The Boss Is Anti-Antenatal

I work in an office and have a very demanding adult baby of a boss. I was also about seven months pregnant when this story took place.

UK law states that employers need to give paid time off for all antenatal appointments. 

My boss was one of those people that always took credit for his team’s work but never acknowledged who actually did the work. I was the most senior of the team but was not treated as such.

One day, several months into my pregnancy, the doctor found a health concern and informed me that I was going to have an ultrasound scan and a consultant appointment, every week for the rest of my pregnancy.

My boss was not happy with this, because it meant that I was out of the office every Wednesday afternoon in a nine-to-five job.

One Wednesday, I was getting ready to walk to the hospital. It’s important to the story that the hospital was only a fifteen-minute walk from my office. As I was saying my goodbyes, my boss nicely told me not to forget my laptop; he then struck up a conversation about an upcoming project.

I was worried that I was going to be late for my appointments, so I started walking to the exit, but my boss followed me. Still talking. I left the office and began to walk down the road. My boss was by my side, still talking. I asked him if he was coming to the hospital with me and he vaguely commented that he wanted to make sure that I arrived okay. “How nice!” I thought.

We got to the waiting room to sign in, and my boss sat down and asked me to take out my laptop. At this point, I was in disbelief. He asked me to take notes for the project, whilst I was balancing a laptop on my pregnant belly. I told him that I was at the hospital, about to have a scan. I would rather not be working right at that moment.

His reply?

“You’re being paid whilst at this appointment. You should be working, too.”

Luckily, the lady at the reception saw how uncomfortable I was and came over. She asked my boss if he was the father, and he was mortified. (I was 30 and he was pushing 60.) She told him that he had to leave, as it was partners and family only.

The next morning, I was called into a meeting with my boss and the head of the department. Luckily for me, the head of the department was a sensible older lady with three children herself. Apparently, my boss had filed a grievance and believed that I should get an official warning for unauthorized time off!

I showed the emails to HR and explained what had happened. The head of the department went very quiet and asked me to return to my desk.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how my boss lost his job, and I got promoted whilst seven months pregnant.