Norwegian co. makes women wear red bracelets at period time

[angelmom]

For the record, I'm a man and I admit to having plenty of cranky days, even without bloating or cramps. So there!

Clearly.


:angel:



:blowkiss:

 

[Steely Dan]

I betcha he'd get it if he had to be around me the 2 whole weeks before my period. (PMDD here, not PMS)

It's deadly serious, but you have to laugh at it and yourself sometimes. Had I have read it post -ovulation I would have reached into the computer to rip his head off. No red bracelets needed here!

Back to the main topic, it's not far off what I know our biggest telecommunications company does here in Oz. It's a call centre and if the employee is pregnant they need a note from their doctor stating exactly how many toilet breaks are required per day. Their bathroom breaks are noted and if you go over the amount specified by your doc you're fired....And somehow that is legal!!

BBM




Link

MENSTRUAL STRESSES AS A LEGAL DEFENSE
By MARCIA CHAMBERS
Published: May 29, 1982

A 24-year-old Brooklyn mother, acccused of assaulting her 4-yearold daughter, has maintained in a novel extension of the defense of diminished capacity that her case should be dismissed because premenstrual stress prompted her to act irrationally. ...

Stuff like that makes me realize there is comedy in this topic.

Link

How to Use Menopause as a Legal Defense
By an eHow Contributor

 

[butwhatif?]

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Link

MENSTRUAL STRESSES AS A LEGAL DEFENSE
By MARCIA CHAMBERS
Published: May 29, 1982

A 24-year-old Brooklyn mother, acccused of assaulting her 4-yearold daughter, has maintained in a novel extension of the defense of diminished capacity that her case should be dismissed because premenstrual stress prompted her to act irrationally. ...

Stuff like that makes me realize there is comedy in this topic.

Link

How to Use Menopause as a Legal Defense
By an eHow Contributor

LOL- I remind my hubby of this all the time. The PMDD defence does fly.

But being serious for a moment now....

This is why I wrote in my previous post that it's deadly serious. I wasn't kidding. There's been a bunch of women who have killed others or killed themselves when pre-menstrual. It's no made-up defence. It's all too real.

If you read the PMDD forums you will see that this is not an excuse we use for flying off the handle and doing completely irrational things. WE HATE IT.
I have landed in a psych ward twice because of it. Women as young as 18 are having hystos to stop the madness.

I'm 33 and have a complete family so I don't need my ovaries anymore, but docs don't want to perform hystos 'just because we get a lil crazy each month'. They say the most stupid things like "What if one of your children dies and you decide you want another?"

Most don't see how severe it really is.

I have put off having my pap smear in the hope of getting endometrial, ovarian, or cervical cancer so they will do the damn op.

That's how serious it is. I'd rather get a cancer that will ensure my ovaries are gone than to live like this for the next 15 or so years.

We don't want to be crazy witches- we desperately want to be normal. The guilt we feel is immense. But it truly isn't our fault.
We seek out treatment, but if the docs don't have the answers, or just brush us off, what are we to do?

Keep in mind this is for PMDD, not PMS.

Now if we begin to take this as seriously as we do PPD, then maybe, just maybe we might see less abuse of little ones.

The only time I ever smacked my child was when I was in PMDD mode. But I yell at them. I can't stand them touching me. I can't stand their noise. It's the most extreme hypersensitivity to all senses and you literally feel like you are going to explode at any minute.
And then you get your period and you feel normal again.

Sorry to stray so far from the OP, but wanted to show how this effects us, and the unfortunate ones around us.

 

[sassy_texasbelle2]

I betcha he'd get it if he had to be around me the 2 whole weeks before my period. (PMDD here, not PMS)

It's deadly serious, but you have to laugh at it and yourself sometimes. Had I have read it post -ovulation I would have reached into the computer to rip his head off. No red bracelets needed here!

Back to the main topic, it's not far off what I know our biggest telecommunications company does here in Oz. It's a call centre and if the employee is pregnant they need a note from their doctor stating exactly how many toilet breaks are required per day. Their bathroom breaks are noted and if you go over the amount specified by your doc you're fired....And somehow that is legal!!

That is the most asinine thing I have ever heard. They think that every pregnant woman is the same. I guess they think you just wear a Depends if you cannot abide by the rules. Our world is becoming more and more insane. :loser:

 

[drip~drop]

Bosses mom said it's bs. Nordic women wouldn't put up with that kind of "silliness".

 

[Nova]

Sorry if I offended you but I don't know any women who's PMS is so bad, but I know they exist. I have however lived with women soooooo..... :truce:

You did NOT offend me in the slightest. I can't speak for lurkers, but it doesn't appear to me that any poster here was offended. Everybody appreciated the source, the context and the audience.

I was just making a related point about society at large.

 

[tlcya]

because SD can always be counted on by me for a chuckle, I find a daily does of SD's siggy buttons are a necessity on those red bracelet days. So thanks SteelyDan!

