my area and the girls at the top clear theirs. But the lazy cunt who lives in the middle has NEVER, not once, not ever shovelled the snow from her area. I finally said something to her last week about doing her part, as I’m the only one who has to go through all three areas to get to my car. And you know what her response was? “I can’t shovel snow. I’m pregnant”. She never shovelled her area at all last year either and she wasn’t pregnant then. It’s just her way of using her “condition” as an excuse to do less work. And BTW to any of you nit-pickers. It is in our leases that we have to do our own snow removal, so she was well aware of it when she moved in and said nothing to our landlord about her being unable to shovel snow for any other reason.
I only read a few of the comments for Johns bitch. You guys are fucking idiots. If this bitch is too fucking lazy to lift a finger at 14 weeks she should take her time off now. She is just looking for simpathy from everyone because she is a lazy piece of shit. I think she should have swallowed, poor guy that threw one in her
It is also the case, NW, that some women, upon becoming pregnant, experience legitimate and unexpected complications. I guess that’s why we can’t “call them out” on being lazy. I have two sisters, both healthy, athletic women. When they became pregnant, one continued to teach aerobics classes into her third trimester. The other was diagnosed with preeclampsia (pregnancy related high blood pressure) in her first trimester and had to take it very easy – much like the OP’s coworker, from the sound of it. It’s not a question of aspiring to have a certain type of pregnancy. I’m sure all women want to have an easy pregnancy, but not all do.
Never wrong – I have read some of your other posts on different forms of revenge (applause!!).That being said; somehow you can make this bitch pay for not shoveling or at least having someone shovel it for her. She is just sitting there in her unit thinking to her self “fuck never wrong, hes wrong this time i aint shoveling shit because im lazy and im going to blame it on being pregnant”.
GET HER!! and please post back with your results.
I agree that with most of the people here, 14 weeks in and not being able to work in any setting (sans heavy labour) is bull. She’s obviously playing it up, but the employer’s in a sticky situation though, and I doubt that they’re not noticing it… Let’s say you make a complaint, and your employer says: “hey take a hike, you’re pregnant and we’ve been getting complaints that you’re not working” and bang, she complains, then the media is filled with reports of “woman fired/laid off for being pregnant”. Problem is; can an employee be forced on pregnancy leave? Yes, they can be. Unpaid in fact. Is the employer willing to take the shit-storm of bad publicity? Not bloody likely.
@ stercus a few comments ago about her not choosing to have a difficult pregnancy. no of course she didnt as you said i wouldnt expect to break my leg skiing.
however, both conditions will likely render you unable to do you job. one sooner one, later. the fact is however both have to live with equal consequences.
and the protection that exists is one which pays her time off (at a reduced rate usually) and guarentees her position or one at equal ability/wage upon her return.
im not advocating the mass firing of all pregnant women. thats just silly. but im saying take advantage of this leave. dont hope that your coworkers will grin and bear it under the extra workload. my grinning days are coming to an end
See, the previous job I had was in a production environment. God help you if you had a kid. The reason being, was that it was dangerous for a pregnant woman to do the job. It was also impossible for everyone to pick up the slack while participating in their own dangerous job. I mean, if she’s being told to stay until a certain point then you have to deal with taking on her work. If she’s cutting off her nose to spite her face so to speak, well then she’s an asshole. I understand that she may need the money, but perhaps the employer could look for lighter duties for her to undertake? Perhaps you should voice your concerns to your supervisor/manager and see what can/is being done about the situation.
I get the impression from John that this woman didn’t carry her own weight, so to speak, before she got preggers…so perhaps if this is the case, John wouldn’t be so bitter about taking up the slack if she hadn’t been a shitty employee to begin with.
Just a thought.
I think if she can do 50% of her job, she should do the same 50% of your job she is currently doing for herself as well… assuming it’s not taking her the entire day to get it done, of course. I don’t know what you do or whether that’s possible… but based on what you’ve divulged, I’m going with it.
You would then be doing half yours and half her job… as would she. Everything adds up at the end of the day and you both go home.
The likelyness this is going to happen?
Nil.
She seems to be set because this wasn’t proposed (again, if possible) from the start and companies these days are more than content to fly under the radar and not splash their names all over the paper.
and people, 5 weeks of over-work is enough to get most people looking like a manic, raving meathead.
John, we appreciate you not ‘Dear A’-ing it up, but you did need to embellish a little more on the original post so as to not come off as a dick. It could have saved you over two and a half hours of explaining/defending yourself.
