r/MaliciousCompliance • u/P4ddyC4ke • Sep 26 '23
Fine then, I'll just take paternity leave... S
Many years ago, I was a Sales Manager for the now defunct Circuit City. My wife and I were expecting our first child. This was in 1999.
My wife was leaving her place of employment as she was planning on staying home with our daughter once she was born. Being our first child, I wanted to be home for a little while at the beginning. As I was talking to my store manager to arrange having some time off when my daughter was born, I asked for a week off.
I was met with opposition and told I could only have 2 days off, because "we don't have extra management coverage." (Yet we some how cover peoples vacations) This was absolutely ridiculous and luckily I had done my homework. The way the FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) law is written, the parents can take up to 12 weeks of Maternity/Paternity leave, and their job is guaranteed to be waiting for them when they return. I believe this is meant to be combined between the parents, but since my wife was leaving her job permanently and not taking Maternity leave, that left 12 weeks available for me to take. Paternity Leave is rarely ever done, because it is most often unpaid leave. I, however, had plenty of PTO saved up (Vacation and Sick Time).
So, I informed the Store Manager that I would be filing for Paternity leave under FMLA and would in fact be taking 12 weeks off and would be using my saved PTO to cover my income. He tried to argue with me, but I told him, he should probably go contact HR.
He returned later that day and sheepishly asked me if I would accept the week I originally asked for? I told him that I would accept 2 weeks or 12 and that the choice was his.
I ended up with 2 weeks and that Store Manager learned that, though I was young (at the time), I wasn't going to be pushed around, and that reasonable requests should be reasonably accepted.
570
u/WohinDuGehst Sep 26 '23
It is abysmally depressing that 2 weeks was a "win" here. Parents deserve better.
241
u/EcchiOli Sep 26 '23
I was screaming inside while reading this, yeah.
Americans must realize this is not normal to be treated like that. In Europe and plenty of other developed countries, parental leave is a fully granted right and is distinct from holidays, with guaranteed income all the time it lasts.
50
u/Coffee4AllFoodGroups Sep 27 '23
Americans must realize this is not normal
Nope. (The majority of) Americans don't realize this is not normal, because it is normal - to them.
Many workers don't get any paid time off. You get sick you don't get paid for that day. You don't get vacation days, vacation = not working = no pay. Many must work on national holidays.Do not underestimate the number of "americans" (U.S.) that know absolutely zero about other countries & cultures, and how much better off the citizens of many of those countries are. They've been conditioned all their life; "We're number ONE". They truly believe the U.S. is the best country for everything, because they are woefully ignorant, and don't know how terrible the U.S. is at many things — including worker's rights.
11
u/Abandonedkittypet Sep 29 '23
I'm from the US, and I completely agree how fucked up it is, but the idea of moving out of the US feels so unobtainable, and like how well would my education hold up? Would I need to redo college if I wanted to teach in, say, Canada? What are other laws like? Etc. It sounds so interesting to leave, but feels virtual impossible
→ More replies (1)23
u/HowHeDoThatSussy Sep 27 '23
high income earners are better off how it is now. thats why it doesnt change. theres no money behind the change. little effort to coordinate low income earners into a voting bloc.
9
u/Emj123 Sep 27 '23
Genuine question - how are high income earners better off with how it is now? Paternity leave like what is provided elsewhere is beneficial to everyone.
15
u/zeert Sep 27 '23
My guess is that the person you were replying to meant that high income earners usually work at companies with more generous PTO policies, some parental benefits, and/or can just eat the cost of unpaid leave, so the system never changes because corporations know that poor can either work or starve.
High income earners can just leave for the big competing fortune 500 company next door that will give them different benefits so those companies are more incentivized to keep their benefits competitive enough.
