I think I was threatened at work today

UPDATE: it’s Friday and a coworker asked me why I was going into the janitor’s closet and I flatly said “Apparently we discriminate against lactating mothers here. Interim director name said this was an acceptable place to pump food for my baby, she said my needs weren’t real and I was just wasting company time” Y’all… I don’t know if that will come back to bite me, but it was priceless. His face was priceless and he was rendered speechless.

TW: workplace pregnancy/breastfeeding discrimination

I spoke up about the place where I’m being asked to pump milk, it’s literally the janitor’s closet—beyond filthy, nowhere to sit, and random chemicals and dirt everywhere. I thought I was pretty polite about it, and proposed a solution of either dedicating an exam room to this purpose or allowing me to coordinate a time to use the director’s office (the only non-shared space that’s not also used as a patient care area). Sooo… my manager told the interim director about this, and she… apparently took this as a personal attack?

Y’all, she called me into her office to speak, I assumed she’s wanting to work something out, right? She immediately WENT OFF saying that I “knew what the space we have here is” and that “I shouldn’t have come to work here if it couldn’t meet my needs”. She added skepticism that I was even using this time to pump milk, said it was disruptive to the organization, and said if I wanted to continue to have this time at all she need “medical forms filled out by my doctor saying it’s necessary.” She went on to say that there would be no further accommodations made for me, she wouldn’t be manipulated, and if I didn’t like that, “too bad.” She then proceed to stare at me in silence until I got up and left.

For reference, this is a woman in her early 60’s, never married/no kids, history of making bafflingly ignorant comments like asking me if I really needed the full six weeks of maternity leave or if maybe I could come back after a week or two.
 

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