 

[Steely Dan]

You did NOT offend me in the slightest. I can't speak for lurkers, but it doesn't appear to me that any poster here was offended. Everybody appreciated the source, the context and the audience.

I was just making a related point about society at large.

It's the "Boy who cried wolf" syndrome. A lot of the women I've dated have overused it as an excuse. That's why I find humor in it because it's true about PMS.

You didn't say this Nova I think butwhatif did. I just want to be clear that my posts aren't about PMDD they're about PMS.

I really have a sense of humor about some of the things women ***** about. I got hit for this, hard, and I deserved it but a friend of mine at an old job was pregnant and said; "You men don't know what it's like to be pregnant."

I turned to her, remember I said I deserved to get hit for this, and said; "Yes we do!! We know because every pregnant woman in the world complains so much that it's been beaten into the male brain exactly how horrible it is."

:truce:

Remember I said I deserved to get hit. I think I'd be six feet under if I had said that to some of the women here. :innocent:

 

[Steely Dan]

 

[Nova]

All kidding aside, Steely Dan is right: PMS (as opposed to PMDD) shouldn't be used as an excuse, not by women to justify misbehavior and not by men as a reason to marginalize women.

That being said, I like a good PMS joke as much as the next guy...

 

[Donjeta]

I'm getting more skeptical by the hour. I've looked through well over 100 sites with screaming headlines about this. NOT ONE of the sites is from Norway itself. ALL sites cite the same Daily Mail article. Even that article neglects to mention the actual company and instead cites a supposed reference in a union document.

Now I can imagine one, creepy boss implementing such a policy for sadistic purposes, but I don't see it catching on. It doesn't even make any sense. Why just bracelets for menstruation? What about IBS and similar maladies? What about people who have an extra cup of coffee in the a.m.?

It may be true that Norwegian companies are increasingly obsesses with "productivity." Lord knows American companies do plenty of stupid things to that end.

But this report sounds to me like something a couple guys got to joking about and then somebody got the idea to fake a news report...

The following links are all in Norwegian so this may be useful to many: http://translate.google.com/

Here's the story in Norwegian news
http://www.aftenposten.no/jobb/article3903218.ece

A couple of other articles quoting Aftenposten.
http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10011172
http://www.abcnyheter.no/abc-penger/okonomi/101114/matte-ga-med-armband-pa-jobb-under-mensen
http://www.ba.no/jobbmagasinet/article5382544.ece

Here's a blogger saying it was a mistake, it was a story from Czech, not Norway, and even then it may be just a rumor. I've no idea. Maybe the union document is somewhere to be looked up?
http://www.hablogg.com/2010/12/norsk-avis-and-erobrer-verden.html
This is the news release about the study about the work conditions but there is nothing about menstruation there and I can't find a link to the actual document.
http://www.parat.com/list.aspx?m=7&amid=297254

I remember having heard this story before. In that version it was supposedly a cheap food chain store called Lidl who had come up with this brilliant idea. This is from 2004 http://www.dn.no/borspause/article324737.ece and it says that Lidl has no comment.

 

[butwhatif?]

All kidding aside, Steely Dan is right: PMS (as opposed to PMDD) shouldn't be used as an excuse, not by women to justify misbehavior and not by men as a reason to marginalize women.

That being said, I like a good PMS joke as much as the next guy...

Should we let SD in on the truth of what PMS really stands for?

 

[rpipergirl]

It's being discussed on Snopes now. Boss Makes Female Employees Wear Red Bracelets During Their Periods - snopes.com I know others have mentioned looking for it there. So, when I found it I thought I'd share. This thread is soooo funny guys.

 

[Lorrie]

Havent heard anything about it here in Norway beside what Donjeta mentions about Lidl in 2004. Lidl was a german company who had a lot of grocery stores here but after their working rules got known thru media they closed most of them because it was not popular working politics.

Bjørn Erik Thon is not the ombudsman here anymore and have been the leader of The Data Inspectorate here in Norway since mid August this year.

 

[Apostapler]

So are they going to pass out brown ones if you get the runs?

 

[carbuff]

I used to work for a company that writes software to track working hours -- the part that allowed employers to set up rules for breaks, then monitor and track frequency, length, and kind of break, was one of the biggest sections of the software. It's especially common in manufacturing, where taking a break might require shutting down machinery or changing operators, but it was astonishing and shocking how many service companies used a rigid manufacturing model. Call centers and discount store chains especially. There was one company we used to identify as "The Huns," they were so cruel and petty with their employees. They wanted reports that said whether an employee had been more than 30 seconds late more than twice in a month, for instance. I don't recall any customer having this particular "red" requirement, but that's probably just because they didn't think of it.

 

[Steely Dan]

Women complain about premenstrual syndrome, but I think of it as the only time of the month that I can be myself.
Roseanne Barr

 

[legalmania]

What do they do for the men who suffer from E.D.? Make them wear a limp balloon around their waist?