Imagine getting injured at work and having to stay home to recover for quite awhile before you’re allowed to return to work. What would you do if you found out that your boss was saying rude things about you behind your back, insinuating that you were exaggerating the injury to avoid coming in to work? Would you keep working and ignore him, confront him about the comments, or report him to HR?

In this story, one woman is in this exact situation. So far, she hasn’t done anything about it, but she’s considering going to HR. She’s understandably frustrated by the boss’s comments, but she’s also not sure if she’s overreacting.

It’s not always easy to know how to deal with work related situations with bosses and coworkers, so she’s hoping for some outside advice. Sometimes it is easier to see a situation clearly if it’s not directly effecting your life.

Let’s read the whole story to see what we think would be best.

AITAH for reporting my supervisor to HR?

I am a female(30) I work in a male dominated industry.

In my company itself there are no female workers in my state.

I find myself being looked down on by my supervisor(50’s male( often and it has recently gotten worse after a work related injury.

She was out of work for quite awhile.

My job is very physical and why lifting something my shoulder dislocated and tore up some muscles.

I was out of work for a month and a half, not by choice the company made me until my doctor approved me to go back.

During the time I was out my supervisor complained to my coworkers almost daily about how it must be nice to take a four month long vacation and I was just milking the system.

This was back at the end of February beginning of March that I first was out of work.

The boss’s comments haven’t stopped.

I recently have just come back last week and Im still not allowed to lift anything more than 10 pounds and because of that I have to work with someone instead of by myself.

On my day off yesterday my supervisor has continued to talk about how I need to just get over it and lift the things that the job requires and after 4 months off I should be fine by now.

These are not the only negative things that he has said about me but it’s making me very frustrated and not want to come back to work and find a new job but its very difficult because I need a specific schedule and this job has been a good fit for that for the past 3 years.

I’m thinking of just going straight to HR about it but not sure if its even something that they can help with. Would it be overreacting to go to HR?

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a job-hunter who was shocked when the recruiting company told them too turn down a job because the salary was too low.

Let’s see if Reddit thinks going to HR is a good idea.

This person has a question and a suggestion.

Another person doesn’t think she’s overreacting.

This person wants to know more details.

Here’s some advice.

Evidence would be really helpful. She should go to HR, but if she goes without evidence, there’s probably not much they can do unless perhaps she has coworkers who would back her up. If it’s just her word against the boss’s word, she probably won’t win.

Her boss is horrible though for his comments. He’s clearly upset that she was out of work for so long, and he may even be jealous. Maybe he needs to take a vacation…or a permanent vacation aka getting fired.

His comments, assuming they’re true, were really inappropriate and unprofessional. He should not be criticizing her. She didn’t want to be injured. I’m sure she would rather be at work than recovering from an injury.

I hope she’s able to gather the evidence she needs to take this situation to HR. I also hope the boss faces serious consequences for his actions and isn’t able to retaliate.