Maternity Coverage

proudparent2b · March 2016

My boss is currently trying to find a contractor to cover me while I'm out on leave. Since 95% of the tasks I do are monthly, rather than weekly or daily, I'm starting to get a little antsy regarding when I'll have someone to train since my EDD is in two months and three days. Plus I'm getting slower and more distracted in general these days and am hoping my workload will start to reduce soon!

I'm curious how everyone else is dealing with coverage. Will you be getting someone to fill in? If so, when will they start? If STM, when did your workload reduce before you went on leave?

krisspy22 · March 2016

I'm a FTM but my job is going to be getting a temp to replace me for the 10 weeks I am off. They posted my position about 6 weeks ago with (in my opinion) ridiculous requirements and haven't found any candidates yet. They were hoping to do interviews in March and then have the temp start in the beginning of April as my last day at work is April 29. (I'm due May 3). I was already told to cut back on projects and let our other attorney handle the workload but I feel bad since I know she's already so busy. I'm secretly still taking on tasks while trying to put my transition plan together, so I feel you on the workload! Let's just hope they can find someone to take over for me!

businessmama · March 2016

I'm not helpful here as we are going through a re-organization. I'm currently 29 weeks, and covering for a sales guy out on paternity leave. I heard that I may have a team placed under me as soon as next week of 6 people, but then I have to figure out how to structure the team and would train them on different aspects of my job. It will definitely come down to the wire!

emma+karen · March 2016

Ugh...I'm a school librarian, and the woman I replaced two years ago retired, but still works as a sub. She is crazy (pretty much everyone says so, I've heard horror stories from before I started), but my principal hired her as my sub. Thank god it's only 3 weeks till the end of the year once I go out. She has some delusion about how I maybe won't come back right at the beginning of the year--not happening, honey.

Astraphobic · March 2016

We have two of us going out probably the same week in my department. Thankfully I have coverage and even got to help train her. The other girl (who is most likely only taking 6 weeks) does not yet but most likely it will be figured out in time. If not then my poor coworkers get to share the load. Won't be the first time we had to do it.

finnybooboo · March 2016

My situation is 2-fold really. I have two separate teams I work with. For one, it's based in CA (I'm on east coast) so they're using the opportunity to fill that position locally. It's going to take some time to transition all of that to them, especially since it will be done remotely unless they send he/she to me. My other team that is based locally, I have no idea about. I'm assuming one of my coworkers will just end up taking it over while I'm gone. The work load isn't going to decrease anytime soon because we have a product launch date of the week I'm going on mat leave. So it's pretty balls to the wall up to that point.

yogahh · March 2016

So I have my crappy assistant who has been here for 2 years but still barely can do anything. Other than her I think we might be getting an intern. But who is going to do the bulk of my work as I am in management, I don't know. My boss says she will, but when another manager on my team was out on ML last year, our boss didn't really do anything. I am trying not to stress about it, as anything done wrong in those 12 weeks is not a reflection of my work, but its hard. I have a feeling I will be checking in a lot from home...

swflJD · March 2016

I am an in-house attorney, and my practice is split into two different areas. We have a legal team (3 other attorneys and 1 paralegal) that also handle one of my areas practice. However, my other area is somewhat of a specialty niche that no one else here handles. Before I was hired, it was handled by an outside consultant who is now semi-retired. My boss and I discussed it a few months ago, and the plan for my larger practice area is for my existing workload at the time of my leave to be redistributed to our in-house legal team, and any new cases that would have been assigned to me will be sent to outside counsel while I'm gone. Any existing or new matters in my specialty area will be sent to the former consultant who has agreed to come back temporarily for the duration of my maternity leave. Fortunately, that means I won't have to train anyone to cover for me while I'm gone, but I will need to make sure my workload is as light as possible when I leave so that my co-workers won't end up having to take on too much.

krisspy22 · March 2016

yogahh said:

So I have my crappy assistant who has been here for 2 years but still barely can do anything. Other than her I think we might be getting an intern. But who is going to do the bulk of my work as I am in management, I don't know. My boss says she will, but when another manager on my team was out on ML last year, our boss didn't really do anything. I am trying not to stress about it, as anything done wrong in those 12 weeks is not a reflection of my work, but its hard. I have a feeling I will be checking in a lot from home...

