I'm curious to know what other's experiences with this have been. Some men in my office have no clue what I get up to do, others seem uncomfortable by it, and others are a bit too curious / comfortable, if you catch my drift. How do you deal with it?
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My boss is cool with it - he has three daughters who were all breastfed. My co-workers? Well see. I think if nothing else, they'll think I'm just getting an extra break or three a day.
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@mediagirl: lol! That too. No more than a smoker, though. That's what I tell myself when I start to feel bad.
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In my office suite, there is me and 1 other woman, and then several men. When my co-worker was pumping, she just closed her office door and pumped, then stored the milk in the little milk-baggies inside a plain brown bag in the office fridge. No one could tell if she was on a conference call or pumping, no one asked any questions. No one knew she was pumping unless she told them, and no one knew it was milk and not a sandwich in the bag unless they peaked. It was very private and not a big deal.
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I think the other thing that helps with making sure people don't feel uncomfortable about it is not making it obvious. I have heard of people putting signs on their doors that have a picture of a cow that says, Privacy Please. While this is amusing, I think some may feel awkward by it because it reminds people of what you are doing. Just a simple Privacy sign on a closed door should be enough, I would think without calling attention to yourself.
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I work on wall street, so I work around almost all men. Im also on a trading floor, so we dont have private offices. My pumping room is upstairs in a private office in the management area. At first I was SUPER uncomfortable, but none of them even look twice. They all know what Im doing, nobody cares. The guys on my desk know too, and theyre all indifferent. I also dont draw attention to what Im doing, and I store my milk in the little cooler bag in the fridge. When people see me grab it, they assume its my lunch or a snack.
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At my job, many women have had babies recently so I'm far from the first to need pumping breaks, which makes it easier for me to ask for them. Also, a lot of the men have young children too, so may have seen their wives go through it.
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I work in residential care with kids. The supervisor of the cottage I work in is a male. We work pretty closely together. One of my supervisors is male, and there are about 5 child care staff who are male. (They are the ones who supervise the kids 24/7).
My supervisors/peers were all very cool with it. Most have kids and understood that I wasn't just goofing off. The childcare staff had a much bigger issue with it. The guys didn't understand why it was something I had to do, and actually got very mad and resentful that I was locking myself in my office "for hours" rather than do my job. One guy (who was nicknamed tweedledum, and was later fired) actually tried to peek in my office through a crack in my curtain to see what I was "really doing". It didn't really get better until DS weaned and I stopped pumping. Then it seemed like they just forgot about it.
Overall though, it wasn't bad. I had a fridge in my office and my own private space to pump. I had my laptop and phone right there, so I could do some work once I let down.
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7 comments