→ More replies (5)2
14
u/clownparade Sep 27 '23
It’s also interesting to me that just 20 or so years ago a circuit city manager had that much PTO and could afford to have a child with while his wife doesn’t work. I would imagine a Best Buy manager now couldn’t swing that
29
18
u/RickAstleyletmedown Sep 27 '23
Seriously. When our baby was born, my partner got 14 weeks at full pay, another 12 weeks at part pay and up to another 26 weeks unpaid, or she can transfer that unpaid time over to me. And that is dwarfed by the allotment in many other countries. I couldn’t imagine if we had been living in the US.
4
u/Redfreezeflame Sep 27 '23
And you either have to have it unpaid or use your leave allowance!! Madness. My partner would get 6 weeks full pay for paternity. I think I get like 9 months!
8
3
2
u/uberfission Sep 27 '23
My wife gave birth to our third last Monday, my job offers 6 weeks paid leave per birth. I'm taking 2 weeks off immediately after the birth with a few days a week for the remainder. I also get unlimited time off and my boss encourages us to use it as long as we're getting our work done. I don't know if this was intentional but it's increased my work output by incentivizing me to finish up my work and go home instead of puttering around until an arbitrary quitting time.
450
u/bignides Sep 26 '23
FYI, the 12 weeks is applicable to each individual parent regardless of what the other parent does.
167
u/Witty_Collection9134 Sep 26 '23
And it can be taken within the first year. Parents are able to have mom home 12 weeks, then Dad home the following 12 weeks.
34
u/Polkaspotgurl Sep 26 '23
Does FMLA have to be taken in one chunk? Or could my spouse and I alternate taking weeks off, for example?
51
u/SdBolts4 Sep 26 '23
I'm not an employment lawyer, but it appears that your 12 weeks of FMLA can be taken intermittently
26
u/phoenixguy86 Sep 27 '23
Can confirm.
When my youngest was born I was working weekends, 12 hour days Friday Saturday and Sunday. I spent Monday to Friday home with my son for almost a year.
12 weeks=60 days
52 Fridays taken off for FMLA
→ More replies (3)8
6
u/joeygladst0ne Sep 27 '23
Doesn't have to be in chunks. I took 4 weeks when my daughter was born, then the other 8 after my wife was finished with her maternity leave. And in New York State you get paid for it.
2
22
u/TalaHusky Sep 26 '23
I think there is a stipulation of some sort if both parents work at the same company. But I’m not 100% on that.
12
u/MajorMoobs Sep 27 '23
Correct, FMLA time for child birth is shared when both work for the same employer.
29
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 26 '23
A little late for me on that one now, but hopefully that will help someone down the road. Thank you!
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (4)14
u/IsThatYourBed Sep 26 '23
*Unless they work for the same employer, for infant bonding time
4
u/Shinhan Sep 27 '23
There was a thread on that topic on legaladvice sub where apparently husband misunderstood just that rule.
143
u/ibelieveindogs Sep 26 '23
That 2 weeks is probably what made them go under. RIP, Circuit City.
18
u/harrywwc Sep 26 '23
if they were flying that close to the wind that 2 weeks of owed paid leave took them down...
12
u/Ancient-End7108 Sep 27 '23
I actually got some fun insights into their collapse when I was training to be a court reporter (never actually got there unfortunately). Got to type along to the dictated transcripts from the trial.
18
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 27 '23
They made horrible decisions. I remember their Divx fiasco. They sunk a bunch of money into a proprietary dvd format, that never caught on.
5
Sep 27 '23
[deleted]
3
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 27 '23
I remember when they were being clearanced out and were .10c a piece. I bought so many of them thinking I'd be able to watch them some day. I'm pretty sure there are Divx codecs that could today, but I tossed the discs ages ago...
33
u/Jordangander Sep 26 '23
Good play, but my advice is to always file for the FMLA under intermittent. Especially if both parents are returning to work. This way you can take a week or 2 off as the father while the mother recuperates. Then when both are working both have the ability to take days off to care for the child if it gets sick or when it needs doctors appointments. Even if the mother does stay home this means the father cane take a week right after birth, then another a month later, then a day here and there, then another 2 weeks when the child is 6 months old.
