First, a plunge into the swampland of political incorrectness. Humor me while I venture a toe into the ever shifting tides of what is -- and what is not -- all right to say aloud in the workplace. The social repartee, late night banter and performance evaluations freely spoken. That tide has shifted. Uttering anything unscripted (read sexist, racist or just plain honest) can lead to a lawsuit as surely as a man's hand on a woman's behind. Or a woman's clutch on a man's crotch--just to keep this evenhanded.
So my PID (politically incorrect detector) wailed loudly when my husband wanted to discuss his afternoon. He was the only one who showed up for a scheduled staff meeting. Then there was the breakfast when he arrived at one restaurant while his partner waited at another; and the catered luncheon meeting where the food never appeared. After all, his executive assistant had been candid about her symptoms: decreased appetite, nausea, constipation, increased blood volume, decreased diastolic blood pressure, enlarged kidneys and terrible mood swings.
The law leaves no wiggle room for personal feelings -- much less professional discrimination -- when it comes to medical conditions in the workplace.
Katie was pregnant.
I am the mother of three children and remember vividly every alley, road and bathroom where I tossed my biscuits. Pregnancy was not what anyone had let on about; I neither glowed nor radiated nor glided. I was sick, grumpy, moody, uncomfortable, achy, and out of control of all bodily functions and emotional responses. But I maintained at the time that I was operating at my full capacity.
I worked full-time through two of my pregnancies and part-time through the third. I zealously defended my ability to perform and produce as I always had. I resented any deferential treatment or nod that I may be less than my usual clear, rational self. Strangely enough, my husband may remember differently those 27 months (more than 2 years of our married lives)
"I didn't mind going through your miserable pregnancies with you because I love you and you were carrying my children. But Katie isn't carrying my F**** child so why do I have to go through this with her?"
After his assistant burst into tears for the third time in one day, I could not help sympathizing with him. Even worse: I agreed with him.
Once crisp and detail oriented, she cried when she forgot to make a dinner reservation; she cried after failing to tell my husband about a parent-teacher conference; and she cried along with the temp who was hired to replace her when he declined the position. It was clear that Katie was falling down on the job. I was stomping headlong into politically incorrect territory (PIT). This kind of thinking was dangerously close to illegal. If I couldn't be sued for my thoughts, I could at the very least be blackballed from any consciousness raising group and stripped of my official feminist stick pin.
I acknowledge this reluctantly and grudgingly from the other end of the spectrum. I am now about as likely to get pregnant as is a donkey. Which is to say that my hormones are dangerously ebbing, never to surge again. I make no attempt to pretend that this hormonal dip has not transformed me into a cyclone. My mood shifts in minutes, I can't remember the names of my children, I find my husband alluring one moment and repulsive the next. And all this I blame entirely on my chemical composition. Personally I cannot be held accountable for my trigger temper and frequent shrieking. It is my estrogen levels -- or lack thereof -- that are to blame.
No one is at her best when fighting a fever or flu or cerebral hemorrhage; when one's white blood cell count is dangerously elevated or red cell count dangerously low. Is it a defense or a betrayal when I ask my husband to cut Katie some slack? After all, I remind him, she is pregnant. Her hormones are racing I tell him. Mine are ebbing I tell him.
The PID is blaring. But should my husband really be expected to battle hormonal females both at home and at work? The correct answer is obvious: This first time mother-to-be is legitimately grumpy, moody, scattered and out of control for all of the right reasons. My answer is simple. Katie must go.