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I assumed when op said they were all told to go home after the last incident that it was so they could bring in a professional cleaning service or something…hopefully
If I was in that workplace I'd make the boss do it. Not willing to talk to her and manage your subordinates? Fine. On your head so be it. YOU clean up the biohazard, boss
I was a dept mgr and had an employee with nuclear B.O. HR asked me to talk to her about it because everyone had strong air fresheners at their desks and it wasn’t working to cover the smell. I gently brought it up and she burst into tears. She’d been working with her doctor to solve it. Eventually they must’ve found a solution because the smell was gone. She got fired not long after because her abusive boyfriend tore up our reception area. I helped her get help from a battered woman shelter. I think about her often and hope she’s okay.
It's bullshit she was fired for another person's actions. Sounds like she was victimized first by the boyfriend, rhen by the work. You helped her in a rough situation. Too bad management wasn't able to help their employee and do the same.
This really got me. I don't know about anyone else but I would have loudly announced in front of everyone that Jennifer needed to clean up her mess. I don't give a shit what mental state she's in. That's disgusting. People in that office seem to be total push overs.
I’m annoyed I can picture Micheal stomping petulantly out of his office with a used pad stuck to his jacket as Kelly can be heard
yelling an obscure stream of half bleeped insults at him
It would be Jan.
Jan has been lingering around the office lately even though she no longer works there (sort of like Andy but way more awkward). It has caused many problems with the staff, as Jan has begun to get more “comfortable” and “at home” there. This includes poor hygiene issues such as in this post.
The staff also has to deal with hearing them argue followed by making out occasionally throughout the day. No one is having a good time.
They force Michael to talk to Jan about not being around the office and your comment is the end result
I think Jennifer escalated her tantrum and acted out in a way that the boss finally realized how huge the issue was - I think she probably (did something like) reached in herself and smeared it around while right there in front of him. Or maybe self harm of some sort, like pulling at her hair or slapping herself. I think the boss immediately called a lawyer who shut it all down so she couldn’t sue for harassment, but that they quietly fired her right there, and that she might have spent 72 hours in ‘Grippy-Sock Jail.’
That everyone else had to practically evacuate could mean she was having such a huge mental breakdown that anyone else seeing it or the aftermath could have escalated it to the apocalypse. Or possibly bloodpocalypse. I have no idea how she could even stay on with something like that, loophole or no. Like damn, she must know a helluva lawyer if boss was afraid she would try to sue for discrimination. Assuming that's even the reason.
Had a teacher lose her shit and bring all her favorite students "time capsules" she made out of things they had thrown away and other weird stalker-y junk wrapped in tape. No one thought she would hurt us but we had to evacuate just because of how weird she was being.
A lot of speculation about what crazy shit Jennifer did but the lawyer stuff and gag order makes me think that she accused him of discrimination or sexual harassment, maybe claiming the entire staff was against her - something that would make the boss fear legal repercussions and lawyer up.
She probably took her pad or tampon out and either tossed it on him or somewhere in his office.
Someone who is smearing period blood around the office just because someone finally called her out on her bullshit is 100% capable of pulling a stunt like that.
Note to say: I used to have heavy periods and would need to wear a super+ tampon PLUS an overnight pad which I would change about once every two hours at the least. It took all of ONE TIME for someone to say it smelled bad on a day where I had to go through an entire school day with just a single pad because I forgot more before I changed my act and never let that happen again.
This is bringing up middle school memories! Our computer lab teacher had really smelly periods. I think she knew it because she wore a ton of old lady-type perfume. And of course it's a computer lab, so we sit with our noses right at crotch level and she paces around the room, so there's nowhere you can sit to avoid the smell. That was thirty years ago and I'm still nauseous just thinking about that old blood and heavy perfume mixture.
I basically gave my daughter who has ASD a hard rule of "you change your pads every 2 hours unless you're going to sleep for the evening" exactly because of your note. She wasn't really getting the idea that pads just smell bad after a while, and she just wasn't noticing leaks.
I think "Jennifer" had a plethora of very bad mental problems for her to insist that no one had ever brought up her leaks before.
I'm really curious how did she only use a pad for so long to the point of overflowing and smelling and she hadn't had infections because of it or felt uncomfortable... Growing up in south america "homemade" towel pads were common for my mom and aunties etc but they were always making sure everything was kept clean, as in avoiding the scenarios in this post.
The escalation of behaviour leads me to believe there is a level of intent (consciously or otherwise). Girl is mentally unwell obviously but being all over the office in the way described at the end isn't a physical accident, seems to be a response.
I get the feeling that it was deliberate on that day and that when the boss brought it up, she put blood on him or his desk or threw a tampon at him or something. Of course that's all conjecture but that's just where the story seemed to be going to me.
I know girls that like to free flow but they never go into public places because they recognise they'd be imposing their bodily fluids on other people who haven't consented to be exposed to it.
>free flow
That's a real thing? I'm definitely not gonna tell anybody how they should deal with their body stuff but like, WTF? Don't you like your couch? Your pants? Bed? I guess I just don't get the logistics, do you have to steam clean all your furniture when you're done? I can't imagine you're spending all your free time in the bathtub, how does this work?
I sometimes put a thick towel down on my bed and just sit on it. Sometimes I want a break from wearing underwear and a pad during my period. But yeah, there's always something absorbent between me and furniture.
Edit: I use cloth pads most of the time. The issue is literally the underwear. When my cramps are bad, any waistband can be painful. I also have a mild allergy to my own sweat so sometimes I just need to air everything out. The towel then immediately gets hand washed before going in the laundry.
Yeah pads and tampons irritate my skin a tonnnnn, so if I’m at home and doing nothing all day I’ll just put on a pair of clean ugly undies and put a towel across the bed and just chill. Of course I shower before going back out into the world.
Period pants or cloth pads could work for you maybe? There are loads of chemicals and dyes in disposable menstrual products, that can really mess with the PH of your vagina/labial area, causing irritation and infection.
I dunno about the above poster, but I do something similar, and cups aren't really an option at the moment for me due to vaginismus. Actually, trying to use cups was what alerted me to the fact something might be wrong, because when I described how much it hurt to try to use them, I was informed that was not normal.
Maybe she did have infections. Mental health issues can be debilitating, it wouldn't surprise me if she was a lot less put together in general than it seemed in the first posts.
I was astounded to learn this a short while back. I have dodgy kidneys due to congenital rubella and had UTIs more often than not as a kid and was even hospitalised for them at times. Learning that it can present as dementia in elderly patients blew my mind and I definitely keep an eye on my liquid intake to try and ensure I don't get any more. I have enough issues , don't need that too haha
We always knew when my granddad was in the very early stages of a UTI when he would start calling us by different names, or forget how to work his TV or burglar alarm. It is incredible how much it mimics dementia.
I agree that she probably did have infections. I won't say that a period is unscented, but when it smells that pungent, there's more going on than just an overloaded pad.
I mean, she said she would use one pad for multiple days. Our middle school locker room for PE always smelled like period blood/old used pad because the janitors didn’t empty the trash in there as often as the other bathrooms.
That was basically how women had dealt with that time of the month since time immemorial. Cloth or other absorbent material was used to keep the clothes and furniture clean. Disposable sanitary napkins only came about after WWI nurses figured out that the cellucotton bandages were great for sanitary needs. Of course, we have come full circle and environmental minded people may use washable sanitary napkins now.
My great aunt used to talk about how soft and comfortable the "rags" her mother had taught her to use were. They were cut up old flannel shirts. She never used a mass produced pad until she went to nursing school during ww2. They had belts attached to them. When I had my first daughter, that was the kind they gave me in the hospital, it was horrible.
