Being denied my earned leave because I’m covering due to maternity leave

[Anonymous]

OP your anger is misplaced. It is NOT about maternity leave, however, as people have explained previously, it is mandated federal leave that supersedes your earned leave benefit. But only the original 12 weeks. Your organization has approved the additional 4 weeks, which tells me they are not rigid and cruel.

I would get the refusal in writing. Are they denying the vacation plus wedding or also the wedding dates? For example, say the wedding is Nov 11. Did you request Nov 5-15 or something like that? And if yes, did you inquire whether something like the 9- 13th would be approved?

If you didn't, I would suggest getting in writing whether they are denying the leave for duration or just outright denying leave during that entire time period. In either situation, you should be elevating to HR with a request to have your use-it-or-lose it rolled into next year if you are not able to use it for the last 1/3-1/4 of the year. If that wont be allowed, then I would discuss taking X amount of Fridays off during the fall and taking long weekends with your spouse and/or girls trips.

And before you go on another tirade. Many of us have to make adjustments for travel and vacation due to work, kids, spouse, spouse work, etc. Many of us dont get vacations because of kids so there's balance in all things. I also want to mention that maternity leave and FMLA protection are two separate things. The 12 weeks of protection can also be used for illness, family members, etc. I think you may need to take a step back and see if you would be as disdainful if that same person took FMLA for any other reason and determine whether you may have some biases against parents in the workplace from your lofty perch as a DINK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leave also doesn’t require flights, it just requires not working. Per your logic you should have submitted your Nov. leave request in May.

Take a lovely staycation and use your time now before you lose it. No one will feel bad for you that you’re pouting bc you can’t use the exact days you want. You have 2.5 months to use your leave…so use it or else lose it.

So now your employer should dictate WHERE you take leave too.

Amazingly bad logic.

You can go anywhere you want! Apparently your spouse can’t go with you though. Oh well.

Maybe he should accuse his employer of stealing leave from him?

Exactly.

Perhaps OP's pregnant colleague should have checked in with OP's DH before getting pregnant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You CAN have your earned leave. Just nit at the same time as the maternity leave.

You're not guaranteed your specific dates off, just that have time off .

Ridiculous logic. You can’t promise to compensate people with leave, as stipulated in their employment contract, then deny them from being able to use up their leave and making them lose it without cash compensation. That’s compensation theft.

Do you have an actual employment contract? Is the leave specified as compensation or not? What does the actual policy say? Employers are usually very careful to make sure PTO is not designated as compensation, but some may still have it that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You CAN have your earned leave. Just nit at the same time as the maternity leave.

You're not guaranteed your specific dates off, just that have time off .

Ridiculous logic. You can’t promise to compensate people with leave, as stipulated in their employment contract, then deny them from being able to use up their leave and making them lose it without cash compensation. That’s compensation theft.

This is America. The shining light of capitalism.

By and large, the law leaves this for you and your employer to handle. If you want to take the time off, the employer accept it, or they can fire you for not being available when they need you. But if they do, they'll have even *less* coverage, so they might not be in the bargaining position they pretend they are. (Or they might be stupid. Lots of managers/owners are stupid.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP your anger is misplaced. It is NOT about maternity leave, however, as people have explained previously, it is mandated federal leave that supersedes your earned leave benefit. But only the original 12 weeks. Your organization has approved the additional 4 weeks, which tells me they are not rigid and cruel.

I would get the refusal in writing. Are they denying the vacation plus wedding or also the wedding dates? For example, say the wedding is Nov 11. Did you request Nov 5-15 or something like that? And if yes, did you inquire whether something like the 9- 13th would be approved?

If you didn't, I would suggest getting in writing whether they are denying the leave for duration or just outright denying leave during that entire time period. In either situation, you should be elevating to HR with a request to have your use-it-or-lose it rolled into next year if you are not able to use it for the last 1/3-1/4 of the year. If that wont be allowed, then I would discuss taking X amount of Fridays off during the fall and taking long weekends with your spouse and/or girls trips.

And before you go on another tirade. Many of us have to make adjustments for travel and vacation due to work, kids, spouse, spouse work, etc. Many of us dont get vacations because of kids so there's balance in all things. I also want to mention that maternity leave and FMLA protection are two separate things. The 12 weeks of protection can also be used for illness, family members, etc. I think you may need to take a step back and see if you would be as disdainful if that same person took FMLA for any other reason and determine whether you may have some biases against parents in the workplace from your lofty perch as a DINK.

All of this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have a right to use your leave, but your boss generally has the right to approve or deny WHEN you use it. Earning leave does not usually mean you get to take off whenever you want.

But, the boss must be reasonable. If you submit leave requests every month, and it's denied every month because "this isn't a good time", that is effectively denying your use of leave at all.

How long are you covering for the person on leave? If it's a short leave, or if you are trading off with someone and this happens to be your week, then the denial is reasonable. If you are covering for 6 months, and your boss is saying that you can't take any leave at all for those 6 months, that is not reasonable and you should talk to HR to ask for more information on the policy.

