It's been a frustrating week for me because I've been discovering all sorts of misconceptions I had about my maternity leave. I'm tired of going into HR to clarify things and leaving feeling like I asked a lot of questions and am understanding the policies correctly... only to find out that I was completely wrong.
Here are the lessons I've learned for wanting to maximize the time you have with your family, for those of you who want to benefit from them:
1. Those who use all their vacation time AND THEN have a family emergency that requires unpaid personal time off deserve more total time with their families than those who are dedicated to their work and chose not to take their vacation before having said emergency.
2. Those who use all their vacation time AND THEN have go on FMLA for their precious new-born baby deserve more total time with their families than those who were purposefully saving vacation time in hopes of spending more time with the baby.
3. Those who are unfortunate enough to give birth to a baby at the very end of a planned vacation (before returning to work) deserve the least amount of time with the baby. Their babies aren't as cute as the others and thus don't deserve the same consideration.
4. If you expect HR to explain things like this to you, then you're just an idiot who doesn't appreciate how good you have it. Who are you to be nit-picky with your priorities and how much time you can be with your family? You're no one. Suck it up and get over it.
5. When ironing out the finer details of maternity leave, it is wise to remember to bring a box of Kleenex and remind everyone that you're hormonal and pregnant. Remember, HR isn't attacking you personally. They're just attacking your baby. Obviously they would have no reason to do so if you were smart enough to have the baby at the beginning of the year instead of towards the end. It's your fault. Not theirs.
5 comments:
I learned this too, about illnesses. Those who never use up their sick or vacation time but happen to get deathly ill and need time off do NOT deserve to have as much recovery time as those who flippantly called out every chance they got. Who made these rules!! Why can't we find congresspeople to amend them??
my HR person told me the day I was leaving that if I didn't come back in 16 weeks that I may not have a job to come back to. I didn't choose to be put on bedrest so early in my pregnancy.
That's rotten. I hope you're able to work something out. Hugs to you. xoxo
Michlee - I am so sorry to hear that! That just sucks.
So... The lessons we all should learn here are:
1. No bed-rest.
2. Have babies at the beginning of the year.
3. Have family emergencies at the end of the year.
4. Don't tell people a long vacation is for the family.
UGH. It's amazing how much this bothers me, even if I fully acknowledge it could be worse. =)
This is horrible! I didn't realize that it would be this complicated. It's almost like you're being penalized for having a life outside of work.
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