- Pregnancy
- Baby & Toddler
- Parents
- Getting Pregnant
- Baby Names
- Product Reviews
-
Registry
- Community
-
More
Want a personalized experience?
Download the free app
Working Moms
GreenMonkey1
member
HR Vent, WM Vent, DH Vent - Too Many Vents!
GreenMonkey1
member
in Working Moms
Vent #1 - I am on maternity leave right now and go back at the end of the month. Just received an email from HR saying they cut my saved vacation hours by 127 (3 weeks!) due to the University's max vacation hour policy. Except those hours are supposed to be used to pay for my FMLA. Or I completely miscalculated and am horribly over and legitimately just lost 3-weeks of saved vacation hours. Either way, fck. From what I remember the Benefits Coordinator puts your hours in at the end of your leave. So if she goes to put those in at the end of my leave, it's too late, I've lost the hours for my leave and the hours from the cutback - double whammy. Because the right and the left hands at our HR department don't talk to each other. And good luck getting someone on the phone - they are never there and rarely return phone calls. So now I need to use a poorly constructed site to see if HR is fcking me out of hours and try and get the Benefits Coordinator to fix the mess (assuming I legitimately am not that far over) so I get my 127-hours back! Add postpartum hormones and I am about to cry.
Vent #2 - Maternity leave ends at the end of the month, I'm not ready! I am going to miss my baby so much and I really enjoy the less structured work pace of caring for an infant (and not having to pump, GAHH, I do not look forward to pumping at work).
Vent #3 - DH really wants me to SAH. We discussed this prior to DS1 and DS2, money was never in our favor. 2-weeks into maternity leave and DH says SAH is an option. I told him to show me the financials, because I just don't see it. We're now 8-weeks into maternity leave and I still haven't seen the financials (in his defense, he sent some questions to our accountant regarding how this would impact our taxes, DH is self-employed) yet he keeps on the pressure. I told him to back off and he has, but either way - I'm not ready to SAH! So DH is kind of mad at me because he doesn't understand how I cannot be ready and he thought I wanted to SAH. I do and I don't, either way, too much of a decision to make right now unless we are losing money on me working. DH is sure the family is going to implode if I go back to work. Fck. I changed jobs after DS1 to a lower stress position with less travel and less of a commute to decrease stress on the family. Because I don't have enough worries and hormones right now!
TIA. I'm not sure what I expect from these vents, but it feels good to get them out rather than leaving them in my head.
Vent #2 - Maternity leave ends at the end of the month, I'm not ready! I am going to miss my baby so much and I really enjoy the less structured work pace of caring for an infant (and not having to pump, GAHH, I do not look forward to pumping at work).
Vent #3 - DH really wants me to SAH. We discussed this prior to DS1 and DS2, money was never in our favor. 2-weeks into maternity leave and DH says SAH is an option. I told him to show me the financials, because I just don't see it. We're now 8-weeks into maternity leave and I still haven't seen the financials (in his defense, he sent some questions to our accountant regarding how this would impact our taxes, DH is self-employed) yet he keeps on the pressure. I told him to back off and he has, but either way - I'm not ready to SAH! So DH is kind of mad at me because he doesn't understand how I cannot be ready and he thought I wanted to SAH. I do and I don't, either way, too much of a decision to make right now unless we are losing money on me working. DH is sure the family is going to implode if I go back to work. Fck. I changed jobs after DS1 to a lower stress position with less travel and less of a commute to decrease stress on the family. Because I don't have enough worries and hormones right now!
TIA. I'm not sure what I expect from these vents, but it feels good to get them out rather than leaving them in my head.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: HR Vent, WM Vent, DH Vent - Too Many Vents!
I'm so sorry you may have lost 127 hrs. My couple of days is nothing in comparison! Keep trying to reach HR. They are probably just following the policy as it stands but it's worth asking for leniency. I don't know if they'll offer it bc consistency and treating employees the same is the foundation of our country's working world. I'm in HR so that's what i know -- that's what I see...
So sorry, dear
@kikimeemee I hope they are lenient because I am "taking a vacation" and indicated on the HR form to use vacation hours to pay for FMLA. So it would suck if I lose the 127 hours and then when I come back from FMLA they deduct another 240. When it is more of an issue of when they deduct the FMLA time rather then when the time was used. Those 127 hours were eaten by FMLA time off before the cut date, so I am hoping HR will play ball. But we'll see, I don't have much faith. With both kids the FMLA process was a pita - they tell me I need a form, I send it in, they ask "why did you send us this form?". And they'll ask in the same email chain in which they asked for the form in the first place. Plus their awesome lack of accessibility - I can call and leave 4 messages (and our messages go both to the phone and email, so being off site is not an excuse to not return calls) and email with no response. If you call and ask for another coordinator, because your coordinator is conveniently always away, that person is away too. I had to call and get someone from a different HR department to help me add DS to the insurance because I was getting close to the end of my change of life period and could not get a return call/email from my benefits coordinator. This could be my own dumb fault and if so I'll kick myself for not taking the vacation time off, but I have enough balls on the court it's not surprising one fell. Good luck with your own PTO and leave maximization.
@ss+el They kind of give a warning, but not really. I got a warning once and called to ask how much time I needed to take off to not lose it and they couldn't tell me. Everyone in the company gets a form email indicating their is a policy, but not whether they specifically are in jeopardy of losing time. You get to track that yourself. Except someone they can calculate the time when they actually go and make the cut. Figure that. So you could get the email and be nowhere near the cut or be 5000 hours over.
It's definitely a bang my head on a wall day.
I was wondering if you'd lose your paid time off bc the policy is 'use or lose' by a certain date. For example, if you have to use paid time off by October 1st and your FMLA starts Sept 15th and includes short term disability for 6 weeks, that would get you past Oct 1st even if you said you wanted to use that PTO at the end of your leave. It's not a matter of what you want but the timing matching the policy. It sounds like very unfortunate timing for you and/or that all you could have done was use up that 127 hours of vacation before your FMLA bc it would be lost anyway.
And did you say you have/had 127 hrs + another 240?! Holy Moses...that's a lot of paid time off. (Still disappointing to lose any of it...)
Thankfully, HR got back to me within 24-hours - probably helped that I contacted two different people and let them both know I was contacting the other. FMLA and PTO are run out of two different departments so I assumed the problem may have been lack of communication between the two areas. In the end, the PTO office indicated they never looked at my FMLA paperwork even though it was properly filed. I have their assurance that I will not lose the time, but will feel more comfortable when I get the all clear in writing and can see the hours restored.
I do have a massive amount of saved up PTO. We have a fairly generous PTO policy (I work in public education: pay is lower, but benefits are pretty decent) and I do not take a lot of time off. On top of that, I have worked in public education for my whole career within the same state. The state policy allows for some PTO to be transferred from one employer to the next within the system. You can accrue a decent amount of time over the course of 10+ years in the workforce. Regardless, I still need to take a vacation - even if to just stay home with the kids or clean my house!
The University has a "cut-back" policy - we can accrue up to a certain amount of PTO before we lose time. It is nice because there is a roll over period and you can save up time for FMLA or other needs that may cross between two fiscal years. I have no idea how the University works with the fiscal year cut-back deadline and FMLA, there is no mention in the policy register.
So I am no longer in a panic, but will feel so much better when everything is in writing!
God Bless You my Little One
Farida, our first child, born on the 19th of July 2014
Farida, at 8 weeks