Boss Refuses to Believe Worker's Need for Restricted Diet

[conuly]

DEAR ABBY: I was diagnosed with celiac disease 13 years ago and have followed a strict diet since. In the past, I didn't tell my co-workers because food wasn't part of the job. However, I am now in a small department and we travel, so I have disclosed it.

My boss constantly harasses me for not eating any of the junk food he brings in (or why I don't eat all of the food when we eat out). I decline politely, but he keeps coming at me insisting that "it's OK to eat" and says I should just eat it because it won't make me sick.

I have pulled him aside a couple of times to explain celiac disease and provided him with good articles about it, hoping that reading them would have a bigger impact than my explaining. He has made some comments about how his wife follows "fad diets," and he thinks they are all crazy. I have explained how a restricted diet is the only treatment for celiac disease, but he is unrelenting in his harassment.

I don't know what my next step should be. I love my job, but this is getting in the way. -- UNSURE IN WYOMING

DEAR UNSURE: Your boss's behavior is beyond inappropriate. What he is doing could be considered bullying. The kind of stress your boss is creating makes people sick. If the harassment doesn't stop, talk to HR about his creating a hostile work environment.

Comments

[conuly]

I don't know what sort of personal issues her boss has with the ideas that not everybody eats the same way he does, but he needs to seriously get a grip. His diet is his business, her diet is her business.

[lunabee34]

I have celiac, and I cannot imagine how horrible this would make me feel. :(

[monanotlisa]

<3 <3 <3

[shirou]

I don't give a shit what my coworkers eat and have a hard time imagining why anyone would. Going to HR seems the best solution.

[conuly]

I have a hard time imagining why anyone would.

Some people have this idea in their heads that any time another person makes a choice different from theirs - particularly in sensitive areas like "diet" - it can be best understood as an implicit criticism. If the LW isn't eating the manager's food, it must be because the LW thinks they are better than Manager since they don't eat "junk food". This also seems to be a sore spot at home.

My ability to understand what might prompt this doesn't mean I condone it. Even if the LW really just thought the Manager ate like a pig it's still not Manager's business to police their diet. His issues are his problem, and if he can't act with good grace when people decline his food then he needs to get some help with that. But I bet that's exactly what's going on here.

[eleanorjane]

Yuuup. I have some dietary weirdness and I found that people being shitty about my refusals decreased rapidly when I framed it as "oh man, I really want to, that looks soooo good but I can't :( :( :(". Then they were able to feel sorry for me instead of being outraged.

Still crappy and I hated having to perform for them to accept it, but at least it made them shut up.

[conuly]

In this particular case, the diet dance of "That looks sooooooo good" seems as likely to make things worse, but I'm glad it mostly works for you even though it totally sucks that people are so awful.

[topaz_eyes]

LW definitely needs to go to HR. Behaviour like this only escalates. LW should also document everything in case their boss decides to retaliate. If LW is American, celiac disease is covered as an "invisible disability" under the Americans with Disabilities Act.

[lunabee34]

I didn't know that. Thanks for sharing.

[cereta]

WTF is WRONG with people?

[minoanmiss]

My reaction exactly.

[sathari]

This. WTF kind of control freak do you have to be to push certain foods on someone when you're already in charge of their livelihood?

[conuly]

That icon is fascinating.

[lilysea]

"Boss, because I have celiac disease and that contains gluten, eating that will cause me severe pain for 3-4 days AND significantly increase my risk of cancer."

[conuly]

He hasn't listened the past thousand times, time 1001 won't be different. I'd advise the OP to stop giving actual reasons and just say "I don't like that flavor" every time food is offered. But really, they should escalate this to HR and let them deal with it, because that's their job.

[cimorene]

My favorite uncle's first wife poisoned him with mushroom-containing food because she didn't believe that he was deathly allergic to mushrooms; he went to the hospital and almost died.

He did NOT immediately seek a divorce after that.

[cimorene]

The point being, this isn't even that uncommon - people who get unreasonably angry and fixated about dietary restrictions often seek to 'disprove' them in this kind of way and the risk should be taken seriously!

[moem]

If that were me, I'd be tempted to describe, in as much graphic detail as possible, the problems that would plague my digestive system if I ate what he was offering.
The smells, the sounds, the cramps. All of it.

Sod being polite and offering information. Bring on the toilet stories. Maybe that'll stick.

[azurelunatic]

🗑️🔥
What a terrible boss.

[jadelennox]

Reason #1343234343^10 why you should not ask Dear Abby legal workplace questions:

How big is the office? Is it big enough to have HR? Is the boss a middle manager or a C-suiter? If it's a US employer, is it small enough to have some immunity from a lot of the labor laws that protect employees in this kind of instance? Even if there is HR, does HR have a history of being on the employees' sides in this kind of instance? (Eg. Most huge companies would totally side with the employee, for liability reasons, but some huge companies, such as Amazon, have a known history of retaliating against employees with medical conditions. I've worked at medium sized companies where HR wouldn't retaliate openly but held a grudge and found a way to punish employees later, and small companies are a total crapshoot.)

The LW needs to talk to a labor lawyer, stat.

[monanotlisa]

Yep.

::points up::

[heavenscalyx]

Yeah, that was my thought. Dear Abby has bought into the myth that HR is there for the employees, when they're actually there to protect the company at all costs.

[monanotlisa]

I'm not even celiac, but I would react* v. poorly indeed. :/ Why do people have to be such incredible assholes, in the workplace no less? How hard is it to simply listen to human beings?

* I get 10/13 adult celiac symptoms, though, so no boss would realistically want me to have gluten: https://celiac.org/about-celiac-disease/symptoms-of-celiac-disease/