The person is going on maternity leave in October. They’re going on maternity leave for 3 months, then using an additional 4 weeks of their leave to add on an additional month of leave. They want me to basically start to cover everything they’re doing from mid-Sept as they ramp down before maternity leave and through to Feb 2024. Yes, so that’s effectively restricting my use of my earned leave for 4-5 months. How the hell could I possibly use my leave earlier like all of the stupid other posters claim. A) you don’t even know about maternity leave until a person is like 9-10 months pregnant and you still need a lot more time to plan leave and make sure you can coordinate with your spouse, and B) it has to overlap with a fall wedding like I already mentioned.

So you could use your leave for the rest of July, August, September, and some of October? It isn't being stolen from you.

Also, while you would like it to overlap with the wedding, it doesn't have to. As other have repeatedly said, you are not entitled to take leave on any particular date. That's the entire purpose of the approval process.

Cannot use it in July, Aug, or Sept, because my spouse has commitments at work. We already intended to go on leave to coincide with the wedding trip we already have to take to help reduce costs.

Must be nice having unlimited amounts of money like you so you can take leave at the last minute and have other spouse you have to coordinate with.

So you can't take vacation Jul-Sep because of your spouse's work commitments, then can't take vacation Oct-Feb because of your work commitments. That sucks, but it's not your boss's problem to work around your spouse's availability. In fact I think it's kind of funny that you have no problem saying that you "can't" leave for 3 months because of your spouse's job, but have very different expectations for your own job.

If you've been intending those dates for a long time, perhaps you should have cleared the schedule with your boss up front, rather than assuming you'll be able to do whatever you want?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have a right to use your leave, but your boss generally has the right to approve or deny WHEN you use it. Earning leave does not usually mean you get to take off whenever you want.

But, the boss must be reasonable. If you submit leave requests every month, and it's denied every month because "this isn't a good time", that is effectively denying your use of leave at all.

How long are you covering for the person on leave? If it's a short leave, or if you are trading off with someone and this happens to be your week, then the denial is reasonable. If you are covering for 6 months, and your boss is saying that you can't take any leave at all for those 6 months, that is not reasonable and you should talk to HR to ask for more information on the policy.

The person is going on maternity leave in October. They’re going on maternity leave for 3 months, then using an additional 4 weeks of their leave to add on an additional month of leave. They want me to basically start to cover everything they’re doing from mid-Sept as they ramp down before maternity leave and through to Feb 2024. Yes, so that’s effectively restricting my use of my earned leave for 4-5 months. How the hell could I possibly use my leave earlier like all of the stupid other posters claim. A) you don’t even know about maternity leave until a person is like 9-10 months pregnant and you still need a lot more time to plan leave and make sure you can coordinate with your spouse, and B) it has to overlap with a fall wedding like I already mentioned.

So you could use your leave for the rest of July, August, September, and some of October? It isn't being stolen from you.

Also, while you would like it to overlap with the wedding, it doesn't have to. As other have repeatedly said, you are not entitled to take leave on any particular date. That's the entire purpose of the approval process.

NP and it sounds like (maybe?) she won't be able to take leave from mid-September through mid-February (plus or minus a bit depending on when the baby arrives). Even if its a blackout on taking leave from mid-October through mid-February that still seems unreasonable to me, if true.

I don't trust OP as a reliable narrator here because her comments have been so vitriolic and her anger is weirdly misplaced on her pregnant colleague.

If her workplace is actually denying her leave for the entire 4 month duration of her colleague's maternity leave, I'd be sympathetic. But I don't believe they are doing this, especially since apparently her colleagues is using extra leave to take the 4th month, at which point the FMLA portion of the leave no longer takes precedence. Much more likely is that the timing of this wedding, or the duration of the requested leave, is simply very bad for a department that is already down one person, and that's why it was rejected.

If they are literally saying that she can't take off for a long weekend or the week of Thanksgiving or Christmas or something, then the company is in the wrong and OP should document everything and get it addressed. But I don't think that's actually what is happening. OP is being incredibly unreasonable and combative and I think she's just sore about not being able to take this one vacation and lashing out wherever she can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have a right to use your leave, but your boss generally has the right to approve or deny WHEN you use it. Earning leave does not usually mean you get to take off whenever you want.

But, the boss must be reasonable. If you submit leave requests every month, and it's denied every month because "this isn't a good time", that is effectively denying your use of leave at all.

How long are you covering for the person on leave? If it's a short leave, or if you are trading off with someone and this happens to be your week, then the denial is reasonable. If you are covering for 6 months, and your boss is saying that you can't take any leave at all for those 6 months, that is not reasonable and you should talk to HR to ask for more information on the policy.

The person is going on maternity leave in October. They’re going on maternity leave for 3 months, then using an additional 4 weeks of their leave to add on an additional month of leave. They want me to basically start to cover everything they’re doing from mid-Sept as they ramp down before maternity leave and through to Feb 2024. Yes, so that’s effectively restricting my use of my earned leave for 4-5 months. How the hell could I possibly use my leave earlier like all of the stupid other posters claim. A) you don’t even know about maternity leave until a person is like 9-10 months pregnant and you still need a lot more time to plan leave and make sure you can coordinate with your spouse, and B) it has to overlap with a fall wedding like I already mentioned.