KernalBob: my solution to the problem was and still is this: I called my landlord and let him know about the situation back before christmas, after the second snow fall of the year. He told me that I don’t have to shovel her area, that he would do it and invoice her for it. Problem is, I’d have to wait until he comes to clear the snow, which I am not willing to do. So with his permission, I just shovel the snow out of my way, not out of hers. Her section she is supposed to shovel is a large “J” shape. The “U” bottom part being her deck and the upper “I” part being the shared walkway. So I just shovel all the snow from the shared walkway into one big in-the-way-pile on her deck. And again, to any of you assholes who want to call me a dick for this, know that this cunt goes away to stay at her boyfriends for a week to ten days at a time and never comes home to feed her cat. No, I’m not home at all times to monitor her comings and goings, but the old lady next door who has already called the SPCA on her is.
I was recently pregnant and I can say that the 3rd month was the worst of all of the pregnancy. It was a good day if I could even get out of bed. I actually ended up leaving my job because I was “unable” to do it. Every persons pregnancy is different. Some who are lucky have it easy. Others do not. Why don’t you try being sensitive about it and enjoying helping someone who has it worse than yourself. You might even enjoy some good karma out of it.
If she’s only 14 months along, as you say John, she can’t go on leave and get paid. She has to wait until she is due within 16 weeks for her to get paid and even then she has to wait until the labour board approves her request for preggo leave. So, that said, she probably can’t afford to go 6 weeks without pay in this city… So it looks like you’ll need to tough it out for another month and a half, because your employer won’t do anything about it that’s for sure.
DF: “If she’s only 14 months along”????? WTF??? 14 months!! Holy shit thats a long ass pregnancy!! And you call yourself a Doctor! 🙂
The thing with Mat leave as well is that the earlier you leave, the earlier you have to come back. She’s not going to want to come back to work with a 3 month old at home, so she’ll stay at work as long as she can. You should really come up with solution like Stercus, find something you know she can do that you should be doing for yourself, but probably don’t have the time for now that you’re doing part of her job, then ask her first if she’ll do it, and if she refuses, then you know she’s just being lazy and milking her pregnancy. Then you can take it higher.
I would like to know exactly what you’re having to do for her that she “can’t” do anymore. Because part of all this still sends of flags of you just being mad that she’s getting off a little easy.
Whoops. 14 months, indeed. She’s over due by about 5 months. Ha. 14 weeks for the dumbasses out there like me, who don’t know what I mean. 🙂
John’s far from an asshole, folks. He’s just really frustrated and has all right to be. Just because some woman is pregnant doesn’t mean everyone else has to give up their own personal issues and cater to the breeders.
When he applied for his job with the fat, pregnant bitch I don’t think his job description said that he would be responsible for other peoples’ work because they can’t do it. If he has to pick up others’ slack then he should be compensated with extra payment or time-off-in-lieu-of.
I bet when the pregnant chick comes back to work, John will be still doing her work and changing the kid’s diapers.
Mail her a box of condoms before she gets knocked up again.
John,
I hope that someone like you called your mother a lazy pregnant bitch.
Maybe if your mother had made a more responsible ‘life choice’ my world wouldn’t contain misogynists like you.
@ notyourfriend
oh there will always be people like me. as long as there are those willing to speak their minds regardless of which side of popular they find themselves on there will be people like me.
as long as there are people who dont see unfair treatment and uncompensated extra effort as compassion there will be people like me.
as long as there are those who will rail against the PC crowd there will be people like me.
and btw…simply because you put quotations around life choice doesnt mean it isnt a choice. who can deny that pregnancy is a choice. i mean come the fuck on. are you saying that simply because a woman is a woman and she can become pregnant she should…that its not really a choice but a duty? please. she chose to get pregnant the same as i decided to have a ham sandwich.
Notyourfriend: Fuck off, the poor guy gets paid to do a job, if job descriptions change then so should pay scales. I respect the fact that she wants to reproduce, (it helps keep immigrants out i hope) but really this decision comes down to the employer.
Like Kitty I think this woman probably did not do her fair share to start and the current environment was the final straw for John.
John, you’re right, a few more details and most of us would not have thought you a total prick…you’ve been absolved (in my mind), but I hate to think how much time this chewed up.
Equal pay for equal work is a nice concept, but given that Canadian women made 75% of the male wage in 2000 and it has fallen since then I think we’re SOL people. It’s a nice fantasy.