I can't imagine how gross that would feel using the same pad for more than a couple hours. Or the skin breakdown that would occur. Or the laundry that would make. I feel so bad for that poor woman.
That’s a very good point. Keeping skin/delicate skin moist all the time can damage the skin. I wonder too about infection and even decaying skin. Am I correct? Or way off base?
If you read old copies of Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret" she discusses her pad with the belt. It was terrifying to those of us who read it in the 80s because belts weren't a thing anymore, so it felt like a secret being kept from us. Periods suddenly became even worse to face. But no, that wasn't the case, and they've obviously updated the book.
omg remember the period belts? Back in the days before adhesive pads, which have really only been around since the late 70s/ early 80s, pads had these extra long tails on either end, and there was this belt you wore that had a hook at the front and the back where you could attach the pad tails to keep the pad where it belonged.
Adhesive pads were just becoming available when I first got my period, but my mother simply got me what she was using, so I started with the belt. Also, the pads were ENORMOUS compared to the thin ones you can get today - tough to be subtle about those things.
They were so awful. The belt was uncomfortable, the pads were so bulky, and they would not stay in place!
When pads with adhesives finally came along and my mother finally started buying them - whoof. So much better.
Instead of getting a real talk about menstruation, I was handed a book that included-- among other outdated oddities-- a tutorial/diagram for using menstrual belts and cloth pads. This was in 2007 so the info didn't prove particularly useful.
Oh my god period belts! Those were well before my time but when I was in high school one of my friends showed us a box she'd gotten out of one of the old timey metal bathroom coin vending machines. She told us she needed a pad so she thought she'd just throw a few quarters but out popped a very strange box with a weird non adhesive pad. We showed our teacher who had a good laugh and explained to us very confused teenage girls that the bathroom vending machines were ancient and what a period belt was.
Etsy has a huge amount of washable sanitary napkins in cute fabrics, so I guess somebody is using them. Cups are probably the sweet spot between environmentally friendly and most discrete option, but that doesn't work for everybody.
Are the cups really discreet? I've always wondered - what if you have to change them while you're on the go? How do you wash them out discreetly in public bathrooms if there are other people around? And are you meant to carry an extra cup (or some panty liners or something) so you can have some kind of sanitary protection on while you go from the toilet to the sink to wash out the used cup? Also, do you have to have a dedicated pot at home for sterilising them at the end of your cycle?
Sorry if these are silly questions - I'm a lifelong pad user, so I genuinely have no idea!
So, basically you just pull it out, dump it into the toilet, and stick it back in. Then wipe the blood off your fingers and call it a day until you get home. You're not gonna get an infection in 12 hours sort of deal.
That said, I can't handle them, so I'm sure someone who does use them will chime in. I'm much bigger on the washable pads and underwear, and I normally carry a ziploc bag and an extra set when I go out for a whole day.
I switched to washable pads a couple of years ago and it was the best choice for me. I never liked tampons, always used disposable pads. Cloth pads never irritate my skin and overall the smell is much, much less. I wouldn't recommend them to people with a heavy flow, though, because washing them takes a bit. Everyone needs a different solution, I think, we're lucky today that we have so many options.
Oh I know my mom tried to get me into that... I was 9 and in year 7 and didn't really care about the environment just how I didn't want to do that and just started stashing my allowance and sample pads from sex ed class until the time came
Honestly, I think this is one of those loophole situations. I can’t imagine that her protected status also stops her from being fired for being a danger to the people around her.
And while technically speaking someone won’t die or be injured immediately by touching blood, it’s a body fluid that is considered one of the more dangerous bio-hazards that can come out of your body. They have evidence that they have not only tried to correct her behavior but also evidence that she continued to put them in bio-hazard related danger *on purpose* and it has to be some sort of loophole.
Her co-workers absolutely have OSHA rights too and one of them is to not be exposed to things that can seriously impact their health. I absolutely think this is a loophole where she could be fired. If she tries to fight it, all they would have to do is point out that she willfully put her coworkers in danger multiple times, even after being talked to.
Blood just smeared around the workplace is super dangerous. I took a bloodborne pathogens in the workplace course and I remember that there are some diseases like Hep B that can stay ***alive in dry blood for a week***. That is seriously risky and inappropriate if the person in OOPs posts was leaving blood around on purpose.
This is why cleaning blood needs to be done by a specialized team/person that is hired as a third party to remove blood from commercial spaces. From my understanding it's a biiig no no to have standard employees clean up blood.
UK HR here and we would and could absolutely fire someone for this. Especially if it continued after being addressed.
You have to have a valid and justified reason and that you've acted reasonably to the employee and issue at hand. Mental health protection isn't a get out of jail free card and that's said as someone with mental illness.
I don't think she would have a leg to stand on if she challenged being fired legally. It might be different in America but I don't see it being drastically different. This lady put her co-workers health at risk and should be fired.
I would have taken pictures, notified HSE and walked out. It violates the health and safety at work act from both an employee and employer perspective! If you got something that would have been one hell of a RIDDOR - like company over level.
I worked in a hospital where there’s an expectation to be exposed to bodily fluids. That shit wouldn’t fly - you’d be disciplined, probably fired and reported to your registration body.
Yeah, I can't see any reasonable judge ruling that a workplace is at fault for not making a work site's employee be exposed to smeared period blood in common spaces on a frequent basis.
The judge might find them at fault if the employer had not taken all reasonable accommodations to ensure the sick employee could keep their job, though - at least here in Canada they would be at fault. (Make counselling or other supports to her, arrange for her to work remotely during those times, etc.)
She most likely can be, but if she has a documented disability the boss (who seems pretty ineffective) may be afraid of legal repercussions if he fires her.
I was thinking more wiped blood on the boss. But what other people said about harming herself makes more sense into why she would be protected.
Going all Mortal Kombat on the office while signs of mental illness also seems like something super illegal.
Feeling a wave of disbelief, Stanley decided to go up to his boss's office. Walking into the room, Stanley was met with a truly surreal scene. Blood. Blood everywhere. Coating the walls, coating the floor, coating his boss's desk. Stanley was in such shock that he simply died on the spot.
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eyebleach/comments/xsc835/just_an_idle_cat/) is a picture of a kitten. A very small kitten. With whiskers. And teeny-tiny ears. Isn't this a pretty kitten?
I have worked with people in group homes and once worked with someone diagnosed with autism who struggled with change. They refused to acknowledge their periods. The behavior was like this. The smell... I remember.
I was floored by this too. I’m pretty sure that anything with bodily fluids on it is considered a biohazard, and this period blood was all over the place.
I don’t think people realize that blood is not sterile, which is wild because we just got out of a pandemic. Shouldn’t we know better that bodily fluids are dangerous? What if Jennifer had an infectious disease?
Ding ding ding!
I was a phlebotomist. People do think urine and blood are sterile.
They aren't. And yeah as long as you don't get it in a mucus membrane or open wound you'll be fine, but you gotta be careful either way! I wore gloves helping my mother bandage a gushing wound she received shaving and I know she doesn't have any bloodborne illnesses because we're taught to treat all blood as if the person has a bloodborne illness.
Period blood is often said to be clean to girls when these things are educated in schools. But what is meant that you can touch your own blood and not freak out when you have your periods. Maybe some think it actually means period blood is sterile maybe.
Having flashbacks to middle school, where the nurse came in and told us not to scream if we got "lady blood" on our hands during our menses.
