I had every intention of working from home for much of my maternity leave. Partiallly so I could continue to be paid and partially because I HATE the way my accounts are handled when I am gone. I have had customers taken from me when I have been on short vacations, and other things like that.
Well, this morning, my HR manager told me that it is going to be too expensive for them to set-up my home computer to tie into our work network. So, now I cannot work from home. She also explained that my "mind is going to be so messed up after the baby is born, you aren't even going to want to think about work". And, I was thinking, "YOU'RE THE ONE THAT GAVE ME THE IDEA TO WORK FROM HOME!!!"
So, now I am going to have to use my 3 weeks vacation and sick pay in order to get paid when I am gone. DH works here too, and is going to talk to them about giving me his vacation also, but I hate that we have to do that. We could easily go without my pay for a while, but we would have to put off buying a few things that we already put off last year (new roof for our house, pool liner etc...)
So, now I don't know what to do. UGH... stupid stupid stupid.
Re: Maternity Leave Vent
It is too bad that they are letting you know that now when things are getting closer for you, but honestly, I could not have imagined doing much work from home those first few weeks with DS. I checked my work email twice a week and could barely manage that. A lot of people need to use vaca/sick time to have a paid maternity leave (that's what I did with DS and what I will do this time around). With DS, I took some unpaid time and used some paid time so I still got a paycheck every other week (albeit a bit smaller than normal) and went back part time at 6 weeks before going back fully at 12 weeks.
Also, if you are on FMLA after your LO is born, I don't believe you are technically supposed to be doing much work, and HR might be worried about that as well.