Not to hijack this thread or anything, but talking about crappy assistants brought back memories of our assistant we fired in August. While my boss was on a 2 week vacation, and while she was out for one of those weeks I noticed bags and stacks of mail under her desk all addressed to people in our department. I work in legal so there were subpoenas, lobbying ethics reports, checks from our collections firm, and hundreds of other unopened items. We came to realize that not only was she not opening and distributing the mail but she was just lying about actually doing any of her work. Needless to say she was fired when back from vacation.

@yogahh I'd love to hear how yours compares!

yogahh · March 2016

KDennis202 said:

yogahh said:

So I have my crappy assistant who has been here for 2 years but still barely can do anything. Other than her I think we might be getting an intern. But who is going to do the bulk of my work as I am in management, I don't know. My boss says she will, but when another manager on my team was out on ML last year, our boss didn't really do anything. I am trying not to stress about it, as anything done wrong in those 12 weeks is not a reflection of my work, but its hard. I have a feeling I will be checking in a lot from home...

Not to hijack this thread or anything, but talking about crappy assistants brought back memories of our assistant we fired in August. While my boss was on a 2 week vacation, and while she was out for one of those weeks I noticed bags and stacks of mail under her desk all addressed to people in our department. I work in legal so there were subpoenas, lobbying ethics reports, checks from our collections firm, and hundreds of other unopened items. We came to realize that not only was she not opening and distributing the mail but she was just lying about actually doing any of her work. Needless to say she was fired when back from vacation.

@yogahh I'd love to hear how yours compares!

Um mine just lost ANOTHER package. No joke. I think you might have hit the nail on the head on this one.

I am honestly hoping that after my leave, when my boss is working with her all the time, we can just get rid of her.
But the other manager I share her with never complains to our boss about her, even though she complains to me about her. So my boss just thinks I am being nuts.

One of my most recent examples is we sat down 3 weeks ago to review a new task. I showed her and told her what I need her to do and collect so we can sit down again in a week to further review (its a multi-step project). When we sat last week I asked her if she had that info I asked her to get. She told me she was "confused" by her notes to herself, and instead of asking me a dumb question she would just ask me when we sat.
Really???

Yesterday she came to me with an issue that was presented to her a WEEK ago and she never looped me in. When I asked her why, again, she thought we could just sit on it later...

She is always "overwhelmed" but had time to go to a 45 minute long weight watchers meeting today- without telling me. And she cant get to all of her emails, but can answer EVERY SINGLE email she does get with a "thank you". I must get 50-60 thank you emails from her daily.

She is literally likes nails on a chalkboard to me.

Sorry to rant. I am just annoyed today.

Pascal86 · March 2016

All of our work is project-based, so I just reminded my boss that any projects he assigns me that are due in the several weeks leading up to my due date should have someone else on them as well, at least as backup, so they can easily jump in whenever I have to take off. We're also hiring someone new, not just because of me, but the timing could have a lot to do with me (we have like 8 people in our company, so me leaving for a while changes things a lot). So we want to increase our capacity, but makes sense to do it before I take off for a couple of months so there's no dip in capacity when I'm gone.

khochanadel · March 2016

We have 2 people with my role doing the job of 3, so when I announced my pregnancy I kind of forced their hand to hire a third person, both to cover me for maternity leave in the short term and to share the load in the long term.

Our new person is an internal transfer who starts on March 15, so we'll have plenty of time to get her trained up on what to do, and since she is internal we won't have to teach her the systems she already knows. Pretty good situation!

dsmith211 · March 2016

Thankfully at my work I'm a part of a team of 5. While I'm out I can't even so much as check my email... They suspend all of our logins bc we had an issue in the past with someone working while on FMLA. Apparently a big no no, so they do this to avoid the problem completely. There are a few things I need to let my team lead know of before I head out on the 2 big assignments I have that most likely won't be done before I leave, but since I told everyone I've mostly been assigned daily/short term tasks that anyone on my team can take over if needed. We're all cross trained so it makes it a little easier... They will be short a team member though for the time I'm out so I feel kinda bad (but not really... I seriously contemplated amending my leave start date today with work).