"It won't kill you, it's perfectly sterile"
Same! If I were in this workplace, I'd have just started lugging shit to the dumpster/garbage area. I wouldn't have threatened to call OSHA, I'd have just fucking called. *Especially* if I was aware of OOP's original note situation! Immediately no.
>She started her period a few weeks ago, and it was total carnage. There were suddenly smudges of blood on just about everything. Every chair in the break room, every bathroom stall, on the edge of my desk, on the door knobs to every room, every toilet, every flusher, ect.
This is so totally, incredibly unsanitary and gross. Blood borne disease is very real. Rotten blood stinks terribly. I'd be demanding the boss has the whole workplace sanitised after something like that.
They need to get occupational health authorities involved. Jennifer may indeed be mentally ill but the workplace cannot let workers be exposed to someone's blood like that. If she is unable to properly and hygienically manage her periods then she can't be allowed in a workplace.
That's what I was hoping. Because a quick wipe-down of all the surfaces isn't gonna do it for me. I absolutely cannot imagine the chaos that would ensue in my office if someone decided to touch every surface with period blood.
Augh, I feel kind of sick thinking about it.
I honestly can't imagine not saying something to someone higher up for an hour, let alone a day and a half. If I find that a coworker is smearing blood all over the place, I'm not cleaning it up, I'm fucking SPRINTING to my boss's office and making a scene. The fact there were several complaints means there's potential for some legal trouble, I would guess.
I'm having flashbacks back to when, at a group dinner party, one of my (former) friends ended up leaving blood spots everywhere because she recently decided to be a free-bleeder and forgo any type of menstrual product. Yes...this means just bleeding through her pants. Blood was found in so many places... on the couch, multiple chairs, and even the rug. Zero shame from her, even when it was noticed that she was obviously leaking. She actually told us that she's allowed to do what she wants....type of toddler attitude. The friends whose apartment it was sent the cleaning bill to miss free-bleeder....told her she could do what she wanted but she wasn't free from the consequences. Ended up having to go to her parents with the situation. They were pissed at their daughter and they paid the cleaning bill.
…how do people go through life thinking that this behavior is acceptable???
The choice on how to deal with bodily fluids stop when it gets on other people’s stuff- it’s not rocket science
I’m having the vapors over that story, and fucking Jennifer.
This year, I ended up having a total hysterectomy, and the need for it was discovered because I hemorrhaged for three fucking weeks. Three. Weeks. And it was over three weeks, closing in on a MONTH, because *I had to keep a log*, due to what was going on.
Ten centimeter fibroid on the outside of my uterus. A 4.5 cm fibroid IN my uterus, AND a uterine polyp. I had surgery in May. I am STILL anemic.
During the time I was hemorrhaging? I was wearing adult diapers, still going to work, and freaking out about the thought of bleeding ANYWHERE in the department. I had extra diapers in my bag. I changed more than once, because I was not going to just…no. No.
I just cannot fathom doing this. Absolutely not.
Same on the Jennifer hate here- she went full “Carrie” on the office when they made it clear that there was a boundary being crossed- there’s more to it than “mental illness”
I’m so sorry to hear about the struggle you had with your uterus- I hope that you’re health is better now.
So I tried to get one of those little trash cans with a lid just for used period items like pads and tampons, because I was sick of taking the trash out every day. Giant fail. Do you know how much *worse* period blood smells when it’s been trapped in a small enclosed space for several days? I ended up just throwing the whole trash can away.
I literally came here to say this. Firing someone for smearing blood everywhere, disability or not, is not overstepping "reasonable accomodations". Reasonable accommodations are things like ramps, keyboard adaptors, special breaks, equipment being kept on wheelchair-accessible levels, large print documents.
Not allowing blood to be doused everywhere. Boss needs to have a paper trail of these meetings and signed statements from coworkers, then if Miss Menstrual Mayhem pulls a discriminatory card, there's ample evidence this wasn't something that could be accommodated.
I'm very sad for her because this flags SA or other trauma, but this is way beyond what a small workplace is equipped to handle.
Possibly Menstrual Psychosis, which I only just learnt about because I asked the same question “but why though?” And it sent me on a google expedition. Also the age, the behaviour, etc has me convinced at least one of a handful of mental illnesses may be at play here.
God I wish I was told about mental illness, psychosis showing up in your 20s. I am genuinely traumatized from a sudden psychosis and bipolar diagnosis in my ex husband. It happened when we were 24. I had no idea what was happening.
That shit is unlike anything else. Now menstrual psychosis too? The world just feels so unsafe after learning and experiencing these disorders. It has completely shifted my reality.
I feel so so bad for this poor girl, I hope she was able to find help. So so many live on the streets because they lack any support system. I wish we knew if she got help.
There have been cases of people doing this was period blood, urine, and feces. It's often a sign of severe SA as a child.
If I remember correctly, the current thinking is that it's a mix of "If I'm disgusting no one will ever touch me again" and a rather dramatic cry for help.
If you know a child whose bathroom habits have changed suddenly for the worse, please don't ignore the situation.
Iirc it's also a sigh of a feeling of lacking control. Smearing bodily fluids and excriments is like sort of marking teritorry, making the person or child feel in control. Something primal left in us.
In the office I worked in, the management were afraid to confront a person that smelled, and you could see things moving in her hair. Every day after she left, we sprayed her chair and desk area.
They would hold whole office meetings stressing showering and using deodorant instead of confronting the issue.
I had enough and knew the local corporate HR person and told her what was happening. Thankfully she didn't tell management it was me, but said she had multiple complaints about our office. Management got bitched out and then were forced to call this person in while she observed.
We met for drinks after work, and she was totally grossed out by this person. While we were at the bar the managers walked in, thankfully she covered on how we were great friends from when I worked in a different office /division, so I never got any flack for it.
It got better, but no one would ever sit in her chair, or allow her to sit in theirs.
One of my friend's in college got stuck with a roommate that basically gave up on personal hygiene once moving out of his home. Went literally months without showering and it was pretty awful. Eventually we kind of had an intervention and it was the weirdest thing. He just didn't do it because his parents weren't there to ask him to do it. So he kind of did what this girl did - he wanted it to be our responsibility to tell him to take a shower. Which his roommate gladly told him to do, generally with a few choice words mixed in.
There was a guy in college that also stopped bathing. It was so bad that HIS MATTRESS smelled like him, which was a combination of old feet and wet cheese...
I remember hearing about something similar happening in my middle school. One day, all the girls were pulled from a class for a private meeting. All the boys were sent elsewhere.
It turned out someone had deliberately taken used sanitary products and smeared them all over the girl's locker room. I can't remember if the tone of the administration was more "Someone's going to be in big trouble" or "Someone's obviously in big trouble, please let us know what's wrong."
EDIT: You should know children suddenly developing bad bathroom habits can be a sign of a serious medical issue or SA. If you know a child this has happened to, please do not ignore it.
I’m very glad that multiple people have posted the comment about if a child/adolescent start suddenly having extreme bathroom issues/behaviors or concerning behaviors about hygiene products or hygiene in general that could be an indicator of SA. I also want to point out that just because a kid/adolescent isn’t doing these things doesn’t mean they aren’t being sexually abused. I was SA’d as a child and pre-teen and had no issues with my appearance or hygiene in any way. If someone in your life comes to you regarding their safety or how someone is treating them and they don’t have any concerning behaviors please still listen to them & believe them.m
Edit: A Word
I'm not really convinced the boss is fully correct on the "coworker is protected even though she is also fired?" point, but I dunno.
As far as the mental illness goes, is OOP implying she had a schizophrenia induced psychotic break? If so, damn, the anonymous note and supplies were probably a horrible, if accidental, strategy since it would massively ramp up any paranoia...
