If you can work remotely some of the time, bring your laptop to the appointments and work in the waiting room.

It depends on if you're making efforts to schedule-- end of day, 2 appointments in one day, etc.

At my old job I had a colleague in much the same position- 2 kids, DH who had a structured job that required local travel. I was sympathetic and annoyed because it felt like she never worked a full week while I was at my desk plugging away.

I know it's petty, but I noticed things like leaving early, coming in late, etc. and I know others did too. It rubs people the wrong way even when there is a good reason.

I would just think about what you can do to improve perception.

I have sick leave and I use it. My boss doesn’t say a word. I have two kids, one just has an annual every year and not much else. My other kid sees her asthma specialist quarterly, her gi doc roughly quarterly, her endo quarterly, she had weekly therapy for a while, she has had an ortho issue, both kids have eye appts, both have dentists. I have about six appts per year with my pcp and a few per year with my eye doc. That’s roughly one appt per week? I don’t miss work for as many as I can schedule outside of work hours but this is why sick leave exists.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be careful. I just got fired for having too many doctor’s appointments (surgery pre-op and follow up, plus time off for surgery). The job market is rough.

Sure you did. 🙄

Why don’t you believe me?

Are you using PTO or flexing your time?

Are you telling your manager you’ll be out?

I allow my team to flex their time as long as they let me know, aren’t missing key things, and get their work done. It always can’t be constant.

I have one team member who is always out flexing their time. I finally had to say use PTO as it was far too frequent (we get vacation sick and personal days) and disrupting work flow, et . Went to look for her multiple times after 3 PM and she was gone and didn’t tell me and
things needed to get done. I also think (as I do for myself) if you’re flexing your time and taking a kid to an appointment you’ll bring your work phone and check your emails while waiting.

So something is amiss here. Do you just go MIA and not tell people you’ll be offline?

Also, you can make night and weekend appointments you just need to book ahead of time. My kids dentist have one day where they work late and one weekend a month they also are available. Book those occasionally
In advance so it shows you’re making an effort or just use your PTO and schedule everything on the same day.

Last week I went to my derm, gyno, and dentist on the same day and took a personal day. Last fall I scheduled my mammogram at 8 am (they also have evening hours) and told my team I might not be in until 9:30, I was in by 9. Things happen but it is an issue when the team member is causing issues with work flow or doing it constantly.

Regardless of what people think is appropriate, most doctors in the area won’t treat kids under 18 if a parent (or another adult) isn’t present.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to schedule as many appointments as possible on one day and you take off work for the day and that will be MUCH less disruptive to your job.

How is it less disruptive to disappear an entire day than just 2 hours 3 times or so? That would leave at least 6 hours left to do a lot of the work, or all of it.

Because people will know it’s a finite time. They are much more willing to let a week get disrupted than several weeks a month with one-off appointments.

This week is my ‘appointment’ week. Dentist, dermatologist, annual with PC, and Gyn (2 appts), plus kids dentist, and that’s 6 appointments in one week. Yesterday I had 3 appointments. For ones you can schedule farther out, it’s easy to do. Just choose your week. I always do second week in April/October.

who cares what you do on your vacation days. This is not something any company I worked for allows for use of sick days. No one is sick.

You need to find a better company. This is the appropriate use of ‘sick’ time at our firm. And we get unlimited ‘sick’ time. They simply expect professionals to use mature judgement for balancing their personal and professional responsibilities. I took calls from my car, was online early and in my car at kid sports at night.

Right. The problem seems to be that the OP is possibly not using mature judgement. We don't know, of course. But the message had a sense of entitlement and it would be unusual for a supervisor to say this if a person wasn't perceived as abusing the system.

I don't think kids past 16 need to be taken to routine doctors appts like the dentist. A surgical consult- yes. Once they can drive themselves, it seems normal that they wouldn't need anyone else. Besides, once they're 18 and away at college, they'll be doing 100% of their appts by themselves.

I have 3 kids and they all have back to back appts. They all have annual checkups on the same day, same doctor, back to back. The doctor even loves it. We do the same at the dentist and eye doctor too.

Anonymous wrote:Be careful. I just got fired for having too many doctor’s appointments (surgery pre-op and follow up, plus time off for surgery). The job market is rough.

Sure you did. 🙄

Be careful. I just got fired for having too many doctor’s appointments (surgery pre-op and follow up, plus time off for surgery). The job market is rough.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to schedule as many appointments as possible on one day and you take off work for the day and that will be MUCH less disruptive to your job.

How is it less disruptive to disappear an entire day than just 2 hours 3 times or so? That would leave at least 6 hours left to do a lot of the work, or all of it.

Because people will know it’s a finite time. They are much more willing to let a week get disrupted than several weeks a month with one-off appointments.

This week is my ‘appointment’ week. Dentist, dermatologist, annual with PC, and Gyn (2 appts), plus kids dentist, and that’s 6 appointments in one week. Yesterday I had 3 appointments. For ones you can schedule farther out, it’s easy to do. Just choose your week. I always do second week in April/October.

who cares what you do on your vacation days. This is not something any company I worked for allows for use of sick days. No one is sick.

You need to find a better company. This is the appropriate use of ‘sick’ time at our firm. And we get unlimited ‘sick’ time. They simply expect professionals to use mature judgement for balancing their personal and professional responsibilities. I took calls from my car, was online early and in my car at kid sports at night.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to schedule as many appointments as possible on one day and you take off work for the day and that will be MUCH less disruptive to your job.

How is it less disruptive to disappear an entire day than just 2 hours 3 times or so? That would leave at least 6 hours left to do a lot of the work, or all of it.

Because people will know it’s a finite time. They are much more willing to let a week get disrupted than several weeks a month with one-off appointments.

This week is my ‘appointment’ week. Dentist, dermatologist, annual with PC, and Gyn (2 appts), plus kids dentist, and that’s 6 appointments in one week. Yesterday I had 3 appointments. For ones you can schedule farther out, it’s easy to do. Just choose your week. I always do second week in April/October.

who cares what you do on your vacation days. This is not something any company I worked for allows for use of sick days. No one is sick.

I think OP is a troll, the not coming back and the not tracking are suss.

It doesn't seem like OP is coming back to tell us whether she is clearly marking this time on her calendar, and using PTO if appropriate.

Given that the boss did not seem to know that she was out of the office, it doesn't seem that OP is communicating well. Assuming she does not have a national security job, there's no reason she can't be responding to time-sensitive requests from the waiting rooms of all of these appointments. Dentists, orthodontists, therapy, physical therapy, these are all activities where the parents wait outside. So she would really only be losing the amount of time it takes to pick the child up from school and drive them to the appointment.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Try to schedule as many appointments as possible on one day and you take off work for the day and that will be MUCH less disruptive to your job.

How is it less disruptive to disappear an entire day than just 2 hours 3 times or so? That would leave at least 6 hours left to do a lot of the work, or all of it.

Because people will know it’s a finite time. They are much more willing to let a week get disrupted than several weeks a month with one-off appointments.

This week is my ‘appointment’ week. Dentist, dermatologist, annual with PC, and Gyn (2 appts), plus kids dentist, and that’s 6 appointments in one week. Yesterday I had 3 appointments. For ones you can schedule farther out, it’s easy to do. Just choose your week. I always do second week in April/October.