- A Mumbai NGO director dismissed an employee's request to miss a workshop due to severe period pain
- The employee shared the incident and director's harsh reply on Reddit, gaining widespread attention
- The NGO conducts Sunday online workshops despite regular Monday to Friday work hours
A woman claimed that the director of a Mumbai-based mental health NGO harshly dismissed her request to miss a Sunday workshop due to severe period pain. The employee shared details of the alleged workplace insensitivity in a Reddit post, which included a screenshot of her conversation with the director.
In the post, the employee explained she had been in severe pain since the previous day and needed rest, requesting that a colleague cover her one-hour Sunday workshop. The director's alleged response was: "Pls don't cancel workshops every week. It reflects very bad on us".
"We have online workshops every sunday (smh) with another ngo, despite only having Monday to Friday 8-4pm working days. This time, we held a training program for staff at a college which lasted for two days, fri and sat 9am to 4.30pm. I had no choice but to attend, despite dying from the pain because of my period but I still finished my responsibilities.
I requested for someone in our team to take the sunday 1-hr weekly workshop and this what the director told me. No ‘take care' or ‘it's fine'. No feedback on our work yesterday and the day before. This is an NGO in Mumbai which works for suicide prevention and mental health. This is our reality," the post read.
See the post here:
This is an NGO for mental health awareness btw
byu/ElliottGrayy inIndianWorkplace
The employee clarified in the comments that no workshops had been cancelled previously, and two were postponed due to issues from the other NGO they collaborated with, and her team had been unavailable for another due to a conference.
The post quickly gained traction online, sparking widespread reactions. Many users pointed out the irony of someone working at a mental health NGO facing such a lack of empathy, highlighting the gap between the organisation's mission and its internal practices.
One user wrote, "I remember working for a mental health startup and boy it has the worst terrible work life balance. I was making a module for grounding exercise with positive affirmations during my panic attacks. It was hilarious if I think about it. Tell them you can't do it, What's the worst that could happen if you don't ?"
Another commented, "Development sector work is toxic. Very few NGOs in India with good work life balance."
A third said, "that is so ironic lmao."
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