Is anyone else having a hard time dealing with their boss or HR with taking time off for appointments? I am literally about to lose it!!
At the beginning of my pregnancy my boss was amazing and told me to take whatever appointments I needed and she totally understood. Now she's being crazy. In the beginning I had such bad morning sickness that I had to leave work once but my boss and VP set my computer up to work from home if needed. I only took them up on that this twice in the first four months when I was completely miserable and dehydrated. Then I was supposed to travel to Chicago for work but ended up in the ER with some issues the day before we were set to leave and I asked my boss if I could work from home that week instead. She said yes and I returned to work that Friday.
A month later this is all of a sudden an issue with HR and my boss. My boss is now saying she thought I was returning to work that Tuesday (lies, I have an email from her saying it was ok). Now she's giving me a hard time with EVERY appointment. My appointments are always at 7:40 am or 2:30 pm because those seem to be the only available times. My boss told me I need to start scheduling appointments that don't fall during work hours. Um. 1) My OB is open 8:30 - 5:00 so my 2:30 appointments are all I can do. I leave work at 2 and return back by 3:30 - no lunch break and I make up for that extra 30 minutes by staying late and 2) the 7:40 appointment is the first appointment of the day with the high risk doctor in L&D. What the hell does she want me to do?
HR is telling her I basically have no right to expect this time off for appointments. I don't have any sick time or personal time to use so I really don't understand what they want me to do. I shouldn't be nervous to have to tell my boss I have an appointment to go to when I'm not falling behind with any work and I make up for the hours throughout the week! Ugh.
Cannot wait to leave here in 5 weeks!!
Re: HR Issue Over Appointments
Actually after reading through our workers manual it says that as an exempt employee I don't have a set number of sick days. Instead I can take a reasonable amount of time off with pay for my own illness or appointments with my managers approval. I think it's reasonable to have to go to an hour appointment every 2-3 weeks which I make up when I stay late most of the week. And when I do work from home on the weekends. The only thing that really pisses me off is that my boss was totally ok with this and told me to take whatever time I needed for appointments. The second she got a complaint she turned her opinions around and is just being difficult.
Oh well, again - leaving soon. Just needed to vent
I completely understand! I have to get my cervix measured and the P17 shot every week. My job was okay at first but now it has been a very big problem. I was recently just put on partial bed rest and instead of working my regular eight hours I can only work four. I basically had to explain to my HR that it was doctors orders and I have no control unless the want to be response from the stress I will get from losing my job and the harm that it MIGHT effect my unborn child they would just have to work with me.
I'm in HR and have some experience with this. Make sure to print off the documentation from your boss just in case. Also - as an exempt employee this shouldn't be an issue at all and HR should know it. By law if you work more than half the day they can't require you to take any PTO/Sick leave for it since you aren't an hourly employee. Sounds like you are making up all your time which makes the issue a mute point but technically by the wage and labor laws you shouldn't even be required to do that since you are exempt! Sounds like it's a good thing you're getting out of there!
This! And the same from the person after her that said that FMLA entitles you to doctor's appointments. Get your FMLA papers filled out now, and make sure your provider fills out the sections for "appointments". If they want to play hard ball, you just play hard ball right back.
I also work in HR, and I've seen this happen at other companies I've worked for (and it actually happened to me). The best thing you can do is get your documentation. If anything happens, at least you know you have it documented and you are right, where as, they are wrong. Also, since the VP seemed to be pretty accommodating, is that person someone you could talk to about this?
I just want to echo what the other folks with HR experience said! I worked in HR prior to moving to internal audit, and I handled a lot of the FMLA requests. As long as your employer meets the requirements (number of employees within X amount of miles - I can never remember which number is 50 and which is 75 and I'm too lazy to look it up at the moment!) and you've worked at least 1250 hours in the past 12 months, you're entitled to use FMLA for your appointments.
Ditto I'm an exempt employee and my appointments are never an issue. I'm nice enough to schedule them around our busy times but if I need to go to the doctor I do without an issue. Doctor/dentist/gyno whatever.
I work overtime without pay so taking time off for stuff like this is not an issue.