Woman shares her male colleague's bizarre reaction when he realised she was on her period

A man complained to HR after a colleague told him she was on her period. In 2017... Yes, really.

Twitter user Emilie shared an office horror story this week, originally posted to the forum Mumsnet.

The post, by a user named Snuffalo, explained that recounted a day she had been having “horrible menstrual cramps” and painkillers simply weren’t helping.

The Mumsnet user continued:

I remember I have a hot water bottle in my desk drawer - I used it all winter in my freezing office, and a few other people, male and female, have one as well – we have a rule against using personal space heaters.

Snuffalo goes on to say she filled up a hot water bottle and sat with it in her lap. This is when her supervisor, who she calls Guy, came over.

She writes:

Guy comes over to talk to me about something, notices the hot water bottle, says “There’s no way you’re cold today, are you?” I say “um, no, it’s just for the pain relief”. He looks confused and then literally horrified and then he walks away.

A few minutes later, someone from HR allegedly said to her, “Guy says you’re not well and should go home, everything ok?”

Snuffalo replied that she was fine, and that she just had cramps. Then, the HR director took her to one side to say.

She tells me that I shouldn’t disclose my medical problems to anyone who isn’t part of HR as it can make them uncomfortable.

She adds that the HR director allegedly said “If you’re so unwell you need a hot water bottle you should be home, Guy is extremely uncomfortable and it’s unprofessional”.

After going retelling her story, the Mumsnet user explained to that she was “flabbergasted,” particularly because “Guy has been known to take meetings with clients whilst lying on the floor on his back because of back problems”.

Other people have standing desks, weird foot rests, all kind of chairs and special backrests for their wrist pain and a hundred other things and I’m not allowed to have a hot water bottle for my menstrual cramps.

Speaking to indy100, Emilie said she couldn't believe what she was reading:

I saw the story on mumsnet and shared it... It's outrageous though that this kind of thing is allowed to happen; there is such a stigma around periods.

Neither Guy or the rest of the office proved to be particularly popular with Twitter: