Anonymous wrote:Mine made me do it and I'm a fed (although I've heard other agencies don't require this?!). It sucks. It means you are stuck working Christmas Eve and never can take a vacation because you're down to zero annual leave when you return from mat leave.

Dh is currently burnt out and begging for a vacation as he has 400 some hours of annual leave, but I have none. I asked to take LWOP for vacation time, but was denied. I'm burnt out too.

Why didn’t your husband take leave to stay home with baby and let you return to work sooner? That’s what we did.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here: The responses (especially the last few) are what I feared. I knew FMLA was unpaid, but has assumed I could take it unpaid, not that I would be required to use all my paid time off before I could take the rest unpaid (I too was denied LWOP). I want to preserve leave for after FMLA for both regular 'life' stuff (illness, wedding, funeral, day care closed) as well as a short vacation once a year or so.

I think most posters are answering a different question than you posted. They are assuming you want to take your FMLA unpaid leave and THEN take your PTO. Companies can restrict your ability to take unpaid leave and then take PTO, but you should check further on whether they can force you to take paid leave.

FMLA means that they have to give you permission to take time off for the birth of a child, care of an ill family member or your own illness. They must legally keep your job open. Are you in DC? If so, you have 16 weeks medical PLUS 16 weeks family. Most people who have the option of paid leave want to take it concurrently with the FMLA entitlement. But if you want to take unpaid leave for your FMLA entitlement your employer MUST keep your job open.

No, the op has it correct. Companies don't want you to take 12 weeks unpaid and then still have 2 weeks vacation you can take a few months later when you come back. Major burn out when you return to work and then can't take a vacation for an entire year. Going back to work after maternity leave is very difficult. I got bronchitis a few months after returning and because I had no sick leave I just kept coming to work. It was hard, but I had no alternative. I wish I had the ability to take lwop.

Anonymous wrote:OP here: The responses (especially the last few) are what I feared. I knew FMLA was unpaid, but has assumed I could take it unpaid, not that I would be required to use all my paid time off before I could take the rest unpaid (I too was denied LWOP). I want to preserve leave for after FMLA for both regular 'life' stuff (illness, wedding, funeral, day care closed) as well as a short vacation once a year or so.

If you aren't on any kind of Short Term Disability, I think the reason they want you to use all of your accrued PTO is so that it's not totally unfair to everyone else that you were out (as you should be) for several months, then you come back and have a bunch of paid time off to use as well while your team is compensating for your absence again.

In this country it just doesn't work that way - you NEED to be out because you're sick or your child(ren) is(are) - makes sense, but you want to take voluntary vacation? Where I've worked it would be suggested that you had saved up your time before having the baby to make that happen.

Anonymous wrote:OP here: The responses (especially the last few) are what I feared. I knew FMLA was unpaid, but has assumed I could take it unpaid, not that I would be required to use all my paid time off before I could take the rest unpaid (I too was denied LWOP). I want to preserve leave for after FMLA for both regular 'life' stuff (illness, wedding, funeral, day care closed) as well as a short vacation once a year or so.

This is why they want you to take it concurrently: they are already holding your job open for 12 or 16 or 24 weeks for FMLA, during which time your work doesn’t just stop. So either they bring in a temp (difficult for a lot of positions), they ask your coworkers to pick up the slack during that time, your work piles up for you when you returned (resulting in additional lost productivity while you dig out on the back-end), or your job just doesn’t get done (which, if your employer was OK with your work just not getting done, why would they employ you?).

Then once you come back, you want to take another week off (PTO), then a long weekend to go to a wedding, then a day to go to a funeral, then Christmas Eve, because you can’t possibly be expected to work on Christmas Eve! This creates problems: 1) you’re still not producing and 2) there are other employees who maybe didn’t take off while you were out on FMLA who also want to take off these days and now there is a morale issue.

It’s one thing to ask to not be forced to exhaust sick leave, so that you can care for yourself or a child when you are ill. But you’re asking to be able to do things that potentially someone else had to decline while you were out on FMLA. That’s pretty entitled.

Anonymous wrote:OP here: The responses (especially the last few) are what I feared. I knew FMLA was unpaid, but has assumed I could take it unpaid, not that I would be required to use all my paid time off before I could take the rest unpaid (I too was denied LWOP). I want to preserve leave for after FMLA for both regular 'life' stuff (illness, wedding, funeral, day care closed) as well as a short vacation once a year or so.

I think most posters are answering a different question than you posted. They are assuming you want to take your FMLA unpaid leave and THEN take your PTO. Companies can restrict your ability to take unpaid leave and then take PTO, but you should check further on whether they can force you to take paid leave.

FMLA means that they have to give you permission to take time off for the birth of a child, care of an ill family member or your own illness. They must legally keep your job open. Are you in DC? If so, you have 16 weeks medical PLUS 16 weeks family. Most people who have the option of paid leave want to take it concurrently with the FMLA entitlement. But if you want to take unpaid leave for your FMLA entitlement your employer MUST keep your job open.

OP here: The responses (especially the last few) are what I feared. I knew FMLA was unpaid, but has assumed I could take it unpaid, not that I would be required to use all my paid time off before I could take the rest unpaid (I too was denied LWOP). I want to preserve leave for after FMLA for both regular 'life' stuff (illness, wedding, funeral, day care closed) as well as a short vacation once a year or so.

Mine made me do it and I'm a fed (although I've heard other agencies don't require this?!). It sucks. It means you are stuck working Christmas Eve and never can take a vacation because you're down to zero annual leave when you return from mat leave.

Dh is currently burnt out and begging for a vacation as he has 400 some hours of annual leave, but I have none. I asked to take LWOP for vacation time, but was denied. I'm burnt out too.

I think that's pretty standard. FMLA just means you can come back to a job after 12 weeks. It doesn't mean they have to grant you 12 weeks PLUS whatever other time off all other employees have.

Anonymous wrote:FMLA just guarantees you have a job when you get back. That's it.

+1

FMLA does not guarantee you any additional paid leave, just that you can take 12 weeks without getting fired.

Every place I've worked did it this way, so very common.

Anonymous wrote:Very.

+1000

In my experience it’s very common. If you’re covered under DC FMLA, they cannot require it.

FMLA just guarantees you have a job when you get back. That's it.

Very.

How common is it for companies to require you to deplete vacation time or PTO while on FMLA for a company that offers no parental or maternity leave?