A reader writes:
I am just a few weeks pregnant (and not showing at all). I have only told the few people at work who need to know, as I’ve had a rocky first trimester and needed some time to deal with pretty terrible morning sickness. The people who know are as follows: my boss, HR, my friend who shares my office with me and has seen me rush out of the room to go throw up, and another colleague who is a close family friend.
Two weeks ago, the office busybody, Roberta, bustled into my office demanding, “Why didn’t you TELL me?” over and over again, complete with wiggling her eyebrows knowingly. I played dumb and asked, “Tell you what, exactly?” until she finally said, “That you’re pregnant!” I said that I wasn’t really telling people yet, and I was confused as to who told her. She insisted it was fine to tell her, and I kept insisting that I wasn’t telling people yet and that I would like to know why she knows. We went around like this for a bit until she said congratulations and left in a bit of a huff.
I found out later that she knows because the person at the front desk overheard someone else talking about it and decided to bring it up when she and Roberta were talking about stocking the bathroom with menstruation pads and she joked that I “clearly wouldn’t be needing them.” (A whole other level of weird, in my opinion!)
It’s been a few weeks now and Roberta will not look at me or talk to me about anything, work-related or otherwise. I think she’s offended that she wasn’t told I was pregnant, but … am I right in thinking that’s my private medical information? I wasn’t even past the first trimester yet, and I know people generally hold off on announcing it until then.
I’m wondering how to navigate this situation, and if I need to talk with her directly about her (or my?) behavior? Could I have done something differently?
If this impacts the situation at all, she’s older than I am (baby boomer to my millennial), and she’s overly gossipy and tends to heavily comment on other’s bodies and appearances in a way I find uncomfortable. Thus, I have a polite but distant relationship with her — more of a distant acquaintance than a close work friend. I didn’t want to tell her I was pregnant at all — and certainly not this early! — given these issues. I also don’t really want to focus on my pregnancy at work, but on my work, which I think is fairly reasonable.
You are not wrong in any way. Roberta was out of line in laying claim to your news in the first place, and even more out of line in acting offended around you now.
It’s reasonable and normal not to share pregnancy news at work (or anywhere) until you’re ready to — whether that means past your first trimester or something else. Colleagues aren’t entitled to know about your pregnancy until things are at the point where you need to discuss plans for your leave. The first trimester is not that point.
My guess is that Roberta’s side of this would sound something like, “I heard she was pregnant and was excited and wanted to congratulate her, but she wouldn’t accept my good wishes and just demanded to know how I knew.” She probably did genuinely feel hurt by that; the most generous reading is that she thought she was going to have a warm moment of connection with you and got rebuffed. But that doesn’t make her in the right; she’s still 100% in the wrong, both for violating your privacy and demanding you share personal info with her, and for getting affronted when you tried to maintain a reasonable boundary. If she feels embarrassed or hurt, that’s something she needs to deal with privately. Instead she’s making it into your problem by acting as if you offended her.
As for what to do, you have a few options.
First, how much does it affect your work that she won’t speak to you? If there’s no real impact on your work, you could choose to ignore what she’s doing and figure it’s her problem, not yours.
But if it’s affecting your work, ignoring it isn’t an option. In that case, you could talk to her directly, approaching it as, “It seems like you haven’t been talking to me since you asked if I was pregnant, and I do need you to talk to me about things like XYZ so I can get my work done.”
Alternately, you could loop in your boss, because a colleague refusing to discuss work with you is Not Okay. Ideally you’d attempt to talk to Roberta directly first — both because that might solve it and because if it doesn’t, it’ll be useful to tell your boss you’ve tried. But if she keeps freezing you out, it’s a work issue that your boss needs to know about. (Also, based on how Roberta is handling this, I’m betting you’re not the only colleague she has trouble working with.)
