My good friend and I are at a stalemate and I was hoping you could help. She’s a pharmacist in a very busy medical clinic, which is open on holidays. During this time of year, she tries to make the schedule as fair as possible to accommodate people’s travel, time with family etc. There are a few employees who do not celebrate Christmas and/or New Year’s, and because they receive double pay, they typically don’t mind working those days. However, there is still some crunching of shifts that just has to be done.


About a month or so ago, she overheard one of her lead techs (who was very pregnant) tell another tech that she’d gotten pregnant on purpose so she’d automatically be off during the holidays…again. This pregnancy is this woman’s second child; her first was born last year, two days after Thanksgiving. She returned to work in late January. This new baby arrived a few days before Thanksgiving, and she’ll probably return from maternity leave around the same time next year. My friend then heard her say something to the affect of “Anna (my friend) screwed me over a couple years ago and I wasn’t going to let that happen again.” Apparently the year before last, they were short staffed and this woman had to work the evening shift on Christmas day. She was paid double and my friend even made food available because she knew that this employee was upset. But she was given a month’s notice that she would be required to work that day.

My friend thinks she should speak to this employee when she returns from maternity leave. I think she should leave it alone. I mean, sure, she could’ve kept that fun fact about her planned pregnancies to herself and it was thoughtless, but I don’t know if it rises to the level of “needs a talking to.” I feel like if there were other issues going on with her performance, then that should definitely be addressed, but my friend is pretty set on speaking with her upon her return. What do you think?

Good lord, no, she shouldn’t say anything to her.

First, I’m skeptical that this woman is truly making her reproductive decisions based on not wanting to work around a holiday, and it’s more likely that the timing just happened to accommodate that. Second, if the comment was 100% sincere, what is your friend going to say — “you need to make reproductive decisions without regard to holiday scheduling”? Of all the things that are none of a manager’s business, an employee’s personal reasons for how she times a pregnancy is high on the list.

Your friend needs to let this go.