Unreasonable boss + pregnant wife

WreckJohnB

Hi all,

My wife is in a very sticky situation at work and I’m hoping to get some advice.

A bit of history: My wife and her boss (back then a 2-person department) were a tight-knit team, worked together on practically the same level and there was a lot of mutual trust. After my wife returned from time off due to a relative’s terminal illness things changed markedly, with her boss being perceived as dictatorial, irritable and lacking trust in her employees (someone else was taken on as part-time during wife's absence).
Over the next 5 months my wife and her new colleague carried out tasks as instructed, but the boss started working from home/other office location more and more. So whenever he showed up there’d be lots of questions regarding work, which weren’t necessarily received in a positive way. So the boss would show up less, and there’d be even more questions whenever he was in the office etc. etc. From his side things wouldn't happen as he'd expected so he'd give them a telling-off and give them less responsibility/trust. I.e. a downward spiral...

Current situation: My wife and her colleague have tried to explain this situation to their boss, but he doesn’t understand/listen/agree/ see their point. Amongst things that were said is that the boss does not like coming into the office anymore when my wife is present, he blames my wife for the negative atmosphere (quotes: “I don’t like coming into the office because of you” and “you create a negative barrier around me”) and feels that wife+colleague are teaming up against him. All very negative (and unprofessional?), especially as my wife has often taken the blame for the other colleague's mistakes as she's there on a permanent contract and he's recently started.

Complication: My wife is so stressed out/sick of things that normally I’d say look for another job, but she is in the early stages of pregnancy (which her boss is aware of). Needless to say the stress to my wife really worries me given her pregnancy, I'm worried sick about it causing complications in the pregnancy. Secondly, as she's pregnant it is unlikely she’ll find another job, plus if she did find other work she'd not be there long enough to be entitled to more than the very basic maternity care.

I advised my wife to talk to her boss with HR present and see if they can really have both sides heard+prevent this escalating further. But any other views/advice is much appreciated!


PS tried searching the forum but not sure what search terms to use. Any links to similar cases are very welcome.

Tiddlywinks

So - basically the working relationship between your wife and her boss has broken down?

As you say there is an HR team, I'd suggest you wife writes to her boss and asks for a meeting to discuss mediation as a possibility.

asajj

You don't have much choice but to talk to HR first of all. Hard to find an identical case to this probably but even if you do, not sure what you'd tell the court?

She needs to talk to HR and explain them that she has problems. She doesn't have to have her boss present when this is happening.