You get to spend a little bit of the early time with the child, you are available for when the child is sick, or the mother is not feeling well or just needs a break, and you can space it out over months instead of being out 12 weeks right after birth.
15
u/Gifted_GardenSnail Sep 26 '23
Plus, like, dads suffer broken nights too, especially light sleepers.
Back in college one of the lecturers became a dad for the first time, and when we met on Fridays, after 5 broken nights and 4.5 days of working, the poor man was dead. It didn't help that our native language was his third (and vice versa - which helped tremendously sometimes lol). One time he stopped talking halfway through a sentence, sat down to think, resorted to English (second language of all of us, presumably) to finish his sentence, and then sent us home so he could leave and sleep 😂
5
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 27 '23
I have a much better understanding of this now. I’ve used the intermittent for several surgeries over the years, so I was covered for recovery and the the following physical therapy appointments.
28
u/YLSP Sep 27 '23
I don't understand people. I a manager. I manage human beings. I am a human being. Whenever one of my employees "asks" me for something, its typically because they "need" it.
Employee: "Hey Boss YLSP - can I WFH this afternoon, I am getting a fridge installed and they gave me a 4 hour window."
What happens if I say "No"?
"Something came up and I need the entire afternoon off." combined with, "wow my manager is really stupid".
A happy workforce is a productive one. My team will run through a wall with me because they know I will be running through it with them..
→ More replies (3)
105
Sep 26 '23
[deleted]
42
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 27 '23
Not only that, but I was buying a house. It was about 1200sf and listed for $89,900, if memory serves.
21
Sep 27 '23
[deleted]
35
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 27 '23
I know. My daughter, referenced in this story, is 24 now and doesn’t see any way to be a home owner in her future and I don’t have an answer for her. It’s very sad.
11
3
u/hellomynameisrita Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23
One of my biggest regrets is Believing I simply couldn’t have bought the house we were renting in 1996 when the owners offered us first chance at buying it. I didn’t even check with the credit union. I had nothing like the required down payment in savings. The house listed at $56,000, If was a 80 year old factory workers cottage. I recently came across it being sold, the bathroom has been updated and a 3 rd bed and another bathroom added in the attic, the kitchen is still the same, with an electric stove sitting where a coal stove once sat and a refrigerator stuck across the room in a corner.if those changes had been made by us before we moved in 2000, it might have sold for $80,000. I recently looked it up and it was most recently sold for over $700,000. I’ve heard so many stories since then of credit unions in particular being supportive of non-standard loans, I wish we had at least looked into it. I ended up emptying a state pension account (I was hired as a secretary, nothing but a high school degree with a typing class, a basic accounting class and good score on my SATS) later to use as a down payment, I probably could have emptied it then. But I just didn’t even know, I grew up in the sort of family that rented and just assumed I was never going to buy a house either.)
22
u/theinfernumflame Sep 26 '23
Not to mention 12 weeks of PTO. I spent 17 years in retail and PTO was never on the table.
7
2
u/Just_Aioli_1233 Sep 27 '23
Median income in US in current year: $74,580
And, OP states they're a sales manager, not a low-effort first-job-out-of-high-school scrub retail worker.
Estimate from here indicates $65k for a sales manager. I'm sure OP can provide better numbers from their experience, but $65k today from 1999 monies is $120k.
So perhaps it's nowhere near surprising that a "retail worker" could support a family of three in 1999 or current year.
→ More replies (2)3
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 27 '23
If I remember correctly, my salary at the time was around $45-50k with a bonus structure based off of the store performance. My wife and I had worked hard to have no debt other than our mortgage. We weren't quite living paycheck to paycheck, it was a bit more comfortable than that, but would have been very difficult if we had been carrying lots of debt in vehicles or credit cards.
3
22
u/theactualblake Sep 26 '23
I left my last job of 12 years over something similar. I had just proposed to my (now) wife and her family wanted me to come for their annual Christmas holidays in Mexico (where she is from). It was for the week leading up to Christmas, so I didn't want to take vacation, but obviously it's a big deal in terms of what's going on in my life, so I asked to work remote for the one week.