I recently gave birth to my first child. I was lucky, I worked until the night before giving birth (and he was nearly two weeks late). I’m also fit and healthy. A gf – due near the same time – also healthy, had a miserable pregnancy start to finish. There is no knowing until you’re living it.
John, your co-worker “should” start feeling better shortly. Preggo symptoms usually kick in around 5-6 weeks (mostly drag-ass tired and/or queasy) and end at ~14 weeks. This happens for three reasons: the woman is growing both a baby and a placenta, the placenta will start supporting the baby at ~14 weeks, and huge hormonal changes.
And finally, anyways – no matter how it is spelled – is misused. Anyway or anyhow. No s or z required.
well thank you for the absolution Three…its nice to know that some are capable of informed decision making…once i presented all the facts.
im not really an asshole or a total prick…just an opinionated guy who gets pissed off occasionally.
It’s tough on any woman to have a baby. No wonder we are not even replacing ourselves, as a population. If you think “helping” your pregnant co-worker is a pain, imagine what it’s going to be like in our society when you are limited to one diaper change per day at the old folks home since there’s not enough of the younger generation to fill all the jobs. From the sounds of it, you don’t have any children of your own to help out in your old age. It’s going to be a scary time, when 25% of our society is over 65 in a few more years and even scarier that we will be in that demographic! People need to make it easier for others to have babies. I have had one and am considering another but it’s so HARD. I have lots of money so that’s not the issue, for me and I will be able to afford more then one diaper change per day (fortunately I didn’t have alot of my money in the stock market)if I end up in the old folks home. I love kids and know it’s also important for our entire society to have a younger generation slighty outnumbering us to even maintain our standard of living in Canada at a decent level. So, think about that next time you are pulling more then your share of the weight at work. She’s carrying the extra weight of all of our futures!Right now, with both people forced to work, unavailable child care for children under two and other significant road blocks to discourage ANYONE in their right mind to even consider having a baby….stick it out for the couple of months she needs you to do some of her heavier work.
Sorry to say SJ— the likelihood of that kid being important to the future of Canada is slim to none. She is not “carrying the weight of all our futures” as you might say; as noble a sentiment that is. To your argument to have more children, even if we increase the population growth by one child per family, we’ll still be challenged by population decline. We would need to increase that to about 4 children per family or increase our immigration (we’d all better learn Chinese, it’ll eventually take over French in the number 2 spot terms of spoken language in Canada) to replace the dying baby boomers, and that would actually place us in an even tougher situation in the long road because Canada is having a tough time maintaining the current population. Imagine that we stay where we are at, but increase our population by 25%. It’s gonna happen. Most of the economic issue will arise from the care of the baby boomers, not lack of trained people to take care of Gen X or Gen Y, let alone the kids that were born in the 90’s. Just as she has every right to have the child, he has every right to hate her for being a lazy bitch, which it sounds like she is being, and making him work more than he has to do. If she can’t do the work, she should go home. He is not required to pick up her slack.
I find it hard to believe that wthe work he is doing for her is because she is tired or queasy. Bosses don’t expect others to pick up slack for people who aren’t feeling well. If anything there are dangerous parts of her job that she shouldn’t be physically doing because she’s preggo.
Also, overall we need to stop the rise in the population and think of the bigger picture. If Canada’s population is dwindling, we’re gonna be better off later when the worlds resources go right along with us. The planet cannot support all 6 billion of us. So you can think now that we’d better repopulate for future generations, but there’s not going to be anything left for them if we don’t control the population now.
holy shit I stopped reading after the first 5 entries. John, you are an asshole but that doesn’t mean what you’re feeling is wrong. what it means is that you should just tell your boss how you feel and not make a ranting bitch that ends up making you sound like a sexist asshole. it’s pretty simple to fix and no, you should not have to do her work for her but calling her lazy? you are an asshole. maybe that’s why your boss is making you do all the extra work, ‘cuz you suck as a human being and don’t know when to do the right thing.
@huh
read the whole fucking string of messages before you comment.
@samantha james
its my duty to make it easier for others to have kids…thats ridiculous. if youre either financially, physically, emotionally, or mentally compromised its simple. maybe you shouldnt procreate.
when i have kids…which my gf and i hope to one day. it will be on our terms, when our abilites provide us the oppourtunity. and you can be damn sure we will not be depending on the kindness of strangers to help raise our offspring.
unlike some around here i realize that its our choice, our responsibility. of course there will be some helping hands lent by family and friends…but not those of coworkers.