An office manager has won a £37,000 payout after her boss told her she used the menopause as an "excuse for everything".
The employee was told to "get on with it" after being off work ill due to her symptoms.
An employment tribunal heard that the managing director of Thistle Marine in Peterhead dismissed it as "aches and pains". The employee was off with stress and then resigned from the engineering firm.
She successfully sued the company for unfair dismissal and harassment. She had worked for Thistle Marine since 1995 and was earning £38,000 a year before she quit.
The employee described her 72-year-old boss as a "dinosaur" who did not understand changes in the modern workplace. Explaining her issues with the managing director, she said: "I had known this company for 27 years and they treated me like rubbish".
"He didn't move with the times. I tried to explain some issues in what you can say and what you can't say and it just fell on deaf ears".
The tribunal in Aberdeen heard that the managing director accused the employee of "strolling in" when it suited her, and that he had a "pet hate" of people not turning up. It also heard that he was blunt by nature, would speak his mind, and would often refer to employees who were off sick as "snowflakes".
In August 2021 the employee told her employers that she had menopause and was experiencing a number of "serious symptoms". The company paid for her to have a private assessment of her condition.
As well as bleeding, she suffered from anxiety, a loss of concentration and brain fog. In December 2022 she worked from home for two days. at first because of heavy snow, and then because she was unwell due to "heavy menopausal bleeding".
The next day, when she went in to the office and arrived at 2 pm, the managing director spoke in a sarcastic tone: "Oh, I see you've made it in". He also gave her a disgusted look and walked off when she explained her symptoms to him.
The employee was upset and angry at the implication that she did not have good reason to have not been at work. She later confronted him about the issues, and he dismissed her symptoms, saying that everybody has "aches and pains".
Shocked by his reaction, she wrote to the company launching a grievance about the "disdain and disgust" that she had faced. Several days later she discovered her remote access to the company accounts system had been cut off meaning she could no longer work from home.
She resigned and took Thistle Marine to the tribunal. At the hearing, the managing director dismissed his remarks as "innocent" and suggested that the employee had engineered her resignation to get money ahead of her marriage. His lawyers said that her evidence could not be relied upon and that he had no intention to harass her.
Nevertheless, the panel concluded that his remarks to the employee violated her dignity. Following her win, the employee said: "The stress was unbelievable and I know that I have gone through it and I have won, but I have still got this anxiety and disbelief at what they did".
"I have lost my self belief, I've got zero confidence now and I am very untrusting. It was the worst experience of my life".
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