Snow day, telework, and kids at home - why no policy yet?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh hush about inequity. Parents with young kids are struggling enough. Jesus.

I have a teen I don’t need to watch and would not begrudge a colleague with young kids the day off. I needed that when I was younger and was in the hole with leave.

Brava.

We need some sort of childcare leave that applies to parents of children in elementary school or younger in cases where schools or childcare facilities are closed in their location.

Do we really? I had two maternity leaves with Fed govt I had to pay for out of sick and annual leave. Parents of currently really young kids had that paid for. Spare me the drama. Deal with it. Take a day of leave.

Amen, this is not that hard. 20 years ago I saved all of my sick and annual leave to deal with childcare issues and pediatrician appointments. It was a hard few years but part of the choice I made to have children, after using up 10 weeks of leave for maternity with each kid. Parents of young kids today have no idea how much better you have it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our office says lists power outage and child care as examples of extenuating circumstances to receive paid time off.

Yup. You have to be ~able~ to telework.

Which is why unscheduled leave is approved.

It’s why admin leave is approved.

This is absolutely not a blanket policy or OPM policy, nor should it be.

If you're kids school gets closed due to a power outage, or if your nanny calls in sick, you take leave. The same applies here.

It’s the policy at our govt agency and unless you can point to an OPM rule that says it’s inappropriate for snow days your just talking out your ars.

wait wait. you get admin time every time schools decide to close???? What agency, I'll be sending a resume shortly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My boss is such a psycho I can’t telework and pay attention at all to my kids. The moment the teams status goes idle, she calls. Can’t have a flipping conversation about dinner without her knowing about it. Much less shovel snow off of my car. Better put in for leave to do that too.

All of the micromanagers out there need to calm tf down.

thats messed up. you work for a person with control issues. I cannot imagine her supervisors being happy with that level of micromanagement.

My boss is great "Do your work and meet the deadlines. I don't have time to sit there and monitor what you do all day. Let me know if you need any help, otherwise, I'm not monitoring you." Guess what? Our team is one of the most productive teams in our agency. It is amazing what good employees can do when you have a supervisor who stays out of the way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh hush about inequity. Parents with young kids are struggling enough. Jesus.

I have a teen I don’t need to watch and would not begrudge a colleague with young kids the day off. I needed that when I was younger and was in the hole with leave.

Brava.

We need some sort of childcare leave that applies to parents of children in elementary school or younger in cases where schools or childcare facilities are closed in their location.

Do we really? I had two maternity leaves with Fed govt I had to pay for out of sick and annual leave. Parents of currently really young kids had that paid for. Spare me the drama. Deal with it. Take a day of leave.

^- Me too. My kids are less than two years apart and I had zero leave for a while. Extra leave for parents is not warranted, federal employees earn plenty of annual and sick leave.

[Anonymous]

The policy is that you need to make arrangements so you are ready to show up and work.

You had time to prepare for this weather, so your failure to plan is not my problem.

Put on your big person pants and be at your desk on time. I will put you on AWOL if you are not there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh hush about inequity. Parents with young kids are struggling enough. Jesus.

I have a teen I don’t need to watch and would not begrudge a colleague with young kids the day off. I needed that when I was younger and was in the hole with leave.

Brava.

We need some sort of childcare leave that applies to parents of children in elementary school or younger in cases where schools or childcare facilities are closed in their location.

Do we really? I had two maternity leaves with Fed govt I had to pay for out of sick and annual leave. Parents of currently really young kids had that paid for. Spare me the drama. Deal with it. Take a day of leave.

Amen, this is not that hard. 20 years ago I saved all of my sick and annual leave to deal with childcare issues and pediatrician appointments. It was a hard few years but part of the choice I made to have children, after using up 10 weeks of leave for maternity with each kid. Parents of young kids today have no idea how much better you have it.

Only feds with kids 3 or under had free maternity leaves. I have 3 kids and only my last had a maternity leave.