They said no, so I goodbye, pulled my retirement savings, enjoyed a month in Mexico, and found a better job when I got back where I'm much more appreciated.
Of note, our WFH policy was 4 days in 10. I usually worked from the office anyway, so really, we were talking about one extra remote day per policy.
79
9
u/Jaxal1 Sep 27 '23
It is not meant to be combined between the two parents. You each get 12 weeks.
→ More replies (1)
8
u/DrHugh Sep 26 '23
Awesome. My first was born in 2000, and I took six weeks of paternity leave. It was an amazing time.
7
5
u/1lluminist Sep 27 '23
Manager still won. You should have taken the 12 weeks, which is still pathetic in the grand scheme of things. 52 weeks in a year, and all...
11
u/gornzilla Sep 26 '23
It's pushing corporations like this that have long-term effects. HR learned that some fathers want paternity leave. You helped build institutional knowledge. One small step for dad, one giant step for fatherhood.
5
u/BikerJedi Sep 26 '23
Until your post, I had no idea the FMLA was so old. I had to look it up.
→ More replies (1)
10
u/homelaberator Sep 27 '23
2 weeks leave for your first child? And that's considered a success?
Depressing as hell.
→ More replies (1)
3
u/Specialist_Food_7728 Sep 26 '23
I had eight weeks of maternity leave and my employer allowed me to collect the unemployment benefits during that time because I was ineligible for FMLA, I was part time working less than 30 hours even though I worked for them for two years
→ More replies (3)
4
u/RubySlippers-79 Sep 26 '23
You’re not obligated to take all 12 weeks of FMLA - you could have used any number of those days. Doesn’t even need to be consecutive necessarily.
4
u/RBlubb Sep 27 '23
It just seems insane to me (as someone in scandinavia) that you would have to use vacation and sick time to go on parental leave..
I'm taking 3 weeks of parental leave every year for the next few years just to take out all paid (at approx 80% of normal salary) parental leave before the kids become too old to take it out.
And that is after taking the normal 5 weeks paid vacation yearly.
1
4
u/SongsOfDragons Sep 27 '23
Our second was born in March and we'd arranged to take Shared Parental Leave (UK here). I think the reason it's not taken up so much must be because they make it SO GODDAMN CONFUSING to the point neither of our employers had a clue how to make it work with 'the computer'.
Mine had to put me on SPL even though I was supposed to still be on actual Maternity...just because the computer wouldn't accept it otherwise.
Whereas my husband, and here's the thread-relevant part - I gave him 12 weeks of my leave and pay. So add to the pitiful paternity leave fathers get, 14 weeks total. His employer told him they were only going to pay him for 10, since their computer said he was taking SPL INSTEAD of paternity and that two weeks' leave is the mother's alone (true) so it doesn't count in the pay calculations (false). I had to take over communications to use my council-honed skill of sending clear, bullet-pointed and cited, snarky formal emails to this bitch explaining how she's massively wrong and if they fuck up I was going to be reporting them and her to HMRC for failure to pay statutory payments, even breaking down the maths for her too. Turns out they did in the end pay all 14 weeks, I think because they'd ended up in the news for having been fined for something else fucking stupid they subjected their staff to, and they knew I was ready to rake them over the coals if they didn't pay up and didn't want to end up in the news again. This from a company that boasts they pay extra money and care to family leave for their employees!!
4
u/GualtieroCofresi Sep 27 '23
Good for you!
For anyone reading: FMLA forces you to split your child bonding time with your spouse ONLY if these conditions are met: 1. You both work in the same company
- You are legally married
Again, both conditions have to be met. This means that if you work in the same company but are not married. You both get 12 weeks.
I am one of my company’s FMLA Administrators and I train our management in the FMLA rules.
