About a decade ago, I was younger, dumber, and still had my uterus. It was diseased and caused me a lot of trouble, including bleeding my own blood when I’d menstruate for up to 12 days in a row.
I went on a work trip to another city for a conference where all the other department coordinators from across Western Canada had gathered. I packed what I thought was enough period products for the weekend, but a bottle exploded in my bag rendering them useless. Shampoo leaked into all the wrappers and I was screwed.
I woke up the next morning at 5am in the throes of period bullshit. I took my medications and cleaned up and got dressed as quietly as possible to the protests of my roommate. Our hotel was a remote airport one, but I’d remembered there was a drugstore in a small big box area not too far away. I planned to call a cab and be back in 20min.
It was 6am. I rolled into the hotel lobby and my district manager was there. He was trying to round us up as we came down to chauffeur us into breakfast. I told him I’d be back soon, I had a personal errand to run. I wasn’t telling all gathered what was up.
He said, “Oh no, you’re not, it’s almost breakfast time.”
“No, I’m sorry, I need to do this one thing and I’ll be back shortly. I’ll just have the buffet,” I tried to say, bleeding copiously into the 25c pad I’d bought in the lobby bathroom.
“Nope, here we go, there’s enough of us for a table now,” and he started urging everyone into the restaurant.
I stopped him at the door and told him in a low voice, “I have dysmenorrhia and I have to go to the drugstore for period products. I can’t get through this without them.”
“You should have prepared better. Get in there and get some breakfast or I’ll be signing your two weeks when we get back.” I was fucking shocked but also terrified – this national company had no HR and I could not lose my job.
So I attended the meetings and took bathroom breaks and ignored my boss as much as possible. I spoke to the front desk and they – bless them – had their concierge place a box of pads in my room free of charge and I left him a good tip when I saw him at checkout.
When I got home from the weekend, I told my store assistant manager what had happened. He froze. He was horrified. He agreed to have a conference call with me to the company owners.
The company owners apologized, gave me $300 retail in gift cards for hush money, and reassigned me to a new DM. My old DM was fired a year later for sleeping with my replacement.
The reason I took the cards and didn’t seek employment law is the old refrain: too poor to afford to challenge your workplace because your workplace doesn’t pay you enough to hire a lawyer.