One of my coworkers wants me to stop checking my blood sugar at work.
Let me explain. I have diabetes, and as my diagosis involved almost dying I take it seriously. So I’m on tight control, which means checking my glucose level a lot, which means pricking my finger thusa lot: immediately upon waking, two hours after every meal, and immediately before bed. This doesn’t bother me; I make sort of a game of it, and it’s a tiny, tiny prick involving a tiny, tiny drop of blood.
At job number one, we all have cubicles. On average I check my glucose level at my desk twice during the day. A woman who works two rows away–i.e., in a position from which only Clark Kent could see my desk–recently complained to the big boss about my diabetes routine. The boss called us into his office and asked me to explain to her what I am doing; she still complains. The mere knowledge of what I’m doing bothers me, she claimed, even more than the scent of my blood. :rolleyes: She’d really like me to stop checking ENTIRELY at work–not even in the bathroom–as she needs more sensitivity to her needle phobia. She advises me to check only once a day, because, she claims, her cousin is a doctor and assures her that if the fasting sugar level is fine, the blood sugar level cannot possibly go low or high during the day.
She is, in short, a moron.
I’m sure some of you known have even more moronic coworkers, though.
I’ve dealt with some idiots at work, but good grief, this one is a real winner. She can smell your blood 2 rows away? Maybe you should just fart before you poke - that oughta mask it.
He actually made her repeat the story twice–ostensibly because he simply could not believe what he was hearing, but in fact because he hoped she’d realize how intensely stupid she was being. When she did not, or did but refused to admit it, he told her that he could not possibly ask me to stop checking my blood sugar level, but would ask me not to do it within sight of her. When she pointed out that that meant nothing would change, he said, “Yeah, I noticed that too.”
How did she even know you do this at work Skald? I mean it doesn’t sound as if you stand up before checking your blood sugar and yell “Lookit!” Or, do you?
I don’t know, but if I had to guess I’d say she overheard someone asking/reminding me to do it. One of my direct reports is an older woman who worries about my blood sugar a lot and will remind me to eat, which I sometimes forget to do.
Good for your boss and the older woman who worries about you, then! I love your bosses reaction to the situation.
As for me, I still remember a couple of coworkers from a job I had a year and a half ago. One of them had two top priority projects she was urging me to finish one morning. When I asked her which of them she would like me to work on first, she said, “Do them both at once.” That would have required a split screen, a second keyboard, and me working on one project with my fingers and the other with my toes. I’ve talked about the other coworker before. He’s the one who once told me, “I can’t learn” and, a month later, “I won’t take a class.”
It sounds to me like she is making it a hostile work environment for you and you have grounds to complain and ask that she be moved. However, since your boss is really cool, you may want to thank him for accommodating your medical need. If I were the boss, I’d ask that she document her phobia to needles as a medical condition, and if she doesn’t, then I’d fire her ass.
I’m going to assume that you’re not joking and say that I think this is a bad idea. Not that I want her around, but it’s too quick an escalation. Better to let the status quo remain as it is, and if she lets it go, so should my boss. Who, by the way, jokingly suggested that he should transfer her to my team.
