A supervisor shared a story on Reddit to discuss the tricky balance between being kind and keeping up productivity. The story revolves around Cara, an employee in her first trimester of pregnancy.
Cara faced challenges that affected her work, and OP tried to help her out through the toughness of her pregnancy, as much as he could. However, Cara’s productivity kept dropping, leading to growing tensions. OP finally contronted Cara by saying she cannot blame her being just 10 weeks pregnant for the lower productivuty, and that she would have to improve her work.
1. That is a very sensitive statement, requiring the speaker to have a lot of knowledge about pregnancy. Let’s jump in!
2. OP works for a company where everyone during the last quarter of the year has to put in extra hours to meet the increased business demand.
3. One worker, Cara, got pregnant during this time period and informed OP about it so he wouldn’t assign her as much work as everyone else.
4. She would take frequent sick leaves, vomit, and just wouldn’t be able to focus on her work.
5. OP made a lot of compromisee for Cara to make sure she worked in a comfortable arrangement.
I think OP is being a bit inconsiderate here. Pregnancy is not a child’s play. And so many women have said the first trimester of pregnancy is just as tough as the last one.
All those things OP has mentioned that Cara is going through is exactly what is happening. If OP thinks Cara is doing this so she wouldn’t have to deal with the extra work, then he is a major AH.
6. But she would continue to take sick leaves and her productivity deteriorated continously.
7. OP felt it was unfair to the other workers who were staying in late, and had to push themselves hard to cover for Cara as well.
8. OP finally confronted the matter by saying her pregnancy can’t be an excuse for low productivity as she is only 10 weeks in.
9. Cara said she would try to improve and left.
10. When OP told this all to his wife, she called him an AH saying he had no idea what pregnancy feels like and how difficult it is to go through. The matter was taken to the courts of the AITA community.
