I disagree. What if she had AIDS and wanted to keep it a secret? No one would doubt her right to maintain her privacy about that. There are LOTS of “non-weaselly” reasons for wanting to keep medical issues vague. Honest to god, I prefer it if people do–no one needs to know she’s not at work because she’s got an ultrasound wand up her vagina.
In social settings, yes, honesty and openness (to a degree) is appreciated. In a business setting, everyone has their own agenda. Bosses are not your friends, and shouldn’t be treated as such. IMO, it’s common sense to protect your own interests in these situations.
It is his business insofar as he deserves *some *explanation. The explanation is “minor medical issues.” Just because he’s your boss does not mean you have to make your life an open book. You have rights to privacy and you should draw the line in the sand as to how much you are willing to disclose.
Maintaining your privacy is not weaselly. Using some pretext to fire people when they disclose potential pregnancies is weaselly. Which side of weaselly would you rather be on? Either you can be “weaselly” by maintaining your privacy or you can allow him the opportunity to be weaselly by firing you on a pretext, which will also have the side effect of making it harder for you to get unemployment insurance benefits.
Her privacy is neither here nor there. She says she wants to take “several days a month” off from work. She can’t just expect to be able to request that without giving a reason why. That’s going to cost them a lot of productivity. It IS their business.
If she didn’t have to take time off from work, I would say not to tell them. Being absent from work for “several days a month” requires an explanation, though, and not a weaselly one either.
Dude, I was fired for going to chemo, by a boss that I (obviously) trusted enough to let him know what was going on. Being out of the office every other Friday wasn’t really optional unless I wanted to die. I told him exactly what was going on, what I was told to expect, and was in the office every day aside from chemo days. He told me in so many words that he wasn’t going to penalize me for being sick, and wasn’t even going to keep track of my sick days. I was fired for “not spending enough time in the office.” He did it because he knew the business was too small to fall under FMLA, so he could get away with it. Couldn’t find a lawyer to take it.
So, HELL NO, I don’t tell anyone I may work with in corporate America my personal business. They don’t need to know, and telling them will probably bite me in the ass, whether it’s legal/ethical or not. Your boss is not your friend, even if he spends an awful lot of time claiming that he is.
That would be a lie. She doesn’t have any medical issues. Trying to get pregnant is not a medical issue, and “minor medical issues” don’t require several days off from work every month. The company is going to have to consider whether she’s worth keeping on if she can’t show up for work every day.
Well, I don’t know that I’d say it isn’t a medical issue. I have unexplained infertility, a diagnosis of a medical issue, and am getting treatment for it.
Don’t forget I’m in Canada (Alberta) and things are a bit different here. I’m slightly more protected from being fired for a situation like this.
Also, I thinking about it, I will be able to get non-specific doctor’s notes for my absences as well.
Proof again that your social systems and health care are fucked in the U.S. The OP is in Alberta.
ETA: Yeah, what EmAnJ just typed.
Any chance you can cut down how much time you spend at these destination weddings to reclaim a few days off? That would mean less on-the-job stress.
No, unfortunately, I already looked in to it.
I don’t think I’ll be saying anything to my boss about this, but I may discuss the situation with an HR friend of mine and see what she has to say about it.
I can’t get pregnant either, do I have a medical issue? Infertility is not a medical issue in the sense that it’s not a health issue. With all due respect, you don’t HAVE to conceive, you just want to. Your treatments are not a medical necessity, they are elective.
This is one of the reasons I think you should be honest. BECAUSE yoiu have those protections. I don’t think you should give them any kind of opportunity or loophole to accuse you of dishonesty or deception.
How is this not a medical issue? If she were a man, and had erectile disfunction, and had to miss work a couple days a month for a couple months to fix it, would you say that wasn’t a medical issue?
You should only tell your boss if you require his assistance in the process. Otherwise, I’m in the hell no camp.
You’re damn right I would. I’d be a lot LESS sympathetic.
Which she does, because she wants him to give time off.
Since you are in Canada I would look for advice from other Canadians, since laws differ, etc. But that said …
Pretty much. Unless maybe its really a take-it or leave-it job, and then you probably wouldn’t be asking.
Not that is what you asked but I would skip the SIL wedding and send my SO on his own. I might skip the sibling wedding too. I wouldn’t risk my job to go to a wedding (again, unless I really didn’t give a shit). Funeral or family illness, maybe, but not a wedding.
So anything that doesn’t kill you is “elective”? I know 5-6 people who missed 6 weeks of work with rotator cuff surgery. They could use their arms, they just had very limited range of motion if they wanted to avoid pain. Is that elective? How is it different?
And what did they tell their bosses? That they had to miss six weeks because of an undisclosed medical situation. I bet not.
Second this.
Bolding mine.
Why would the boss find out? If the OP didn’t say anything, the circumstances surrounding conception would remain private … as they should be for any birth, ferchrissakes.
As far as your ETA question - a quick poke around the BBQ pit might be illuminating. (There’s a reason the “Dilbert” comic strips have such longevity.)
You may consider yourself a lucky human if the idea of working for someone who’d stab you in the back is so foreign that it wouldn’t occur to you that it might happen to others.