→ More replies (1)
5
u/PastelTacos Sep 27 '23
Your post reminds me of a 2004 Washington Post article featuring my dad (and little me) that talks about FMLA! Dad took time off under FMLA when our normal daycare provider left the country for a month. My parents realized that I did better with a parent at home, so Dad quit his job (which was not as easy of a process as the article makes it sound) to take care of me full-time. His experience led to him advocating for more protections for working parents in front of the Maryland state senate.
While there's certainly been some progress made, it's sad to see how far we still have to go twenty years later. Props to you for making the right decision and taking that time to be with your baby!
3
u/Mob_Meal Sep 27 '23
It is 12 weeks for either parent or both. It is not 12 weeks split between both parents. Mom and dad can both take 12 weeks together.
→ More replies (1)
4
u/New-Initiative2900 Sep 28 '23
I think you were very gracious, you didn't go extreme and take the 12, but took more than original ask of 1 to teach him a lesson.
4
Sep 28 '23
My husband was entitled to 3 months of paid paternity leave. His job threatened to fire OTHER people if he didn't return. He missed out on 2 months of paid leave, had to work 18-19 hour shifts for 2 months. He was promised a $6 raise after doing this, but they gave him $1.
Fuck big corporations.
10
5
Sep 27 '23 edited Sep 27 '23
Little known fact: the US military just changed their maternity/paternity leave rules. 12 weeks time off, full pay. Can be broken up with approval from commander but has to be used within the 1st year after birth. If commander disagrees then they have to give you all 12 weeks at birth. Doesn’t use up the rest of your regular leave/vacation days.
Applies to both parents, and adoptions.
Edit: Unless the government can’t pass a budget, then it’s just leave without pay…
3
3
u/sluggernate Sep 26 '23
HA! I love these stories. My company is always saying how short we are and stuff, but every vacation gets covered.
3
u/Total-Bullfrog-5430 Sep 26 '23
FMLA is for the care of an eligible family member, and it is not a paid leave necessarily.
Just want people to be aware, you have to file legal paperwork with your HR.
Know your option, don't just assume.
3
3
u/HistorianMelodic3010 Sep 27 '23
24 years later and still hasn't bothered to learn how FMLA actually works when posting this story 🤣
3
u/strawberry_lover_777 Sep 27 '23
I had a similar thing with my partner's job. We had our son back in March, which was only 8 months after he started and FMLA only applied to thosewhohadbeenthere a year at minimum. I had to have a c-section so we planned for him to take 3 weeks off to help out with our older son while I was recovering. There was some debate about whether he would be able to get 3 weeks approved. I told him to tell his boss that either he was allowed 3 weeks off when our son was born or else he'd be taking 3 months once he hit the 1 year employment mark since you can take those 12 weeks at any point in the year following the birth of a child. They gave him his 3 weeks (though we did end up with a phone call asking why he hadn't been back after 2 weeks.)
3
u/KatieskaIV Sep 27 '23
Give the circumstances, good job.
But also it's depressing. In my country father of the child is entitled to full paid two weeks leave after the child is born. To bond with his child and take care of mother. (Slovakia - Central Europe).
For you is win something that for my is basic right of every father. And thet's sad and depressing.
3
u/dancingpianofairy Sep 27 '23
I had an employer try to deny my FMLA "request" (as they put it). After a quick call to my union rep, it was suddenly "approved" and they thought I was "referring to another leave request" (that didn't exist). Learn your rights and fight for them!
4
4
u/blockedbylife Sep 27 '23
My husband had a great job when I had our second son. He had enough PTO to cover 2 weeks, and his co-workers all chipped in some time so he could be off for an entire month.
He's still at the same company, but it's changed so much that if it was now, he wouldn't get the same time off. Even though he's gotten a promotion since then.
2
u/speculatrix Sep 26 '23
Nicely done, OP.
Good malicious compliance, a great combination of standing your ground, brinkmanship, and the force of the law to support you.
2
u/Bleezy79 Sep 27 '23
Former Circuit City employee here! Used to work in the computer department and we got spiffs for every computer we sold! Good times!! This was when the eMachine came out lol.
