A gas station manager asked Reddit if she was wrong for taking a hardline with a pregnant employee who demanded a smoke break on the hour, every hour.
Here’s what she had to say.
The woman supervises four people at the gas station and has no trouble with three of them. But the fourth one is giving her a serious headache.
The troublesome employee, who the woman calls E, is pregnant.
E has a doctor’s note that states she needs to sit down every four hours.
As a pregnant woman, she also can’t do some jobs, especially those involving heavy lifting and carrying. And she’s exempt from cleaning duties as the chemicals in the products could harm the unborn baby.
But this isn’t the issue. “I’m totally fine with all this,” said the gas station supervisor.
The problem is, “she wants to go out to her car and have a cigarette. Literally every hour. I’m honestly not exaggerating.”
That’s right; a pregnant woman demands a smoke break every 60 minutes.
The gas supervisor was shocked. But she didn’t pass judgment on the woman. After all, it’s not her business. However, managing the gas station is. So she told the woman, no, employees can’t disappear for smoke breaks all the time.
The woman thinks her supervisor is treating her unfairly.
And tensions boiled over during a recent shift.
“It came to a head yesterday,” shared the woman. “I was doing my stuff before I left, and she wanted to go smoke. I said she’ll have to wait because I had to do outside trash and clean the restrooms and stock the pop cooler and go to the bank.”
The pregnant woman and her other coworker insisted; they wanted a smoke.
Now the station manager was getting angry.
“I told them, ‘I’m in the middle of this. I have 30 minutes left of my shift and about an hour’s worth of work. I’ll be out when I can.'”
The pregnant woman threw a tantrum in the gas station. Then, a few minutes later, she went outside for a smoke break anyway.
Now the gas station manager has had enough. She says it can’t go on like this.
“It frustrates me to no end because not only am I doing all of my job and three-quarters of hers, she wants to beg off to go smoke every hour.”
And she’s using her pregnancy as an excuse to slack off, which the supervisor isn’t buying.
“She claims it’s the pregnancy and her feet hurt, so I’ll point to the office chair and tell her to sit down in between customers. But that’s not what she wants to do, [she wants to smoke],” said the woman. “Also, I’ve told her I’ve had six kids myself and was always on the go. So it’s not like I don’t know what it’s like to be pregnant.”
Still, she can’t help feeling a little bit guilty and wonders if she should be cutting the woman a bit more slack.
So she asked Reddit, “Am I being a jerk for not giving her the number of smoke breaks she claims she needs??”
Here are a few of the responses:
“Not the jerk,” shared one person. “Pregnant and smoking? That’s something I will never understand, and this woman is wrong. Stay your ground on your decisions.”
“You are not the jerk. She wants to take a break lasting at least 5 minutes out of every hour. So in an 8-hour shift, she wants to work 40 minutes less than everybody else…and get paid for it?”
Would you say something to a pregnant coworker who was smoking on shift?
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Source: Reddit
