Okay, so I started managing a service - and the team who deliver this service - two weeks ago and WOW it's in a mess; everything that could be wrong is wrong. The work isn't getting done, the team are disengaged and argue constantly, keeping dossiers of each others' perceived incompetence.... and so many more issues.....you name it, it's bad.

At the start of the week, I issued some instructions about managing the workload going forward. I'm going to need to micro manage this team for the first few weeks to get them working smartly. One of my instructions was around cover for my pregnant staff member, specifically her home visit work. My team are essentially debt collectors working on deprived and sometimes dangerous estates. It simply isn't safe to put a pregnant lady in this position - or to ask her to traipse about housing estates for several hours per day with no access to a toilet!!

So this afternoon, one of my male officers came to speak to me. He was most unhappy that the pregnant colleague wasn't going to be made to do home visits (it's not even that he has to cover because he does a different role and is office based!). He said "She's able to go for a walk around the block every lunch time so I don't see why she shouldn't do home visits".

I told him in no uncertain terms that I didn't feel it was appropriate - and said directly that I don't have to justify to him the decisions I make.

Eight hours on and I'm still angry. I'm so, so angry. He has two young sons (his wife is a SAHM) so he knows all about pregnancy, surely? I feel sorry for his poor wife.