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Client side brand manager in LA?
I’m sick of living in NYC but can’t go anywhere.
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Is this correct?
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BCG > Bain or Bain > BCG?
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I hate going to the Apple Store nowadays.
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Rising Star
Give the feedback, leave out the pregnancy part.
For example, I haven't gotten Susie's model and she hasn't responded to the pings I've sent her. We have the presentation coming up Friday, any suggestions on what we do to close this out?
This is good context. Thanks!
I still think OP should look at other options before reporting the woman after two days. Especially if they’ve got a decent amount of lead up time until it’s due. If played right, OP might have an opportunity to stand out as a team player and a strong leader. Regroup, make a contingency plan, get it done.
Chief
Your lack of awareness is cringe tbh. Someone being MIA one time and you’re characterizing them as underperforming?
Reach out to her manager (which I hope is not you). They can decide if this needs to escalate to HR.
Lol, as if MIA for weeks could be a thing
Is she pregnant or is she obese? Be careful making assumptions.
Pwc 2 are u serious? You just described conditions that are out of your wife’s control— brain fog and fatigue— due to her pregnancy. If you want to go back to discriminating against pregnant ppl in the workplace because “pregnancy is a choice” then you’ll have to time travel back to 1950 where you belong. Punishing ppl at work because they are, biologically, the ones who have to carry pregnancies in order to further the continuation of our species is just…disgusting. I don’t have other words for it. Our society SHOULD be praising and helping women for literally creating the next generation of humans, not knocking them because their performance changes slightly at work while literally growing a human inside of them that’s feeding off of their food and blood supply. And ppl wonder why women put off having children until much later and have less of them these days. Attitudes like yours.
Consultants really think they’re brain surgeons. You’re creating slides for a presentation 😒😒 relax.
This is so true lol
Rising Star
Honestly, if she wanted the job, should wouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place. It's no cap 🧢 such a traditional roles based thing to do. Fire her 🔥 and let her husband do the breadwinning 🚀🥖🍞
I'm 10000% going to tell my husband with his 50k salary that he's now dedicated breadwinner since I've decided to be pregnant and have a child.. forget my 150k salary and career. Time for him to step it up 🤰💅🏻
Enthusiast
You mention her pregnancy in the feedback and you open yourself (and by extension, the firm) to a lawsuit
Enthusiast
That’s reasonable to do. Just don’t associate her lack of response with her pregnancy.
My two cents:
1. Be human. Check on her. Is she alright?
2. Learn to be a team player. Pick up the work in her absence.
3. Evolve a bit. Understand that you’d never know what it means to be pregnant. The laws in America almost force women to work during pregnancy even if they can’t. One day when your wife, sister or daughter would get pregnant, you’d realize what it means to manage that along with a job.
There is so much wrong advice here because this place is full of 20 something men who haven’t grown up to yet.
- I’m a man
As a pregnant woman who had an emergency health situation at work which meant I physically couldn't text my team to say I'd be out as I was in so much pain and stress, do what this guy is saying. Don't assume she is doing this with malice or is underperforming on purpose. Choose to react with empathy instead of judgement and be a team player in the meantime. Whatever person above said to ask for self recognition at a time like this is so out of touch it beggars belief. Worst case scenario she's gone into preterm emergency labor so be a decent human and imagine what that must be like.
Your main concern is how to go about providing negative feedback? Why are you so cold? Truly lacking all kind of emotional awareness and basic human decency.
Maybe she’s not “underperforming” and had a pregnancy related medical issue. Do you know how many things can go wrong in a pregnancy? Your concern is the client when you have identified that a pregnant coworker is MIA for multiple days? Like not showing up to work at all and your first thought is “how can I give negative feedback 🤪”.
You should let her manager know because someone with a brain on their shoulder should reach out to her and check in. I think at some point there should be some concern for her as a person.
A lot of people on this thread have never been pregnant or had a significant other that was pregnant and it shows.
