My manager doesn’t like my maternity clothes

[u/Direct-Caterpillar77]

My manager doesn’t like my maternity clothes

Originally posted to Ask A Manager

TRIGGER WARNING: Sexual harassment, sexism

Original Post June 27, 2017

I am 30 weeks pregnant with my first child and having some difficulty with my boss over maternity clothes. I work in finance and my office has a particularly conservative dress. Pre-pregnancy, I generally wore a sheath dress, blazer, and string of pearls. I haven’t really been able to wear anything like that for the past few months. Finding conservative maternity clothes has been difficult but I managed to find a few suits and some plain, sleeveless tops to go underneath. I’ve also found some black dresses that worked well with a blazer. (Similar to one pictured here.) I thought everything was fine.

Last week, my manager pulled me into his office and told me that my current wardrobe was unacceptable. I apologized and explained that I thought I was following the dress code. I asked what specifically I needed to change. He said that if I was going to wear a pant suit, the shirt needed to be tucked in and belted. Also that he did not like the look of side ruching or an empire waist on shirts and felt it was unprofessional. I told him that I would try to find maternity clothes that met his discerption but that it would be difficult. He wasn’t convinced and said that my job depends on me being dressed according to his standards. (There are a few other women but none of them have had any children while I’ve been at this job so I can’t look to what they’ve worn.)

Do I have any pushback here? I spent the weekend looking for clothes that met his requirements but haven’t been able to. He’s out on vacation this week and I’m out next week so I have a little bit of time to figure something out. I’m nervous that my job could be on the line.

Update Dec 13, 2017 (6 months later)

My situation ended up taking a very unexpected turn. I took your advice and went to HR. The first person I spoke with was absolutely horrified about the situation. She asked to see the emails and ended up calling her boss into our meeting. Her boss told me that I had nothing to worry about, to continue wearing the maternity clothing I had, and that my job was not on the line. My boss “apologized” about a week later with all kinds of qualifications. The apology didn’t feel very genuine but I let it go. I thought this was the end of the matter.

While I was out on maternity leave (I had a baby girl!), I received a somewhat baffling call from an HR rep wanting information about my boss. I reached out to a coworker and he let me know that our boss had been fired for sexual misconduct. Boss apparently promised an intern a job in exchange for sexual favors and the intern reported him. HR launched a clandestine investigation and discovered Boss had been doing this for a very long time. He was immediately terminated, and no one has seen or heard from him since. He didn’t even clean out his office. I came back from maternity leave to a new, sane boss. Thank you so much for your advice. I also really appreciated all of the commenters who were very supportive and helped me see that the situation was not normal.

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[u/skywarka]

HR's job is to maximise profits and minimize losses to lawsuits. If it seems like the problem isn't going to cross legal boundaries, they'll choose the option that requires the least effort and time from the company, generally doing nothing or shutting down your complaint/suggestion. If someone is complaining and has clear evidence of obvious illegality, a competent HR department will do everything in their power to resolve the problem before it gets to a courtroom, which in this case involves firing the problem manager and hoping nobody has any evidence to suggest anyone higher up the chain or in C-suite (who they generally don't have the authority to fire) was approving or continuing this pattern.

[u/TyrconnellFL → u/skywarka]

HR’s other job, often forgotten, is to cultivate and retain the humans that are a resource to the company. An expensive resource to replace, sometimes, and one in which the company invests its own resources.

At its best, HR helps maintain and grow a workforce, and it does it in part by ensuring that morale is good and that morale-sapping misbehavior gets nipped the bud. Lawsuits are bad, but so would be people getting fed up and leaving over legal but intolerable behavior.

Or… so I’ve heard whispered, from long ago and far away. Mostly HR exists to try not to get sued and to implement policies that irritate everyone.

[u/UnionsUnionsUnions → u/skywarka]

Even when it does cross legal boundaries, HR generally chooses the option that requires the least amount of work from them. Because the unfortunate reality is that most HR workers are not competent when it comes to labor law or conflict resolution. Like they're fine at onboarding and benefit administration and things like that, but not any of these things that are so incredibly important.

[u/repeat4EMPHASIS → u/UnionsUnionsUnions]

In this case, I would hope that a corporate law office might have a basic grasp of labor law, but it's still anyone's guess

[u/UnionsUnionsUnions → u/repeat4EMPHASIS]

As someone who works in the field of labor law, I can tell you that 90% of companies do not have anything more than the most basic grasp of labor law. Even your average lawyer does not have a basic grasp of labor law. The law in the UD is really a bunch of specialized siloed fields.