A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:Hi,I'm a team leader at my place of work and am caught in between an awkard situation.There's this woman who joined the team last year from another office part of our work group as she was pregnant and needed to downsize her workload so she came to work with us. Now what happened is she gave birth to a still born baby- obviously very tragic and it's probably not something she will ever recover from. She came back to work 3 months after this happened and requested to work in 1 of the spare rooms alone as she didn't want to be in a busy environment. We agreed to this, no problem- we want to be able to help anyway we can.Now in the office 2 other ladies gave birth around the same time as thus woman and obviously wanted to bring their babies in to show. So we arranged it so they came in when my other colleague was off as she made it very clear she doesn't want to see any babies etc...On top of all this 2 other girls are now also pregnant and obviously excited but they keep forgetting about this other woman and leaving pregnancy magazines around and when she does come in the main office they could be in mid discussion about pregnancy which upsets her.The other 2 who had babies feel it's unfair they can't pop in whenever they want incase this other woman sees them. Ghe 2 pregnant girls don't feel they should keep quiet about their pregnancy and the other woman can't be around pregnant people or hear about it.What do I do? I understand all 3 points! The 2 with babies should come in when they want, the 2 pregnant girls have every right to be happy and discussing it and the woman who lost baby-now 7 months ago has every right to avoid these situations but it feels like a juggling act, i've tried to accomodate everyone.Any suggestions welcome.Thanks
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male
reader, 11muds11  +, writes (9 July 2010):
I have never been in an office where babies were allowed to be shown. Especially because of a reason like this. That should not be allowed on company time.
And the baby magazines? On their own time and own space I think. Nowhere in public. That should be a rule.
As far as talking about it, all you can do is give a suggestion and let people know you'll be happier with them if they don't talk about it when she's around. Try and reason with them to think about others without worrying about what they say. Good luck.
A
female
reader, AuntyEm +, writes (9 July 2010):
 I would bring her in for a private chat. Explain to her that everyone wants to give her support for as long as she needs it and that you are all trying to understand how horrible it was for her. Explain that you can't really completely stop all office life continuing and that if she does see preganancy magazines laying around or someone brings their baby in, that, if it upsets her, perhaps she can come in and have a chat about it, or take a time out to deal with her feelings.
It's a tricky situation and people get highly emotive and expect their needs to be met, but it's about compromise.
Explain to her that nobody is forcing or expecting her to get over the death of her baby, but that you noticed these 'office, baby' things were potentially a hurtful situation for her and you just wanted to level with her, that you want to find the best situation to keep everyone happy and wanted her 'input'.
As tragic as it is, with a little sensitive handling, hopefully she will be able to deal with the workplace and her grief and find some relief.
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