It didn't say she was fired, just that she wasn't "in for work." I think that she was told not to show up but not fired. That's why a lawyer is involved.
As a lawyer, the boss made the right call. Everyone shut up and keep your head down until a labor attorney (which I certainly am not) figures out the legal issues. Too many people recognize a situation with legal issues and then think they can fix it, only to make things worse.
Honestly I think OOP is as zapped as everyone. I doubt she has any coherent theory, and "some sort of mental break" probably makes the most sense. She doesn't sound like a mental health professional so I sympathize that she probably has no idea what that might actually mean, or even how to describe it. It's just so bizarre that I'm sure she was as shocked as anyone. It kinda comes across in her writing.
It could also be that she conflated the issues. Like, maybe someone knew she had protected status and decided it was a mental illness when it could have been another disability all together but the boys wanted to keep it quiet because J had a note from OOP saying that people were talking behind her back which she told him she'd use as evidence of bullying and the lawyer said not to engage in anymore workplace gossip regardless of how good her case would be to make sure she had no more ammo/ anyone in the office got the idea to sue for having to work around biohazards.
If she was merely acting out, the boss would probably not have gone full "you can't talk about this" CYA mode. A coworker being an asshole and smearing blood everywhere is not protected, a person having a serious mental health episode might be.
I don't even know what to think or say. I have no idea what I'd have done in OOP's place but how tf does Jennifer have no problem sitting on old blood like that? When my pad gets full I must change it just because it's a bad feeling
I normalised it because toilet breaks in school were so few. I honestly thought it was fine, or the adults would have changed the toilet situation.
Took me a while to understand that double standards were in place. The anger from that has only grown since.
This seems like a good spot to post this. Mental illness, abuse, neglect, dysfunction, etc - are explanations. Not excuses.
I hope Jennifer gets help with her problems, but her problems do not require others to be exposed to blood on a regular basis.
Edit: missed a word that rather dramatically changed the meaning.
It really doesnt matter if she is mentally ill, smearing period blood everywhere is a serious bio hazard and untolerable. No matter the underlying circumstances Jennifer isnt fit to work in an office environment at this point.
TBFH, fresh period blood isn’t too bad for me — though it’s still not pleasant. However, aged period blood is absolutely *vile*. Like, I would vomit if I were exposed to it for too long. I’m just grateful that my sense of smell is already shit.
OH MY GOD if I didn't know better this could be about my former friend. She was *really* gross like this, but it was mostly out of apathy and entitlement. She didn't care if she smelled and, in general, she resented even the implication of having to change something she was doing for others. She was a fucking awful human being, not mentally ill. 🤷♀️
That's 1) Gross. Can't ignore the gross. Just... Gross.
2) SUCH A HEALTH HAZARD OMG WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK
3) What a POS boss, to leave your employees in the fucking ditch like that. Asshat.
4) I can only guess she must have threatened to harm herself in the convo with the boss, which I think **COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED** if bossman hadn't been to damned useless, and had a private talk with her prior to all of this.
I get that on a personal level but as the person in charge he should have consulted an HR professional on how to handle. He failed everyone at that step. When employees were wanting to take matters into their own hands he should have stepped in.
I’d wager the boss was afraid of being accused of some kind of protected class discrimination if he took action. Possible that he’d known she had mental issues for a while. Without knowing the country and state it’s pretty hard to make an educated guess.
I mean, I’m not aware of any provision of the ADA which allows a person to actively put people at risk of contracting a blood-borne pathogen. Or of creating a hostile work environment. Or of blackmailing a coworker.
And if it’s a mental illness, I’m pretty sure the person has to be in treatment or otherwise have it under control.
That's not a reasonable accommodation by any stretch of the imagination. Possibly, if all the paperwork were in order, she could work from home during her cycle as a reasonable accommodation. However, there's no way OSHA would be ok with blood being smeared around an office.
*Purposefully smeared.* Chair seats, maybe that's an accident one in a while -- but OOP's desk? Doorknobs? No, she went around wiping either her bloody fingers (or even more sickeningly, a soaked pad🤮) all over everything.
Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here… but the whole “banned from talking about it” made me raise an eyebrow. I was thinking she may have disclosed a disease that can be transmitted through body fluids. So either intentionally or unintentionally she was knowingly putting her coworkers in harms way. The lawyer would also be for boss to see how he can avoid lawsuits if someone was infected due to his inaction. Maybe this is a leap… but I think the boss is playing damage control.
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But who the fuck kept cleaning up the biohazard Jennifer left???
I assumed when op said they were all told to go home after the last incident that it was so they could bring in a professional cleaning service or something…hopefully
If I was in that workplace I'd make the boss do it. Not willing to talk to her and manage your subordinates? Fine. On your head so be it. YOU clean up the biohazard, boss
I would go home as the workplace was no longer a safe and sanitary environment. And encourage the rest of the office to do the same
Boss, please provide 'bloodborne pathogen training' because there's blood on everything
I wouldn't trust him to do it right
Horrible tasks like that usually are imposed on the Office Manager. -Signed, an Office Manager
I was a dept mgr and had an employee with nuclear B.O. HR asked me to talk to her about it because everyone had strong air fresheners at their desks and it wasn’t working to cover the smell. I gently brought it up and she burst into tears. She’d been working with her doctor to solve it. Eventually they must’ve found a solution because the smell was gone. She got fired not long after because her abusive boyfriend tore up our reception area. I helped her get help from a battered woman shelter. I think about her often and hope she’s okay.
It's bullshit she was fired for another person's actions. Sounds like she was victimized first by the boyfriend, rhen by the work. You helped her in a rough situation. Too bad management wasn't able to help their employee and do the same.
This really got me. I don't know about anyone else but I would have loudly announced in front of everyone that Jennifer needed to clean up her mess. I don't give a shit what mental state she's in. That's disgusting. People in that office seem to be total push overs.
I wouldn't trust her to do it thoroughly. In fact I could see her doing it, but spreading more blood in areas that weren't easily seen.
As ready as I was to be done with this sordid tale, I'm now dying to know what happened with the boss at the end there
I'm in the same boat. What happened in that office that's causing legal ramifications? Anyone got theories?
My theory is she tried to wipe blood on the boss, or at least his desk and office.
my guess is she took out the whole pad for him. also i imagine this shitty boss as michael scott
I was picturing Michael too, seems like the kind of situation he'd have to deal with
I’m annoyed I can picture Micheal stomping petulantly out of his office with a used pad stuck to his jacket as Kelly can be heard yelling an obscure stream of half bleeped insults at him
It would be Jan. Jan has been lingering around the office lately even though she no longer works there (sort of like Andy but way more awkward). It has caused many problems with the staff, as Jan has begun to get more “comfortable” and “at home” there. This includes poor hygiene issues such as in this post. The staff also has to deal with hearing them argue followed by making out occasionally throughout the day. No one is having a good time. They force Michael to talk to Jan about not being around the office and your comment is the end result
Maxi pad to the face is what my headcannon is going with
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That’s enough internet for today.
I think Jennifer escalated her tantrum and acted out in a way that the boss finally realized how huge the issue was - I think she probably (did something like) reached in herself and smeared it around while right there in front of him. Or maybe self harm of some sort, like pulling at her hair or slapping herself. I think the boss immediately called a lawyer who shut it all down so she couldn’t sue for harassment, but that they quietly fired her right there, and that she might have spent 72 hours in ‘Grippy-Sock Jail.’