I just need grace while my kids are home and I'm working. I have way too much work to take ANOTHER day off this week and I also have employees as well that need assistance. I want there to be a policy that I am still allowed to telework while my kids are home. I have tons of sick/annual leave so this isn't about that.

Typically my dh would watch the kids because he's a fed with no telework, but he had to go into work today as OPM didn't cancel.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My boss is such a psycho I can’t telework and pay attention at all to my kids. The moment the teams status goes idle, she calls. Can’t have a flipping conversation about dinner without her knowing about it. Much less shovel snow off of my car. Better put in for leave to do that too.

All of the micromanagers out there need to calm tf down.

thats messed up. you work for a person with control issues. I cannot imagine her supervisors being happy with that level of micromanagement.

My boss is great "Do your work and meet the deadlines. I don't have time to sit there and monitor what you do all day. Let me know if you need any help, otherwise, I'm not monitoring you." Guess what? Our team is one of the most productive teams in our agency. It is amazing what good employees can do when you have a supervisor who stays out of the way.

Preach. That is the kind of supervisor I aspire to be. Unfortunately my direct supervisor needs to get out of the way so I can be that person for my team. Please people, don’t be like my boss! If you have parents with kids, trust that they will get the work done, until they don’t. When my child was young and schools closed, I had a different supervisor—it was understood I’d be splitting focus during the middle of the day, but I always worked nights to make up whatever needed to get done. Same with the Covid years. Can’t imagine going through those years with my current supervisor!!! I would have quit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The policy is that you need to make arrangements so you are ready to show up and work.

You had time to prepare for this weather, so your failure to plan is not my problem.

Put on your big person pants and be at your desk on time. I will put you on AWOL if you are not there.

I’m sure you don’t manage anyone so nice talk.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The policy is that you need to make arrangements so you are ready to show up and work.

You had time to prepare for this weather, so your failure to plan is not my problem.

Put on your big person pants and be at your desk on time. I will put you on AWOL if you are not there.

NP. At midnight my daycare said it would be open with a 2 hour delay. At 8am, they closed in full. Who can plan around things like this? All I know is that there's A LOT of snow out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The policy is that you need to make arrangements so you are ready to show up and work.

You had time to prepare for this weather, so your failure to plan is not my problem.

Put on your big person pants and be at your desk on time. I will put you on AWOL if you are not there.

NP. At midnight my daycare said it would be open with a 2 hour delay. At 8am, they closed in full. Who can plan around things like this? All I know is that there's A LOT of snow out there.

Don’t let the fake manager troll get to you. Just get your work done. Everyone I know with kids manages just fine without having to take a ton of leave for snow days. enjoy the snow for a few hours, put the kids in front of the tv when they’re nice and tired, get some work done, repeat, until they’re asleep and then catch up tonight or on Monday morning

[Anonymous]

I would be fine with an “emergency telework/COOP plan” policy that allows for maximum flexibility for duty hours. Which is really what everyone does anyway.

[Anonymous]

If you have parents with kids, trust that they will get the work done, until they don’t.

SAY THAT.

[Anonymous]

My kids are older so it’s not an issue for me now but my office has sort of an unspoken “do your best” policy for these days and it’s perhaps better off not being formalized. So yes, my coworker alone with a baby and two toddlers is taking leave because there’s no way she can do anything, but someone with a spouse home to tag team with and a 5 and year old, work as much as you can, so important calls, if you are taking breaks to shovel, make lunch etc no worries.

[Anonymous]

I’m at Dept of Navy and a civilian where culture is there is so much work it’s expected you must work/telework during snow days and would be looked down for taking leave the whole day much less for an hour to take care of your kids who are out of school. Friday school was closed and I was in back to back meetings from 830-6 pm. It would have been unacceptable culturally and I would be considered lazy to have canceled any mtgs for my child being home. For those that recommended making up work for those of us with young kids that is exhausting to even consider!

[Anonymous]

They don’t care about your problems.
They are there because they are too ugly and unskilled to get a job in the private sector and to make the lives of poor innocent people like yourself miserable.