A woman, furious that her manager doesn’t know about period pain, ranted on Reddit, sharing how her boss denied her leave request during painful menstrual cramps. A woman who works at a mental health NGO in Mumbai shared a screenshot of the interview with the director.
She wrote that the intense pain had started the day before, so she needed to rest, and asked if a colleague could join her to handle her hour-long workshop scheduled for Sunday. The principal’s alleged response was: “Please don’t cancel the workshops every week. It reflects very badly on us.”
“We have online workshops every Sunday (smh) with another NGO, although we only have working days from Monday to Friday from 8am to 4pm. This time we organized a training program for staff at the college which lasted for two days, Friday and Saturday from 9am to 4.30pm. I had no choice but to attend even though I was in dying pain due to my period, but I still completed my duties.
I asked someone from our team to attend a 1-hour weekly workshop on Sunday and that’s what the director told me. No “don’t worry” or “it’s okay”. No feedback on our work yesterday and the day before yesterday. It is an NGO in Mumbai working for suicide prevention and mental health. This is our reality,” the post read.
In the comments section, she explained that there were no prior cancellations, noting that two workshops were delayed due to issues faced by a partner NGO and one more was affected because her team was away at the conference.
Several users noted the irony of an employee of a mental health NGO being met with such insensitivity, pointing out the discrepancy between the organization’s stated values and how it treats its own staff.
The post quickly went viral and garnered countless reactions.
One user wrote: “I remember working for a mental health startup and boy does it have the worst terrible work/life balance. I was creating a module for grounding exercises with positive affirmations during my panic attacks. It was funny thinking about it. Tell them you can’t do it, what’s the worst that can happen if you don’t?”
Another commented: “Working in the development sector is toxic. Very few NGOs in India with a good work life balance.”
A third said, “That’s so ironic Imao.”
A fourth user said: “Work on the welfare of your employees first.”
