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Antiwork

Denied reasonable accommodations during pregnancy

I’m finally mustering the courage to resign from a job that put me and my then-unborn child at risk. For a bit of context, I work for a large university and handle a high volume of student events, I teach a class, and I have a portfolio of a dozen academic advisees. The events are a major component of my role, and I often have to work on nights, weekends, and holidays. The role requirements also easily exceed one FTE position. Because my partner and I are not married, I needed this job for health insurance, especially because mine was a high-risk pregnancy. (Chronic hypertension will come into play later….) I found out I was pregnant in the peak of Omicron and my OB immediately wrote a note recommending that I work remotely whenever possible. My boss decided that because it was a “recommendation” and not a requirement, I’d have…


I’m finally mustering the courage to resign from a job that put me and my then-unborn child at risk.

For a bit of context, I work for a large university and handle a high volume of student events, I teach a class, and I have a portfolio of a dozen academic advisees. The events are a major component of my role, and I often have to work on nights, weekends, and holidays. The role requirements also easily exceed one FTE position. Because my partner and I are not married, I needed this job for health insurance, especially because mine was a high-risk pregnancy. (Chronic hypertension will come into play later….)

I found out I was pregnant in the peak of Omicron and my OB immediately wrote a note recommending that I work remotely whenever possible. My boss decided that because it was a “recommendation” and not a requirement, I’d have to keep coming to work in-person. My state has laws about granting reasonable accommodations to people who are pregnant, but HR backed my boss up and ridiculed me for being “self-absorbed” and for “jeopardizing the students.” I was also straight-up told not to “burden” my overextended colleagues with requests for assistance at these events. When I had a hormone-fueled anxious meltdown in my office, I was sternly lectured and told that I needed to consider the feelings and wellbeing of my colleagues. Another time, I told my boss that this situation was untenable, and her response was “Well, don’t let it derail you.”

Throughout the pregnancy I was repeatedly required, against the aforementioned medical advice, to come to campus to run large-scale events indoors with hundreds of maskless people during raging Covid outbreaks in the dorms. When my TAs both got Covid at once, I was hauling around six-foot round tables without assistance, lugging catering trays, and pulling carts full of supplies for miles across this large campus. I’d finish 14-hour workdays literally bruised and bloodied, and I’d end up calling out sick for a day or two to recover. My blood pressure was dangerously high and I was having outrageous Braxton-Hicks contractions every time I had a day like that.

Fast-forward: I was induced because of high blood pressure. I labored for 50 hours, pushed for 3, and had an emergency Caesarean. I was hospitalized for 11 days because they couldn’t stabilize my blood pressure, and I had preeclampsia. I ended up hospitalized a second time because my blood pressure spiked and I blew a blood vessel in my eye, which caused a pre-retinal hemorrhage. I’m now temporarily blind in one eye and it could take months to heal. I directly attribute many of these issues to the physical and emotional stress of such grueling working conditions during my pregnancy.

I really don’t want to go back. I’m considering getting married sooner than planned just for insurance purposes so I can quit this job without having to embark on a job hunt with a newborn, as I try to recover from surgery and multiple hospitalizations. The idea of going back to work for a place that will unhesitatingly put me in harm’s way and gaslight the everloving hell out of me just makes me ill.

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