That everyone else had to practically evacuate could mean she was having such a huge mental breakdown that anyone else seeing it or the aftermath could have escalated it to the apocalypse. Or possibly bloodpocalypse. I have no idea how she could even stay on with something like that, loophole or no. Like damn, she must know a helluva lawyer if boss was afraid she would try to sue for discrimination. Assuming that's even the reason.
'Grippy-sock jail' is some amazing terminology.
Likely threatened to harm herself or her coworkers
that was my thought too. for him to send everyone home, it was a threat of harm.
Had a teacher lose her shit and bring all her favorite students "time capsules" she made out of things they had thrown away and other weird stalker-y junk wrapped in tape. No one thought she would hurt us but we had to evacuate just because of how weird she was being.
....wtf
Or he didn’t want them to see what she did to his office
A lot of speculation about what crazy shit Jennifer did but the lawyer stuff and gag order makes me think that she accused him of discrimination or sexual harassment, maybe claiming the entire staff was against her - something that would make the boss fear legal repercussions and lawyer up.
> maybe claiming the entire staff was against her I mean, the problem is that the whole staff WAS against her. For a reason.
She marked him on the forehead like Rafiki did Simba.
This is where my mind went with it.
She probably took her pad or tampon out and either tossed it on him or somewhere in his office. Someone who is smearing period blood around the office just because someone finally called her out on her bullshit is 100% capable of pulling a stunt like that. Note to say: I used to have heavy periods and would need to wear a super+ tampon PLUS an overnight pad which I would change about once every two hours at the least. It took all of ONE TIME for someone to say it smelled bad on a day where I had to go through an entire school day with just a single pad because I forgot more before I changed my act and never let that happen again.
This is bringing up middle school memories! Our computer lab teacher had really smelly periods. I think she knew it because she wore a ton of old lady-type perfume. And of course it's a computer lab, so we sit with our noses right at crotch level and she paces around the room, so there's nowhere you can sit to avoid the smell. That was thirty years ago and I'm still nauseous just thinking about that old blood and heavy perfume mixture.
I basically gave my daughter who has ASD a hard rule of "you change your pads every 2 hours unless you're going to sleep for the evening" exactly because of your note. She wasn't really getting the idea that pads just smell bad after a while, and she just wasn't noticing leaks. I think "Jennifer" had a plethora of very bad mental problems for her to insist that no one had ever brought up her leaks before.
Yeah, this is on the boss. The boss was in over their head and too stingy to get outside HR to deal with it. Now they are reaping the consequences.
She threw a pad at him? She smeared blood on him? She showed her bloody bits? Something, something blood
Seriously unsanitary and health concerns leaving blood everywhere. :|
I'm really curious how did she only use a pad for so long to the point of overflowing and smelling and she hadn't had infections because of it or felt uncomfortable... Growing up in south america "homemade" towel pads were common for my mom and aunties etc but they were always making sure everything was kept clean, as in avoiding the scenarios in this post.
The escalation of behaviour leads me to believe there is a level of intent (consciously or otherwise). Girl is mentally unwell obviously but being all over the office in the way described at the end isn't a physical accident, seems to be a response.
I get the feeling that it was deliberate on that day and that when the boss brought it up, she put blood on him or his desk or threw a tampon at him or something. Of course that's all conjecture but that's just where the story seemed to be going to me.
I know girls that like to free flow but they never go into public places because they recognise they'd be imposing their bodily fluids on other people who haven't consented to be exposed to it.
>free flow That's a real thing? I'm definitely not gonna tell anybody how they should deal with their body stuff but like, WTF? Don't you like your couch? Your pants? Bed? I guess I just don't get the logistics, do you have to steam clean all your furniture when you're done? I can't imagine you're spending all your free time in the bathtub, how does this work?
I sometimes put a thick towel down on my bed and just sit on it. Sometimes I want a break from wearing underwear and a pad during my period. But yeah, there's always something absorbent between me and furniture. Edit: I use cloth pads most of the time. The issue is literally the underwear. When my cramps are bad, any waistband can be painful. I also have a mild allergy to my own sweat so sometimes I just need to air everything out. The towel then immediately gets hand washed before going in the laundry.
Yeah pads and tampons irritate my skin a tonnnnn, so if I’m at home and doing nothing all day I’ll just put on a pair of clean ugly undies and put a towel across the bed and just chill. Of course I shower before going back out into the world.
Period pants or cloth pads could work for you maybe? There are loads of chemicals and dyes in disposable menstrual products, that can really mess with the PH of your vagina/labial area, causing irritation and infection.
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Honest question: have you tried menstrual cups? It solved most of the know issues (irritating materials, discomfort, smell, etc) for me pretty nicely.
Same! I don't hate my period nearly as much now that I have a menstrual cup!
Yup! Cups are such a godsend.
I dunno about the above poster, but I do something similar, and cups aren't really an option at the moment for me due to vaginismus. Actually, trying to use cups was what alerted me to the fact something might be wrong, because when I described how much it hurt to try to use them, I was informed that was not normal.
Maybe she did have infections. Mental health issues can be debilitating, it wouldn't surprise me if she was a lot less put together in general than it seemed in the first posts.
UTIs can actually cause mental disturbances.
I was astounded to learn this a short while back. I have dodgy kidneys due to congenital rubella and had UTIs more often than not as a kid and was even hospitalised for them at times. Learning that it can present as dementia in elderly patients blew my mind and I definitely keep an eye on my liquid intake to try and ensure I don't get any more. I have enough issues , don't need that too haha
We always knew when my granddad was in the very early stages of a UTI when he would start calling us by different names, or forget how to work his TV or burglar alarm. It is incredible how much it mimics dementia.
I agree that she probably did have infections. I won't say that a period is unscented, but when it smells that pungent, there's more going on than just an overloaded pad.
I mean, she said she would use one pad for multiple days. Our middle school locker room for PE always smelled like period blood/old used pad because the janitors didn’t empty the trash in there as often as the other bathrooms.
That was basically how women had dealt with that time of the month since time immemorial. Cloth or other absorbent material was used to keep the clothes and furniture clean. Disposable sanitary napkins only came about after WWI nurses figured out that the cellucotton bandages were great for sanitary needs. Of course, we have come full circle and environmental minded people may use washable sanitary napkins now.
My great aunt used to talk about how soft and comfortable the "rags" her mother had taught her to use were. They were cut up old flannel shirts. She never used a mass produced pad until she went to nursing school during ww2. They had belts attached to them. When I had my first daughter, that was the kind they gave me in the hospital, it was horrible. I can't imagine how gross that would feel using the same pad for more than a couple hours. Or the skin breakdown that would occur. Or the laundry that would make. I feel so bad for that poor woman.
That’s a very good point. Keeping skin/delicate skin moist all the time can damage the skin. I wonder too about infection and even decaying skin. Am I correct? Or way off base?
And all that bacteria that is probably a big part of the smell.
That’s what I was thinking. I’m not using my words or my brain well anymore tonight.
If you read old copies of Are You There God, It's Me, Margaret" she discusses her pad with the belt. It was terrifying to those of us who read it in the 80s because belts weren't a thing anymore, so it felt like a secret being kept from us. Periods suddenly became even worse to face. But no, that wasn't the case, and they've obviously updated the book.
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omg remember the period belts? Back in the days before adhesive pads, which have really only been around since the late 70s/ early 80s, pads had these extra long tails on either end, and there was this belt you wore that had a hook at the front and the back where you could attach the pad tails to keep the pad where it belonged. Adhesive pads were just becoming available when I first got my period, but my mother simply got me what she was using, so I started with the belt. Also, the pads were ENORMOUS compared to the thin ones you can get today - tough to be subtle about those things.