All these Einsteins in the comments didn't read the full post.
The issue isn't "low performance" - an employee that shows up but needs temporary help can be helped, and definitely should be helped in most cases... this is about her straight up ghosting work for 2 days straight. It sets the wrong precedent in many ways.
It takes 5 seconds to text "I'll be unavailable for a couple days" to colleagues. However, given her condition, it is possible that she had a situation that would have made that more difficult.
If I were you, I'd send something like this to higher ups:
"HI! So (pregnant woman) has not showed up to work for the past 2 days. Do we know what is going on? While we understand and appreciate that there could be a lot going on that we don't know about, our team has been picking up slack. While our team is happy to do this, it's not sustainable long term, and I would like my team to get recognition for the hard work they're putting in. Thanks"
It acknowledges the situation and gives your team credit without throwing your employee under the bus, beyond what is obvious to everyone.
Pro
Terrible response. How about, “Hi, (colleague) has not showed up or checked in with us for two days. Can someone reach out to make sure she is okay? In the meantime, we have a presentation due this week that she is involved in. Our team would like to know if we need to find another arrangement if she will not be able to be prepared for the presentation.”
Beyond this, none of your biz
Chief
Her being pregnant is not relevant. 🤦🏾♀️
Enthusiast
OP, you are a bad person who has already accused their co-worker of not doing their work properly here in this bowl. Go to your manager and say hey, we haven't heard back from so and so and I don't know how much work she's completed. Should I go ahead and take over or should we just wait until she returns. Geez
Second half of this comment for how to message this to manager is good advice. (Ignore the bad person first part, but the way to message it is appropriate)
Pro
Do make sure you put it in writing that your colleague has not been performing since she got pregnant.
I hope she gets a nice settlement out it.
Rising Star
I can't with this post and I'm a male. Shameful.
Enthusiast
"A pregnant lady on my team" - you mean your team member? Colleague? Fellow human being? Just treat the situation as such.
Enthusiast
Do not bring up her pregnancy. Speak to facts only
Enthusiast
🤦🏻♀️
Don’t mention her pregnancy.
State what was agreed upon & missed.
Just tell your manager what’s not done and what’s missing, with the history and communion. Rest is the managers problem. Beyond your pay grade to worry about HR POV
Conversation Starter
Why report it? Just mention it to her superior? Am I missing something
Agree w all the advice saying just to go to your manager and frame it as more of an issue of how to accomplish the deliverable by client meeting. You’re not REPORTING her; you’re asking manager help for how to manage a conundrum related to a client deliverable. Her showing up/not showing up, being sick, reporting to manager etc is none of your prob or business - that’s for the manager. You role is only to worry about getting the deliverable done in time. Since you don’t know her situation and if she will be back, you do need to ask manager advice for how to manage and handle the remaining work on the deliverable. This should not be scary and is not inappropriate - (from a currently pregnant F)
Be human and grow up. You never know what’s going on in peoples’ lives. Also sounds like you’re her peer as opposed to say her reporting to you.
I used to have a chronic condition that sometimes resulted in sudden painful crisis, which meant whatever work I was doing regardless of how anyone deemed it important was deprioritised till I got better. Now when this happened, I only tended to inform the minimum amount of people in my immediate delivery chain so could be like one SM and maybe key client contact. The rest of my peer team wouldn’t necessarily be aware unless the SM had got round to informing them.
So my point is, relax - it’s only work. There are always more important things happening in our lives.
Be a human. Bring MIA for 2 days doesn’t mean long term underperformance. Many personal things could have happened other than being pregnant.
I had a coworker go MIA on me because he was in the hospital from a car accident. I went MIA for a few days after finding my best friend had committed suicide. My boss went MIA on me because she had an early emergency c section. Life happens, and in those situations work is on the bottom of peoples list of priorities.
To handle the situation, you send a polite email to her manager. “Hi Susan, I’ve been unable to reach Michelle and we have a client presentation coming up. Is she out of office? “ etc etc