MSE Pregnancy Club V

searching_me

i tried that one before when she wanted me to meet some guy she like and she went on the defense ... i havent seen her in 5 months and i just dont get why she dont get i just want to see her i miss talking to a friend but whenever i wanna talk about my worrys all she wants to do is talk over me about boys, partying, haircuts and drinking ... did i mention she nearly 27 x

MrsTinks

elle_gee wrote: »

MrsTine, have you read this info, from H&S for pregnant employees downwards?

Have you had a proper risk assessment done? Yes I have had one - they will arrange a second one although can't tell me at the moment when it will be for.

They have to make reasonable adjustments for you (ie letting you work from home if that's possible in your job) and if they can't do that, they have to suspend you on full pay (therefore you would haven't have to take the drop to SSP only). Working from home IS possible but their argument is that they don't have a WFH policy due to their duty of care and if I worked from home they would have to carry out a H&S assessment at my home. The HR argument is that if I am "too ill to come to the office I should be off sick and not working from home". Although this would appear to only apply to me and no-one else.

Have you spoken to your H&S people? HA! They get a contractor in to do the H&S evaluation and other than that I don't think we have official H&S people... Are you in a union too? Nope... Don't think there is one

Have a read of the links to the HSE site.

Also, you might be able to argue that working from home is an "implicite" or "custom and practise" part of your contract and by not allowing you to do it right now (conincidentially when you're pregnant) is them changing your contract... I'd probably struggle with this as the employee handbook states there is no working from home policy... yet I guess my argument would be "whether you are aware or not then working from home is common practise with several employees and managers." Would that then still apply to the implicit and "custom and practise"?

Just a few thoughts

Thank you hun - much appreciated

Thankfully I shouldn't drop to SSP - my contract allows 7 weeks full paid sick leave and a further 6 weeks on half pay before it drops to SSP

I guess to show willing I will go into the office for a week or two. If nothing else then to settle with my own consciousness on the matter and giving them time to get the H&S re-assessment of my working area done and prove that they can do this as much as they like - the drives are painful enough on their own without sitting in the office - not to mention sitting in our other office where NO assessment has been done and no adjustments have been made. And let's not get started on the facilities at client sites

I guess I just feel twice as irritated because I have been going out of my way even offering to come back from maternity leave early part time to help my team out... Yet they haven't even had the courtesy to answer my offer with a yay or nay or maybe. Feels like All the work that is put in is one sided and when I ask for one small thing then all of a sudden it's the end of the world and the rules change Normally I'd be happy to play their games but with extra hormones I just can't quite hack it

MrsTinks

searching_me wrote: »

i tried that one before when she wanted me to meet some guy she like and she went on the defense ... i havent seen her in 5 months and i just dont get why she dont get i just want to see her i miss talking to a friend but whenever i wanna talk about my worrys all she wants to do is talk over me about boys, partying, haircuts and drinking ... did i mention she nearly 27 x

Mmmmm might be worth just making an excuse that weekend then... how about feeling icky with something? Maybe if it's pregnancy related she won't want to come and hear about it?

OR - you could send her a message back saying how you look forward to seeing her - you have so much pregnancy stuff to talk to her about and LOADS of pregnancy magazines to look at for her oppinion on clothes, colours and nursery decorating ideas. And would her friend mind awfully if you spent the evening at yours with no alcohol as it really gives you heartburn which is suuuuch a pain especially as she probably knows about the pregnancy gas too Imagine the fun if you had alcohol! But if it's round you'll want it and then it's heartburn city! But you have the recipe for a mean alcohol free punch - hope that's ok with them?
Oh and is she sure her friend won't feel like a 3rd wheel with the 2 of you talking babies and nursery and pregnancy and old times?

searching_me

i like mrs t might have to do the latter x

MrsTinks

See I can solve other peoples conundrums Just not my own :rotfl:

searching_me

:rotfl: will you be my counsellor :rotfl: x

elle_gee

MrsT, we have a working at home policy where I work. They don't do risk assessments on people's houses - I think it's just implied in the policy wording that you'll be careful! (if you want to PM me your email address, I'll send you a copy when I'm at work in the morning).