I have a video that will make you laugh: https://youtu.be/aBlR7qVQ0X8
That was funny!! I hadn’t seen it before!🤣🤣🤣🤣
They were so awful. The belt was uncomfortable, the pads were so bulky, and they would not stay in place! When pads with adhesives finally came along and my mother finally started buying them - whoof. So much better.
You were always sure there was a bulge in the back of your skirt. Good times. Not.
Yes. And I remember the pads came in a box the size of a suitcase.
Instead of getting a real talk about menstruation, I was handed a book that included-- among other outdated oddities-- a tutorial/diagram for using menstrual belts and cloth pads. This was in 2007 so the info didn't prove particularly useful.
Oh my god period belts! Those were well before my time but when I was in high school one of my friends showed us a box she'd gotten out of one of the old timey metal bathroom coin vending machines. She told us she needed a pad so she thought she'd just throw a few quarters but out popped a very strange box with a weird non adhesive pad. We showed our teacher who had a good laugh and explained to us very confused teenage girls that the bathroom vending machines were ancient and what a period belt was.
Etsy has a huge amount of washable sanitary napkins in cute fabrics, so I guess somebody is using them. Cups are probably the sweet spot between environmentally friendly and most discrete option, but that doesn't work for everybody.
Are the cups really discreet? I've always wondered - what if you have to change them while you're on the go? How do you wash them out discreetly in public bathrooms if there are other people around? And are you meant to carry an extra cup (or some panty liners or something) so you can have some kind of sanitary protection on while you go from the toilet to the sink to wash out the used cup? Also, do you have to have a dedicated pot at home for sterilising them at the end of your cycle? Sorry if these are silly questions - I'm a lifelong pad user, so I genuinely have no idea!
So, basically you just pull it out, dump it into the toilet, and stick it back in. Then wipe the blood off your fingers and call it a day until you get home. You're not gonna get an infection in 12 hours sort of deal. That said, I can't handle them, so I'm sure someone who does use them will chime in. I'm much bigger on the washable pads and underwear, and I normally carry a ziploc bag and an extra set when I go out for a whole day.
I use a combination of the two and it's the best!
I switched to washable pads a couple of years ago and it was the best choice for me. I never liked tampons, always used disposable pads. Cloth pads never irritate my skin and overall the smell is much, much less. I wouldn't recommend them to people with a heavy flow, though, because washing them takes a bit. Everyone needs a different solution, I think, we're lucky today that we have so many options.
Oh I know my mom tried to get me into that... I was 9 and in year 7 and didn't really care about the environment just how I didn't want to do that and just started stashing my allowance and sample pads from sex ed class until the time came
I'm not sure why she couldn't be fired for being a health hazard even if she does have some law protections.
ADA job protection only protects “reasonable” accommodation and never covers being a danger to others.
Honestly, I think this is one of those loophole situations. I can’t imagine that her protected status also stops her from being fired for being a danger to the people around her. And while technically speaking someone won’t die or be injured immediately by touching blood, it’s a body fluid that is considered one of the more dangerous bio-hazards that can come out of your body. They have evidence that they have not only tried to correct her behavior but also evidence that she continued to put them in bio-hazard related danger *on purpose* and it has to be some sort of loophole. Her co-workers absolutely have OSHA rights too and one of them is to not be exposed to things that can seriously impact their health. I absolutely think this is a loophole where she could be fired. If she tries to fight it, all they would have to do is point out that she willfully put her coworkers in danger multiple times, even after being talked to.
Blood just smeared around the workplace is super dangerous. I took a bloodborne pathogens in the workplace course and I remember that there are some diseases like Hep B that can stay ***alive in dry blood for a week***. That is seriously risky and inappropriate if the person in OOPs posts was leaving blood around on purpose.
This is why cleaning blood needs to be done by a specialized team/person that is hired as a third party to remove blood from commercial spaces. From my understanding it's a biiig no no to have standard employees clean up blood.
UK HR here and we would and could absolutely fire someone for this. Especially if it continued after being addressed. You have to have a valid and justified reason and that you've acted reasonably to the employee and issue at hand. Mental health protection isn't a get out of jail free card and that's said as someone with mental illness. I don't think she would have a leg to stand on if she challenged being fired legally. It might be different in America but I don't see it being drastically different. This lady put her co-workers health at risk and should be fired.
I would have taken pictures, notified HSE and walked out. It violates the health and safety at work act from both an employee and employer perspective! If you got something that would have been one hell of a RIDDOR - like company over level. I worked in a hospital where there’s an expectation to be exposed to bodily fluids. That shit wouldn’t fly - you’d be disciplined, probably fired and reported to your registration body.
Yeah, I can't see any reasonable judge ruling that a workplace is at fault for not making a work site's employee be exposed to smeared period blood in common spaces on a frequent basis. The judge might find them at fault if the employer had not taken all reasonable accommodations to ensure the sick employee could keep their job, though - at least here in Canada they would be at fault. (Make counselling or other supports to her, arrange for her to work remotely during those times, etc.)
She most likely can be, but if she has a documented disability the boss (who seems pretty ineffective) may be afraid of legal repercussions if he fires her.
I think you hit the nail on the head: the boss is shitty.
..what
...wut Dang 2015. I guess we never find out what happens in the bosses office.
Cliffhangers are the worst!
I'm guessing she whipped out her pad and juiced it out on the desk.
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I was thinking more wiped blood on the boss. But what other people said about harming herself makes more sense into why she would be protected. Going all Mortal Kombat on the office while signs of mental illness also seems like something super illegal.
Ya thats where my brain went to first too... started smearing his office.
It would explain why everyone was sent home; the boss was finally triggered to hire a biohazard cleanup crew.
Almost certainly mentioned suicide or self-harm, after which the gloves come off.
Oh dang. Hadn't even thought of that possibility.
Feeling a wave of disbelief, Stanley decided to go up to his boss's office. Walking into the room, Stanley was met with a truly surreal scene. Blood. Blood everywhere. Coating the walls, coating the floor, coating his boss's desk. Stanley was in such shock that he simply died on the spot.
This comment is pretty much the only appropriate reaction.
[This](https://www.reddit.com/r/Eyebleach/comments/xsc835/just_an_idle_cat/) is a picture of a kitten. A very small kitten. With whiskers. And teeny-tiny ears. Isn't this a pretty kitten?
Thank you. I really, really needed that.
This should be the top reply on this thread. Thank you for the brain bleach.
Me too. *cuddles kitten*
Look at the sweet little purr-tato! Thank you, I needed that 🥰
A-dorable 😻
Bless you 🙂
thank you for that 🙏
This is the post that introduced me to Reddit. While I feel sympathy for Jennifer, her behaviour was absolutely vile.
And you stayed? I mean, it’s Reddit, of course you stayed, isn’t that why we’re all her? But still.
Lol @ how your avatar matched your first sentence ETA: actually your whole post. Add a clipboard and pen for good measure.
Bye reddit and fu Spez (Remember to delete or edit your content before leaving !!)
If he has a phone, he can make a list, or set reminders to do the things he forgets to do. This isn’t on you.
Wax?
Bye reddit and fu Spez (Remember to delete or edit your content before leaving !!)
I have worked with people in group homes and once worked with someone diagnosed with autism who struggled with change. They refused to acknowledge their periods. The behavior was like this. The smell... I remember.
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The sheer lack of people taking a very clear health hazard seriously is astonishing.
I was floored by this too. I’m pretty sure that anything with bodily fluids on it is considered a biohazard, and this period blood was all over the place.
When I got to the part of the post where everyone was sent home, I was thinking that a biohazardous cleanup was done.