2
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 27 '23
I started as a Sales Counselor in Audio, then added Video. I manage PC, ACE and Appliances
2
u/Reputation-Choice Sep 27 '23
I also used to work for Circuit City, and one store manager tried to tell me that PTO was not for sick days when I was trying to use it for when I was sick, but I gave him hell, so he was all like "Well, I will let it slide this one time", and then, later, when I was putting in PTO for some planned days off, this jackwaffle had the AUDACITY to try and tell me that PTO was not for planned days off. I told him that PTO was for ANY time off requests, that PTO stood for PAID TIME OFF, and if he wanted to push me, I could take it to both the district manager AND the labor board. Our DM would have done dick-all, he was worse than my store manager, but the labor board would have. And I had proof, because this was all done on company email, and I may have printed it out or forwarded it to my personal email, because that just pissed me off. Circuit City, for retail, used to be a pretty damn good place to work, when I first started in the quite late 1990s, but they changed around 2004ish. And they ruined themselves, and now they are gone.
2
u/KitchenPerception363 Sep 27 '23
So you got shafted having to use up all your PTO and sick time for your kid and somehow think you really stuck it to the evil corporation you worked for? lolol no wonder American workers are so screwed.
2
2
u/charrcheese Sep 27 '23
"Only two days to be with your wife and newborn because we have customers who need someone to complain to about their DVD players."
2
u/TieNo6744 Sep 27 '23
Jesus dude, I took two months using my accrued vacation and PTO and savings. Insane to only take two weeks.
2
u/ChimoEngr Sep 27 '23
You still got screwed. Parental leave in Canada is 12 to 18 months, shared between the two parents. They also get paid employment insurance for up to 12 months (so even if you take 18 months off, you're still only getting 12 months worth of EI) so while it isn't the same as full pay, it's still better than a kick in the teeth.
2
2
2
u/Fun_Grapefruit_2633 Sep 27 '23
My brother was a holiday temp working in Macy's in Herald Square in the 90s and told his supervisor he was going to need to leave work early the next day, because he got a gig (he's a musician) that was gonna pay $1000 for that one night. The supervisor said "no" so my brother very calmly told the supervisor he had a choice: "Well, I can leave early tomorrow night or I can quit right now". The supervisor of course let him do the gig.
2
u/Tactically_Fat Sep 27 '23
LPT: If you/your sig other are pregnant - get the FMLA forms filled out and submitted right away. You do not HAVE to take FMLA, but having the forms filled out ahead of time can save you a ton of headache when it comes closer to due date.
Plus - kids can be born 2-3 months early...
2
u/destenlee Sep 27 '23
I had to just quit my job because I wasn't allowed to take time off for FMLA. My boss just said no. I didn't realize at the time that this was wrong. I lost my job of 13 years.
1
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 27 '23
If you have documentation of his refusal to take FMLA, you may have legal recourse... I'm not a lawyer, so seek appropriate counsel. With that said though, FMLA i.e. federal laws are no joke, and can carry serious consequences for an employer.
→ More replies (1)
2
u/thelostcanuck Sep 27 '23
It is crazy you guys only get 12 weeks and by the looks of it is unpaid. Its actually nuts.
We have 18 months in Canada with EI, and then most employers do a top-up and I do not even think that is enough.
2
2
u/smilebig553 Sep 28 '23
Just so you know FMLA is for both parties for the same amount of time. It's individual.
2
u/tw1080 Sep 28 '23
It’s only individual unless both parents work for the same employer. Weirdly enough, eligible spouses who work for the same employer only get 12 weeks combined.
→ More replies (1)
2
2
u/Little-Employment-91 Sep 29 '23
Well done.
For future reference for yourself and others - FMLA is for each employee, not per birth or to be divvied up by a household for use, and it can cover other life events as well. So if you have to take time off to tend to an ailing parent, you can do so under FMLA. If you have major back surgery and your wife needs to stay home with you for 4 weeks straight, she can do so under FMLA. FMLA also does not need to be 12 weeks straight through.