If they are aware you and others are working from home and have never express concern about it before (after all, if you weren't in the office and the work was still being done, where on earth did they think you were working from?!), I think you could argue it's custom and practise - if nothing else, throw that to them and give them something mull over!

Your point in the meeting is/should be that you are not "too ill" to do your job, you just require some adjustments, that you are entitled to have them consider, to make it comfortable for you to continue with it. Just like if my chair was not supporting me, I should be able to get a new one (me as a office based worker) or if someone who works in a shop on their feet all day, should be allowed rest breaks to sit down, or maybe be able to do a "sitting down" job if they exist.

Maybe you could print off some of the HSE stuff about their legal obligation to consider these adjustments. Have they come back to you with WHY you can't WFH, or just that you can't? (have a look and see if you can find anything that says they MUST carry out a RA on your home - if you can't find it, they probably don't have to so that gets rid of that excuse for them!). They have to prove that they have considered it and give you reasons why you can't do it.

Next thing would be to get a report from Occ Health that agrees with you that it's the travelling that causes the problems and then if they still say they need your presence in the office, and Occ Health say you can't do it, they will have to suspend you on full pay. If they do do that, obviously they're shooting themselves in the foot as they're loosing all the work you could well have done from home, but that's their problem - not yours! (I know it doesn't feel like you can be so flippant about it but you have yourself and Roo to think about and, trust me, your employer will not remember that you put yourself out for them in the long run - you have to think about the here and now. The legislation is there to protect your rights to go back - if they default on those, sue the !!!! off them! ).

Sorry for the confusion on SSP. I thought we'd talked about it a while ago and you'd said you only got 30 days a year - I must be thinking of someone else We have a stupidly generous sick pay scheme at work - for me with under five years service, I'd still get 13 weeks at full and 13 weeks at half, rising to 26wks at full and 10wks at half once I've been there over five years!

ETA: Something else I was told by our H&S Manager was that once my RA was done, it would need reviewing regularly and any further adjustments made accordingly. As an office worker, they deemed mine okay to be reveiwed in three months time (unless I have a problem before then). Another thing for you to look out for on the HSE is the guidelines for how regularly yours has to be reviewed

Sami_Bee

Hold on to your hats ladies! I'm so never leaving the house again, I go out for one afternoon and it takes me about 2hours to catch up!

RedMel - Its a shame I didn't hang around for long enough to see ur post I could have picked the drawers up for you and delivered to you seeing as I'd be coming to ur neighborhood 2mo anyway

Emz1987 wrote: »

...im 24 weeks and 2 days and expecting a girl ...

oooh the closest thing I have to a due date buddy I'm 24+1 today

Krystaltips wrote: »

MFD, I think you can change your username... I'm sure MrsTine used to just be Tine on the wedding forum... Before she got married obviously... I've always been Krystaltips on everything since about 2001... Even hubby knew me as Tips before he knew me as Jo!

I'm sure you can coz on the wedding thread it was started by Miss Thrifty who is now Mrs Thrifty :cool:
Did u meet OH through t'internet? Have I told you ladies that my best mummy buddy met her OH through hot or not

Feely I think you should call ur MW or pop into GPs to get ur BP done feeling feint could be linked to ur high BP

searching_me - Haydn is a name on our list I love it

Tine I can't think of anything useful to say (partly coz I can't remember most of what u said )

Well I'm stuffed I cooked hubby a lovely B-day tea of M&S "not just any roast chicken" with yorkshire puds, roast red onions, sweet potatoes, butternut squash n potatoes and M&S chicken gravy followed by Choccy b-day cake Which I put candles on Hubby loved it :T

even though my stomach is full to bursting I feel hungry

Oh and :eek::eek: I had my bump molested by Mum's weird hippy trippy friend _pale_

searching_me

mrs t did as you suggested but changed it slightly :rotfl: why is it when you have kids you find out who your real friends are eh? x

Sami_Bee

oh Tine you could join a general union i thin Unison would probably be the one for you