Just days after World Menstrual Hygiene Day and those adorable, period-normalising blood droplet emojis, comes this astonishing story of corporate squeamishness of the highest order.
27-year-old American model Rachel Rickert was doing a shift as a promo girl at the New York International Auto Show when, she alleges, the bloody trouble started.
According to a complaint she’s made to the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, she had to spend three hours at the promo booth before her supervisors let her take a toilet break.
But by then it was too late – she didn’t manage to change her tampon in time.
everyone who’s ever menstruated right now
She told her talent rep, Erika Seifred, that she needed to change her clothes, but Rickert is alleging that Seifred told her that the client was sending her home to deal with her “period situation“. Rickert says that because she was being paid by the hour, she wanted to finish her shift, but no dice – she still got sent home.
A couple of days later, she was fired from the rest of the show.
“She [Seifred] called me and pretty much told me that Hyundai didn’t want me representing them anymore at the show because they got word of my menstrual cycle,” she told the New York Post.“You’re not a robot. You have to use the bathroom especially when you’re on your period. They just act like we’re not human. I’m not going to be ashamed or shamed of having my period.”
Rickert is also alleging that she hasn’t been paid at all for the work she did at the show.
Poor form, car show mates! The whole bleeding out of the nether regions thing doesn’t have to be a big deal, but if you’re an employer and you’re gonna get the willies at the slightest hint that one of your employees might be riding the red tide – well, you’re asking for a big deal, really. A big, expensive, lawyer-y deal.
Give ’em hell, Rachel.
Source: News.com.au.
Image: Carrie.