Sienna516 · March 2016

Well they were originally going to hire a temp, who would take on some of our assistant's job who would then get more "easy" work from my co-workers, so everything was going to get re-distributed. But now, it sounds like there won't be any temp, and my 3 co-workers will be stuck trying to cover me.

I had wanted to do 6 full weeks leave (mostly STD paid) and then do the next 6 weeks as half days. Apparently the group that does our FMLA stuff isn't ok with that even though our local HR & my boss said if I could get it approved, they were fine with it. So my co-workers are saying I should see if my boss would go for me working mornings and then working from home in the afternoons. I'm not sure if I want to push for that or not, I just don't know how things are going to be. My husband is going to be a new SAHD, so there will be a lot of dynamics changing (he works 2nd shift right now). So it seems like I should be able to swing that, but I'm afraid to commit to it. If I do take the 2nd 6 weeks they would be unpaid, and since we'll be on my salary only, I don't know what our bills will be like for the delivery. So far I've barely paid anything for the prenatal appointments.

rlworzalla · March 2016

I do in-home therapy, and my boss is currently trying to find replacement staff for my 3 cases. Unfortunately, I live in a small town and people don't want to work the odd hours. On two of the cases I'm the only therapist besides my boss, on the third there's only one other therapist. I'm planning on going through the end of April (due May 8th) but it's starting to take a toll and I'm contemplating leaving earlier. I don't get paid leave, and I don't know when I'm officially going back or at what amount of hours since we aren't doing daycare.

balamama · March 2016

yogahh said:
She is always "overwhelmed" but had time to go to a 45 minute long weight watchers meeting today- without telling me. And she cant get to all of her emails, but can answer EVERY SINGLE email she does get with a "thank you". I must get 50-60 thank you emails from her daily.

THIS. Our dept coordinator does this too and also - "you're welcome" if you thank her for something (which I do when it's actually warranted, not in response to every email I receive from her). Drives me NUTS.

dandyleah · March 2016

I just started training my replacement yesterday. My due date is May 13 and I was planning on working until at least 36 weeks but I've had severe round ligament pain and my job is very physical, lifting and bending. My boss has been putting off finding someone to replace me ( I'm not going back to work after baby) until the last minute and only got serious about it because I basically told her I couldn't continue to work full days in the amount of pain that I am in at only 30 weeks and that if she had someone in mind she needed to "shit or get off the pot" so to speak. So, I'm hoping I can train this lady for the next couple of weeks, only working half days and then call it quits a little earlier than expected.

evalynn24 · March 2016

I am very protective of my work and it's really hard to go back and fix things after they've been done. I do financials for a pretty large company and they are sent to the bank and our auditors on a monthly basis. My boss has no idea how I do my job or what it involves so I am really hoping my assistant is able to learn quickly and use my extensive procedures to do things exactly how they should be so I don't have to amend 3-4 months worth of financials and tax returns. It has me pretty stressed out, but I'm hoping for the best.

buffythevampireslayer · March 2016

I'm in consulting so my plan is to transition the work I am leading with clients to others at my firm at around 36 weeks, and then be in a "catch work and taskings" mode while also advising until I go out on leave. I can also pick up slack on things that are hard to do when focusing on billable hours like interviewing people, proposal writing, etc. At that point, my goal is to leave work each day not holding a ball that no one knows about or could easily take over. Other pregnant women at my firm have taken this approach and it usually works well so hopefully it does for me too! In the meantime, I am working my ass off to get major client and firm contribution things done so that 36 week deadline is a bit easier.

saladflambe · March 2016

My workload will not slow down. Period. My bosses will cover Anything that arises in my research area while I'm gone, but nobody will take on my actual role. No new research will come out of my area while I'm gone. I'm an industry research analyst in the IT space

zekesmommy611 · March 2016

I work in an office with 6 other people but we're apart of a larger mental health/intellectual disabilities agency. During my last pregnancy, I was clearing slacking off from 36-41 weeks. My coworkers graciously picked up my slack without complaint. With DS#1 I didn't have as many responsibilities so this maternity leave coming with DS#2 is slightly overwhelming. During this maternity leave, my caseload will be divided up between three staff and my larger projects will be covered by my boss. I fear coming back to work with all my consumers in crisis and their charts being horrible... But I'm going to enjoy my time off!!

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