Ugh—use maternity leave to find a new job. This is so uncalled for!

I’m on maternity leave - what’s the objective for the meeting?

Anonymous wrote:Find out what it is, and then firmly respond that you will talk to her again when you return from leave. Set up an autoresponse on your email to that effect.

Ignore phone calls.

Extend your leave by one day if you end up taking her call.

Find out what it is, and then firmly respond that you will talk to her again when you return from leave. Set up an autoresponse on your email to that effect.

Ignore phone calls.

Boss doesn't want to tell you what it is because it's not an emergency or anything you need to know immediately and she knows if she told you you would say no to the conference call. OP, I would tell her that you aren't doing hour long conference calls while in maternity leave, but if boss has a specific question you can give her a quick call at x or y time today or she can call you at x number. After this one non-emergency contact,stop responding to her emails. If they want to lay you off, they can wait until you're back in the office. Don't engage in this petty bullshit.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do the call, and then only take 7 hours of PTO (1 hour of work time) that day.

I’d take zero. It’s not a day off if you obligate me to attend a call at a specific time of the day.

This. I was called in for meetings while on maternity leave (but after the initial six weeks) and somebody from HR saw me at work and said I could get the full day back.

Anonymous wrote:If you are on STD, it is illegal for you to work and also be on STD. You are being paid because you are too disabled to work.

If you are on FMLA the first 6 weeks is usually short term disability too.

Stop responding to emails and calls.

. No. Not illegal. You can work partial hours and collect partial disability.

Anonymous wrote:Do the call, and then only take 7 hours of PTO (1 hour of work time) that day.

I’d take zero. It’s not a day off if you obligate me to attend a call at a specific time of the day.

Do the call, and then only take 7 hours of PTO (1 hour of work time) that day.

God I hope OP updates us.

I wanna know if the boss is insanely stupid

Employer here. No. you are setting a new normal. Determine what you want it to be and state that on the call. While I am "the boss" now, when I had my infants, my boss repeatedly tried to get me to work and crossed all sorts of lines.

Anonymous wrote:Just call her and see what she wants. If she wants you to work then say no. If she wants to tell you about how she’s moving on or changes in the company or something then listen. I would not do a video conference call. Just call her office number during business hours.

+1 Definitely not a video conference call - you will either look too good or too bad, there is no in between, and you don't want that image in your boss's brain.

If the reason is something that really could have waited or been delegated to some one else (e.g., anything client related), I would reach out to HR.

In my circumstance, my customer (who had my cell phone) and was aware I was on disability (cancer treatments) kept calling me with questions. That was tricky because I do not want to alienate my only customer, but I could not work. I finally reached out to corporate HR, which fixed the problem -- they contacted contracts who contacted the gov't contracts people. Those people told customer he needs to go through the PM.

Long term result was customer dropped me. But I found out there are much better customers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this out of character for your boss?

Op here. No, not at all. She always pulls stuff like this.

np- then I would write back and say "is there a reason you need me to log an hour of work while I'm out on FMLA? I'm happy to help out if there is a legitimate emergency that absolutely cannot be handled by anyone else but in general, I would like you to assume I am not available because I am really not available for an hour long conference call at 8 days post partum."

disagree with this. Do not agree to help if there is no one else. Just call back and be prepared to say you cannot work. Do not schedule a long call, do when convenient for you.

Just call her and see what she wants. If she wants you to work then say no. If she wants to tell you about how she’s moving on or changes in the company or something then listen. I would not do a video conference call. Just call her office number during business hours.