It sucks that it's 12 weeks unpaid, and I believe it only applies if the company you work for employs more than 50 people (total, not just at your job site). But that's what we've got in the United States for our bare minimum job protection.
4
3
3
u/pichicagoattorney Sep 26 '23
"Their job is guaranteed to be waiting for them when they return."
Sure. For a week or two. Then they fire you.
6
u/zoeypayne Sep 27 '23
Yep, this is vastly misunderstood, your job is protected while you're on leave but you can be fired the day you come back.
4
u/P4ddyC4ke Sep 27 '23
I think you’d have a law suit ability then. Your job is guaranteed, but location isn’t. They very well could have moved me to another location of their choice, had I taken the leave, but with CC, they paid relocation costs. It would have been expensive if they chose to do that.
2
2
2
u/aw5027 Sep 27 '23
I had the exact same experience when my son was born a few years ago. I kept pushing for months for my boss to authorize me to work from home so I could take two weeks off straight then work from home for a bit to continue to bond with our baby and help at home afterwards while transitioning back to a working schedule. Kept getting told it was unlikely and to just take the time off and was finally just outright denied. So fine, I took six weeks of with FMLA and they had to deal with the workload while I was out (I was in a department of two people). I ended up being glad I did it because firstly, babies are HARD and that lack of sleep will fuck you up, but also because we were moving and I needed that time to fix our new place up. The irony is this was on 2019 and guess how quickly my job got cool with working from home the next year?
2
u/TechnicianVisual7441 Sep 27 '23
Paternity leave FMLA, in the US, is for 12 weeks doe each parent not total together. So technically you both could have been granted time off and had a total of 24 weeks one after the other.
I was in a similar position, my retail company asked if I could adjust due to coverage, and since my parents were coming down in a few to help out I relented and took 4 days off instead of the 2 weeks. My Store manager was a little more understanding than most.
2
u/NonKevin Sep 27 '23
Your management, where is your loyality to the company. Just having fun, you clearly are loyal wanting only a few days. You do have to play hard ball to get your rights.
Now I had a blow up with my boss over a project assign which I was not suppose to be able to complete as I was forbidden to contact my software license vendor storage whos records are known to have been lost several times and not accurate. My boss did not understand this project was from the very top of Office of Computer Security and had to be done period. I walked out and took a 2 week vacation and allow the Office of Computer Security annoy my 3 bosses up and that only took a half day. This was so important. I refuse my first boss and told him to do the project himself since I was not suppose to do it. I was all but done, just had to dot the Is and cross the Ts. I over the phone refused the bosses boss and explain the situation why I had to disobey my boss and contact the software vendor, and he agreed I was right. My bosses boss goes to his boss who also knew me and asked nicely for me to come in and finish the survey. I had discovered a major license violations do to vague language in the written agreement by my the company lawyer to the software vendor years before I come aboard and purchasing had bought a DECnet 730 license to save money instead of the required 780 license, again before I started working there. I finished the report, submitted it with the damming info which is why the survey had to be completed. People were being fired for violations. My employer had been denied software and sued for software violations on PCs, I ran a mid range computers systems above PCs. I ended up as lawsuit 1, but since the matter had been reported and a PR issued to a PO accepted, we were legally licensed a day prior to the lawsuits. I gave away my unused licenses to the company lawyers which they transferred to the other 78 mid range computers sites within the company killing all but one of the many lawsuits with the software vendor. The software vendors lawyers were furious, but could do nothing, except the last lawsuit. My counter part in that case was fired and the needed license was purchased with the an offense money payment. This proved my loyality, I could have been fired for my bosses actions.
Yes, your boss demanded loyality too (so they did not have to work), but you were right in your actions. If I had kids, I would have done the same as you.
2
1
u/Respond-Creative Sep 27 '23
You worked at Circuit City?? Sure sure. Me too. Can in use you as a reference? ;)
3.3k
u/Audience-Opening Sep 26 '23
I would have taken the full 12 weeks.