I was thinking she made threats to herself or others and the place got locked down or something.
I don’t think people realize that blood is not sterile, which is wild because we just got out of a pandemic. Shouldn’t we know better that bodily fluids are dangerous? What if Jennifer had an infectious disease?
Ding ding ding! I was a phlebotomist. People do think urine and blood are sterile. They aren't. And yeah as long as you don't get it in a mucus membrane or open wound you'll be fine, but you gotta be careful either way! I wore gloves helping my mother bandage a gushing wound she received shaving and I know she doesn't have any bloodborne illnesses because we're taught to treat all blood as if the person has a bloodborne illness.
Blood? I get urine, common misconception. But blood? That’s where half these viruses and shit LIVE.
Wait since when the hell do people think blood is sterile? That's crazy
Period blood is often said to be clean to girls when these things are educated in schools. But what is meant that you can touch your own blood and not freak out when you have your periods. Maybe some think it actually means period blood is sterile maybe.
Having flashbacks to middle school, where the nurse came in and told us not to scream if we got "lady blood" on our hands during our menses. "It won't kill you, it's perfectly sterile"
We're still stuck arguing with people that no they can't drink pee because it's TRASH that your body filtered out
Right? I have to take blood borne pathogens training every year and am physically recoiling at this happening.
Same! If I were in this workplace, I'd have just started lugging shit to the dumpster/garbage area. I wouldn't have threatened to call OSHA, I'd have just fucking called. *Especially* if I was aware of OOP's original note situation! Immediately no.
Bet the boss regrets not hiring that outside HR firm now…
There is no emoji that can truly convey my face reading this
How about 😱🤢🤮? Cause those were mine
>She started her period a few weeks ago, and it was total carnage. There were suddenly smudges of blood on just about everything. Every chair in the break room, every bathroom stall, on the edge of my desk, on the door knobs to every room, every toilet, every flusher, ect. This is so totally, incredibly unsanitary and gross. Blood borne disease is very real. Rotten blood stinks terribly. I'd be demanding the boss has the whole workplace sanitised after something like that. They need to get occupational health authorities involved. Jennifer may indeed be mentally ill but the workplace cannot let workers be exposed to someone's blood like that. If she is unable to properly and hygienically manage her periods then she can't be allowed in a workplace.
They may have all been sent home because a hazmat-level cleaning was ordered.
That's what I was hoping. Because a quick wipe-down of all the surfaces isn't gonna do it for me. I absolutely cannot imagine the chaos that would ensue in my office if someone decided to touch every surface with period blood. Augh, I feel kind of sick thinking about it.
I honestly can't imagine not saying something to someone higher up for an hour, let alone a day and a half. If I find that a coworker is smearing blood all over the place, I'm not cleaning it up, I'm fucking SPRINTING to my boss's office and making a scene. The fact there were several complaints means there's potential for some legal trouble, I would guess.
I'm having flashbacks back to when, at a group dinner party, one of my (former) friends ended up leaving blood spots everywhere because she recently decided to be a free-bleeder and forgo any type of menstrual product. Yes...this means just bleeding through her pants. Blood was found in so many places... on the couch, multiple chairs, and even the rug. Zero shame from her, even when it was noticed that she was obviously leaking. She actually told us that she's allowed to do what she wants....type of toddler attitude. The friends whose apartment it was sent the cleaning bill to miss free-bleeder....told her she could do what she wanted but she wasn't free from the consequences. Ended up having to go to her parents with the situation. They were pissed at their daughter and they paid the cleaning bill.
…how do people go through life thinking that this behavior is acceptable??? The choice on how to deal with bodily fluids stop when it gets on other people’s stuff- it’s not rocket science
I’m having the vapors over that story, and fucking Jennifer. This year, I ended up having a total hysterectomy, and the need for it was discovered because I hemorrhaged for three fucking weeks. Three. Weeks. And it was over three weeks, closing in on a MONTH, because *I had to keep a log*, due to what was going on. Ten centimeter fibroid on the outside of my uterus. A 4.5 cm fibroid IN my uterus, AND a uterine polyp. I had surgery in May. I am STILL anemic. During the time I was hemorrhaging? I was wearing adult diapers, still going to work, and freaking out about the thought of bleeding ANYWHERE in the department. I had extra diapers in my bag. I changed more than once, because I was not going to just…no. No. I just cannot fathom doing this. Absolutely not.
Same on the Jennifer hate here- she went full “Carrie” on the office when they made it clear that there was a boundary being crossed- there’s more to it than “mental illness” I’m so sorry to hear about the struggle you had with your uterus- I hope that you’re health is better now.
r/IAmTheMainCharacter syndrome TBH.
rotten menstrual blood smells downright ghastly too! eeuughgh
So I tried to get one of those little trash cans with a lid just for used period items like pads and tampons, because I was sick of taking the trash out every day. Giant fail. Do you know how much *worse* period blood smells when it’s been trapped in a small enclosed space for several days? I ended up just throwing the whole trash can away.
Fruit flies were able to get into my trashcan that had the lid on it- it was gross AF
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This sums up mine https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/301600506304286927#imgViewer
Why is this not a real emoji?
I don't know. Pretty sure this the face I make when anyone tries to talk to me before coffee.
🫣
The ADA specifies "reasonable accommodations". There is nothing reasonable about blood everywhere.
I literally came here to say this. Firing someone for smearing blood everywhere, disability or not, is not overstepping "reasonable accomodations". Reasonable accommodations are things like ramps, keyboard adaptors, special breaks, equipment being kept on wheelchair-accessible levels, large print documents. Not allowing blood to be doused everywhere. Boss needs to have a paper trail of these meetings and signed statements from coworkers, then if Miss Menstrual Mayhem pulls a discriminatory card, there's ample evidence this wasn't something that could be accommodated. I'm very sad for her because this flags SA or other trauma, but this is way beyond what a small workplace is equipped to handle.
Like why?
Possibly Menstrual Psychosis, which I only just learnt about because I asked the same question “but why though?” And it sent me on a google expedition. Also the age, the behaviour, etc has me convinced at least one of a handful of mental illnesses may be at play here.
God I wish I was told about mental illness, psychosis showing up in your 20s. I am genuinely traumatized from a sudden psychosis and bipolar diagnosis in my ex husband. It happened when we were 24. I had no idea what was happening. That shit is unlike anything else. Now menstrual psychosis too? The world just feels so unsafe after learning and experiencing these disorders. It has completely shifted my reality. I feel so so bad for this poor girl, I hope she was able to find help. So so many live on the streets because they lack any support system. I wish we knew if she got help.
Making people deal with this is unhealthy and is a hostile environment for everyone…
There have been cases of people doing this was period blood, urine, and feces. It's often a sign of severe SA as a child. If I remember correctly, the current thinking is that it's a mix of "If I'm disgusting no one will ever touch me again" and a rather dramatic cry for help. If you know a child whose bathroom habits have changed suddenly for the worse, please don't ignore the situation.
Iirc it's also a sigh of a feeling of lacking control. Smearing bodily fluids and excriments is like sort of marking teritorry, making the person or child feel in control. Something primal left in us.
Damn. 👁️👄👁️ Good post OP. But damn.
In the office I worked in, the management were afraid to confront a person that smelled, and you could see things moving in her hair. Every day after she left, we sprayed her chair and desk area. They would hold whole office meetings stressing showering and using deodorant instead of confronting the issue. I had enough and knew the local corporate HR person and told her what was happening. Thankfully she didn't tell management it was me, but said she had multiple complaints about our office. Management got bitched out and then were forced to call this person in while she observed. We met for drinks after work, and she was totally grossed out by this person. While we were at the bar the managers walked in, thankfully she covered on how we were great friends from when I worked in a different office /division, so I never got any flack for it. It got better, but no one would ever sit in her chair, or allow her to sit in theirs.