So you could use your leave for the rest of July, August, September, and some of October? It isn't being stolen from you.

Also, while you would like it to overlap with the wedding, it doesn't have to. As other have repeatedly said, you are not entitled to take leave on any particular date. That's the entire purpose of the approval process.

NP and it sounds like (maybe?) she won't be able to take leave from mid-September through mid-February (plus or minus a bit depending on when the baby arrives). Even if its a blackout on taking leave from mid-October through mid-February that still seems unreasonable to me, if true.

I don't trust OP as a reliable narrator here because her comments have been so vitriolic and her anger is weirdly misplaced on her pregnant colleague.

If her workplace is actually denying her leave for the entire 4 month duration of her colleague's maternity leave, I'd be sympathetic. But I don't believe they are doing this, especially since apparently her colleagues is using extra leave to take the 4th month, at which point the FMLA portion of the leave no longer takes precedence. Much more likely is that the timing of this wedding, or the duration of the requested leave, is simply very bad for a department that is already down one person, and that's why it was rejected.

If they are literally saying that she can't take off for a long weekend or the week of Thanksgiving or Christmas or something, then the company is in the wrong and OP should document everything and get it addressed. But I don't think that's actually what is happening. OP is being incredibly unreasonable and combative and I think she's just sore about not being able to take this one vacation and lashing out wherever she can.

PP here and that's fair. I feel like it took six pages or so before OP laid out the situation and the information still feels a bit incomplete.

Probably a troll though. I have noticed over the past few months that the posts in this forum and the replies are a lot more inflammatory than they used to be. It's not as bad as the relationship forum but it's heading that way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Leave also doesn’t require flights, it just requires not working. Per your logic you should have submitted your Nov. leave request in May.

Take a lovely staycation and use your time now before you lose it. No one will feel bad for you that you’re pouting bc you can’t use the exact days you want. You have 2.5 months to use your leave…so use it or else lose it.

So now your employer should dictate WHERE you take leave too.

Amazingly bad logic.

You can go anywhere you want! Apparently your spouse can’t go with you though. Oh well.

Maybe he should accuse his employer of stealing leave from him?

If OP's demeanor at home is like it is on this thread, I'm guessing that this is her spouse's preferred outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP your anger is misplaced. It is NOT about maternity leave, however, as people have explained previously, it is mandated federal leave that supersedes your earned leave benefit. But only the original 12 weeks. Your organization has approved the additional 4 weeks, which tells me they are not rigid and cruel.

I would get the refusal in writing. Are they denying the vacation plus wedding or also the wedding dates? For example, say the wedding is Nov 11. Did you request Nov 5-15 or something like that? And if yes, did you inquire whether something like the 9- 13th would be approved?

If you didn't, I would suggest getting in writing whether they are denying the leave for duration or just outright denying leave during that entire time period. In either situation, you should be elevating to HR with a request to have your use-it-or-lose it rolled into next year if you are not able to use it for the last 1/3-1/4 of the year. If that wont be allowed, then I would discuss taking X amount of Fridays off during the fall and taking long weekends with your spouse and/or girls trips.

And before you go on another tirade. Many of us have to make adjustments for travel and vacation due to work, kids, spouse, spouse work, etc. Many of us dont get vacations because of kids so there's balance in all things. I also want to mention that maternity leave and FMLA protection are two separate things. The 12 weeks of protection can also be used for illness, family members, etc. I think you may need to take a step back and see if you would be as disdainful if that same person took FMLA for any other reason and determine whether you may have some biases against parents in the workplace from your lofty perch as a DINK.

This. You should make a stink about needing to have your leave restored instead of lost if it is being denied for the entire maternity leave coverage period, because denying someone leave for months is not normal and reasonable. If it's more that they won't give you the full amount, I'd argue for the wedding days being really important, shorten the trip and take some leave now.

I get where you're coming from about wanting to take it with your spouse. Mine is a professor on a different school schedule than my kid, so we can really only travel during summer break, which is also a busy season at work for me, so I have to compromise by taking some leave then, but I also take some of the days when my spouse can't because I just can't take a month off in the summer.

[Anonymous]

My first two jobs vacation was done by seniority. Then by who asked first. Pretty common.

[Anonymous]

This has Nothing to do with work I bet

[Anonymous]

OP sounds like the kind of person who becomes a workplace shooter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I put in for time off later in the year, because if I don’t use my earned vacation I will lose it. My supervisor is now denying my leave, because I will bet covering the work for a person who will be on maternity leave until Feb. 2024.

I don’t understand how this is fair. It is my earned leave that I desire to use. I am being punished because I choose not to have kids. I won’t be compensated either in a cash payout for lost time off. The time off I will lose obviously doesn’t not carry over either. Why should people without kids be penalized like this?

You have mental issues.

You just don't get it. So childlike, your world view. You view yourself as punished for being childless. omfg. Go crawl back into your cave

[Anonymous]

I gave birth 11 years ago. I never physically recovered. It's medical, sometimes surgical. You just wish to frolic.