It’s For Her To Say, If And When…

Dear Miss Manners: An employee presents at least some indications of being pregnant. None of my business?

Not at the moment. I’ll concede that much.

But how about her co-workers? Do they have a right to know? Is there a polite way for either a boss or a fellow staffer (probably a female - I’m guessing guys had best keep mum) to inquire as to whether a woman is in a condition that is certain to affect - if only to interrupt for a day or two - her job performance?

It isn’t relevant to the general question, but a childless employee here has made it known that bearing offspring is in the plan on a semi-regular basis, and she looks (it’s the consensus that’s talking) to be about four months pregnant. According to some analysts, she even dresses the part.

Gentle Reader: Everybody in the office is obviously having such a good time around the coffee pot - make that everybody with one exception - that Miss Manners hates to spoil the fun.

But she must remind your office analysts of certain variables and uncertainties:

Not everybody who voices a desire to have children gets pregnant. Plans to have semi-regular children (with the intention, Miss Manners hopes, of regularizing them) are notoriously subject to chance and change.

Not everyone who develops something of a tummy is pregnant. Every loose dress is not a maternity dress. And some pregnancies are blessedly free of symptoms that require missing work prior to the birth.

Therefore, the only way to satisfy everyone’s curiosity is to wait for the lady in question to volunteer this information. If she really is four months pregnant, you probably don’t have long to wait.

Miss Manners thinks it entirely possible that you are mistaken. She wouldn’t have thought that a lady who announces an intention of getting pregnant, which is not on the approved list of conventional social announcements, would be shy about announcing success. But she could have her reasons.

Perhaps she, like Miss Manners, has picked up on your subtext - the unpleasant suggestion that being pregnant is an imposition on one’s co-workers.

A pregnancy becomes office business when it seriously affects the work schedule - “seriously” meaning more than the occasional sick day that an office is routinely equipped to handle.

However interested the co-workers may be, it is not they but their supervisor who needs to know, in order to make arrangements to cover long absences, including maternity leave.

Dear Miss Manners: A long-time friend - I was in her first wedding - insists, after two divorces, that her friends are to bring presents to her new wedding.

Also, is it the custom to expect wedding guests to provide food for the reception as well as a gift? I always thought the wedding was given by the families, and that the guests were invited to share.

Gentle Reader: Your friend has an odd understanding of a guest, as being someone from whom one demands hospitality, rather than to whom one offers it.

But then, Miss Manners believes that you must have an odd concept of social life, too, if you think of someone who behaves that way to you as your friend.

xxxx

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Judith Martin United Features Syndicate