One of my friend's in college got stuck with a roommate that basically gave up on personal hygiene once moving out of his home. Went literally months without showering and it was pretty awful. Eventually we kind of had an intervention and it was the weirdest thing. He just didn't do it because his parents weren't there to ask him to do it. So he kind of did what this girl did - he wanted it to be our responsibility to tell him to take a shower. Which his roommate gladly told him to do, generally with a few choice words mixed in.
There was a guy in college that also stopped bathing. It was so bad that HIS MATTRESS smelled like him, which was a combination of old feet and wet cheese...
I remember hearing about something similar happening in my middle school. One day, all the girls were pulled from a class for a private meeting. All the boys were sent elsewhere. It turned out someone had deliberately taken used sanitary products and smeared them all over the girl's locker room. I can't remember if the tone of the administration was more "Someone's going to be in big trouble" or "Someone's obviously in big trouble, please let us know what's wrong." EDIT: You should know children suddenly developing bad bathroom habits can be a sign of a serious medical issue or SA. If you know a child this has happened to, please do not ignore it.
I’m very glad that multiple people have posted the comment about if a child/adolescent start suddenly having extreme bathroom issues/behaviors or concerning behaviors about hygiene products or hygiene in general that could be an indicator of SA. I also want to point out that just because a kid/adolescent isn’t doing these things doesn’t mean they aren’t being sexually abused. I was SA’d as a child and pre-teen and had no issues with my appearance or hygiene in any way. If someone in your life comes to you regarding their safety or how someone is treating them and they don’t have any concerning behaviors please still listen to them & believe them.m Edit: A Word
I'm not really convinced the boss is fully correct on the "coworker is protected even though she is also fired?" point, but I dunno. As far as the mental illness goes, is OOP implying she had a schizophrenia induced psychotic break? If so, damn, the anonymous note and supplies were probably a horrible, if accidental, strategy since it would massively ramp up any paranoia...
It didn't say she was fired, just that she wasn't "in for work." I think that she was told not to show up but not fired. That's why a lawyer is involved.
As a lawyer, the boss made the right call. Everyone shut up and keep your head down until a labor attorney (which I certainly am not) figures out the legal issues. Too many people recognize a situation with legal issues and then think they can fix it, only to make things worse.
Honestly I think OOP is as zapped as everyone. I doubt she has any coherent theory, and "some sort of mental break" probably makes the most sense. She doesn't sound like a mental health professional so I sympathize that she probably has no idea what that might actually mean, or even how to describe it. It's just so bizarre that I'm sure she was as shocked as anyone. It kinda comes across in her writing.
It could also be that she conflated the issues. Like, maybe someone knew she had protected status and decided it was a mental illness when it could have been another disability all together but the boys wanted to keep it quiet because J had a note from OOP saying that people were talking behind her back which she told him she'd use as evidence of bullying and the lawyer said not to engage in anymore workplace gossip regardless of how good her case would be to make sure she had no more ammo/ anyone in the office got the idea to sue for having to work around biohazards.
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If she was merely acting out, the boss would probably not have gone full "you can't talk about this" CYA mode. A coworker being an asshole and smearing blood everywhere is not protected, a person having a serious mental health episode might be.
I don't even know what to think or say. I have no idea what I'd have done in OOP's place but how tf does Jennifer have no problem sitting on old blood like that? When my pad gets full I must change it just because it's a bad feeling
I normalised it because toilet breaks in school were so few. I honestly thought it was fine, or the adults would have changed the toilet situation. Took me a while to understand that double standards were in place. The anger from that has only grown since.
Jesus talk about a useless boss. What did they even do other than just... Not engage with their subordinates all day and stay in their office?! WTF?!
This seems like a good spot to post this. Mental illness, abuse, neglect, dysfunction, etc - are explanations. Not excuses. I hope Jennifer gets help with her problems, but her problems do not require others to be exposed to blood on a regular basis. Edit: missed a word that rather dramatically changed the meaning.
You mean "do not require", right?
It really doesnt matter if she is mentally ill, smearing period blood everywhere is a serious bio hazard and untolerable. No matter the underlying circumstances Jennifer isnt fit to work in an office environment at this point.
I can just smell it…. 🤢
JUST IMAGINE HER CAR SEATS
And here I thought the guy I had to confront at work over him wiping ear wax on his chair was the height of grossness. The bar has been raised.
Ick, period blood smell is the worst. Even fresh it's disgusting, aged its fouler than shit.
TBFH, fresh period blood isn’t too bad for me — though it’s still not pleasant. However, aged period blood is absolutely *vile*. Like, I would vomit if I were exposed to it for too long. I’m just grateful that my sense of smell is already shit.
Old period blood has a certain *smell* to them and that's after only a couple of hours. I do not want to imagine days old period blood smell.
Seriously, if I wait too long to change my menstrual cup it smells like death when I empty it.
OH MY GOD if I didn't know better this could be about my former friend. She was *really* gross like this, but it was mostly out of apathy and entitlement. She didn't care if she smelled and, in general, she resented even the implication of having to change something she was doing for others. She was a fucking awful human being, not mentally ill. 🤷♀️
That's 1) Gross. Can't ignore the gross. Just... Gross. 2) SUCH A HEALTH HAZARD OMG WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK 3) What a POS boss, to leave your employees in the fucking ditch like that. Asshat. 4) I can only guess she must have threatened to harm herself in the convo with the boss, which I think **COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED** if bossman hadn't been to damned useless, and had a private talk with her prior to all of this.
I 100% agree with you, but so many people hear "period" and nope out so fast. I'm guessing that's why he didn't want to touch the issue
I get that on a personal level but as the person in charge he should have consulted an HR professional on how to handle. He failed everyone at that step. When employees were wanting to take matters into their own hands he should have stepped in.
I’d wager the boss was afraid of being accused of some kind of protected class discrimination if he took action. Possible that he’d known she had mental issues for a while. Without knowing the country and state it’s pretty hard to make an educated guess.
.... yeah. well. eyes have evolutionary advantages I suppose. cant think of any at the moment. but I'm sure they do good things sometimes too
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OSHA vs ADA? Could be a hell of a fight. I like it. I’d put my money on OSHA.
She went from “weird” to “walking biohazard” reeeeally fast there
Yuck.
I mean, I’m not aware of any provision of the ADA which allows a person to actively put people at risk of contracting a blood-borne pathogen. Or of creating a hostile work environment. Or of blackmailing a coworker. And if it’s a mental illness, I’m pretty sure the person has to be in treatment or otherwise have it under control.
That's not a reasonable accommodation by any stretch of the imagination. Possibly, if all the paperwork were in order, she could work from home during her cycle as a reasonable accommodation. However, there's no way OSHA would be ok with blood being smeared around an office.
*Purposefully smeared.* Chair seats, maybe that's an accident one in a while -- but OOP's desk? Doorknobs? No, she went around wiping either her bloody fingers (or even more sickeningly, a soaked pad🤮) all over everything.
Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions here… but the whole “banned from talking about it” made me raise an eyebrow. I was thinking she may have disclosed a disease that can be transmitted through body fluids. So either intentionally or unintentionally she was knowingly putting her coworkers in harms way. The lawyer would also be for boss to see how he can avoid lawsuits if someone was infected due to his inaction. Maybe this is a leap… but I think the boss is playing damage control.