The Original Poster (OP) was eight weeks pregnant when a new manager arrived and decided that everyone had to tuck their shirts in, pregnant or not.
Exceptions are always made for pregnant women and unforeseen circumstances when it comes to the uniform policy of stores. Unfortunately for the employees of a big pet store, that wasn't how their manager rolled. Taking to Reddit, a former employee of the establishment revealed how everyone was supposed to tuck their uniform into their khakis with an exception for pregnant women. "Years ago I worked at a certain big box pet store with employees in blue shirts and poorly maintained fish tanks. Back then employees were required to tuck their uniform shirts into their khakis, with an exemption for pregnant female employees (which I was at the time of this occurrence)," wrote user zzz0mbiez.
The Original Poster (OP) was eight weeks pregnant when a new manager arrived and decided that everyone had to tuck their shirts in, pregnant or not. "I worked the registers with my untucked shirt with no issues for months while I was preggo. When I was about 8 months pregnant and just a few weeks shy of going on maternity leave we got a new manager that was painfully clueless and stupid (isn’t that always the way?). So one day, this manager calls myself and the other main cashier (who was ALSO just as preggo as I was) into the office (with another manager as a witness) to tell us that we are fine cashiers, but our uniforms are lacking. The other cashier and myself are just “????”, because we both had our khakis, uniform shirts and black sneakers. Everything was neat and clean, so we both had no clue what he was talking about," she recalled.
When she asked the manager what exactly he was referring to, he pointed at their shirts not being tucked in. Having been in the company for longer than the manager, both the employees objected and noted that "pregnant employees" were exempted from the tucking policy. Despite the information, "He waves his hand at us and says that we are incorrect and that all employees must tuck their shirts. The other manager that is there acting as a witness chimes in that we are correct, but clueless manager cuts witness manager off and says he knows what the policy is and that previous management was just being lax (they weren’t, pregnant employees were actually exempt). The other cashier and I shrug and leave the office to go tuck our shirts in. Clueless manager left for the day right after talking to us," she continued.
Now the two pregnant employees only had two ways to keep their shirt tucked in and both looked ridiculous. "So we both emerge (waddle gloriously) from the back room where we tucked in our shirts looking absurd. I had my shirt tucked into my belly band just below my boobs, and the other cashier had hers tucked into her hairband closed pants, below her belly, and with her leopard print underwear exposed. Clueless manager was already gone for the day so he was not present to see our magnificent uniform compliance," she shared. This went on for a few days and their manager was absent to witness their dutiful compliance. But their regular customers surely saw the uncomfortable uniform and in no time began sending in complaints through the employee hotline after learning that the manager had insisted on them doing it.
When the manager returned to the store on the third day, he saw the pregnant employees and asked why they were dressed in "beautifully ridiculous uniforms." They responded, "You told us to tuck our shirts in." The manager rushed into his office and immediately called for them. He "starts going off on us for not taking the uniform policy seriously. Mid-tirade the district manager arrives, FURIOUS. She turned to us preggo eggos and nicely told us to untuck our shirts and head back out to the floor before turning to clueless manager and going ballistic on him for enforcing something that we preggos were exempt from," she continued. "Turns out clueless manager ruined district managers days off because of all the complaints that came in about the two pregnant employees forced by a male manager to show their underwear/pregnancy attire in public due to an absurd uniform policy."
Ultimately, he was forced to apologize to the employees and treat them to lunch. The incident also helped them get their stools back at the register which was taken away by the manager saying, "If you can lean, you can clean." While the OP was on maternity leave, the manager was sent to HR training and fired shortly after refusing to "special order a pin-backed name tag for an employee with a pacemaker." Since their name tags were magnetic, the employee requested to at least move it to the other side of his chest but the manager did not allow that because "young people don’t have pacemakers." He even went to the extent of "insinuating that this employee was just looking to make trouble and get special treatment over a name tag."
Share on Facebook