Apparently, having a child in this culture means you are disabled. At least, that’s what HR thinks.
I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with the illustrious folks who administer these things last week. This is the third baby I’ve had while working, and thank goodness I kinda know what I’m doing, or it would have been ugly. Last time, I was all fired up about my VBAC, about fighting the birth machine, about making sure everyone and their dog knew that I was having a homebirth, by God.
This time? This time I just want to have my baby in peace. Course, that’s not the way it’s done in these parts…
“Who’s your OB” the chipper operator asks. I simply give her the name of my midwife; it’s easier than arguing.
“What hospital are you delivering at?” I simply give her the name of the only hospital in CA that I would consider setting foot inside. I’ve never actually been there, spoken to anyone there, or interacted with the place in any way, but they’re the only hospital that “allows” VBACs, so that’s my “in case of disaster” backup option. But it allows her to fill the blank in her form without the computer having fits.
“What’s your due date?” This one is a bit trickier. I don’t actually have a due date, for a lot of reasons, that mostly involve my cycle being all messed up from my miscarriage still at the time I conceived this baby. Besides, due dates are pretty bogus (my favorite discussion of this is here). Babies come when they come. If my boss is OK with me working straight up into contractions, if my coworkers are OK with this, then why do I have to… oh never mind. I pull a date out of thin air that’s more or less in the right range, and reaffirm that I can indeed switch the date around “if work requires it.” And that seems to be OK… if the demands of my job require my leave to change, that’s alright. So we’re set.
Because I’ve done this before, I am prepared for the gotchas. I’ve had two other babies in this timeframe, so I know what’s coming. I ask the HR person “so is that goofy rule about not being eligible for Performance Review if you’re on disability still in place?” She mumbles something, and goes to look it up. Sure enough, it is. So by virtue of the period of time for which I’ll be on leave, I will not be eligible for any of the perks that come with a good performance review. Luckily, I figured this out before. So I tell her, “OK, so I’ll contact you, go on vacation for the week of reviews, then back onto disability afterwards.” She gasps. No one has ever handed her this particular workaround before, but of course, other than being a paperwork hassle, it’s utterly valid. I do not make the rules, I just figure out how to work around them.
But I’m lucky; this woman is on the ball. “Oooh!” she says, “it’s the same stupid thing (her words!) for holiday pay too! So go off disability and onto vacation for July 3, so you get paid for July 4, then back on disability again!”. It’s always nice to have a collaborator on the inside.
So my paperwork is all set. I’m good to be considered Disabled by the State after giving birth to my child. But only for six weeks, mind, because I’m not that disabled. And that, my friends, is a whole other tirade.
Related posts:
Disability?!? Seriously?!?
-ahem- Sorry, I’ve been lurking in your RSS feed for a short while after reading an article you wrote on Life Without School. I’ve never commented before but there’s always one post that you just have to say something about, isn’t there?
But what was I talking about…? Oh yeah. Disability?!? I’m from Ireland. Here we have ‘maternity’ benefit. Six months paid, a further optional 14 weeks unpaid.
I’m not sure where they stand on things like performance reviews. I know someone who had a problem with not being eligible for promotion because she had taken X number of sick days in the preceding year (she was in hospital!), which is kind of a similar situation, I guess.
Ok, rant over. I just had to say something
Kyerin
*
*happy to live in a welfare state
Heya Kyerin
Yeah, technically here in the US of A, maternity is the same as any other medical disability. You get six weeks paid (75% of pay, in my case; every employer is different) leave for a vaginal birth, eight weeks for a cesarean. But were I to break a leg or get cancer, it’d be a similar process, administered by the same company, blah blah blah.
Pretty much everyone else in the entire world is more civilized about maternity leave than we are.
And you should just hear my male coworkers squak when they figure out that while they can take FMLA leave (family medical leave, which is also at cut pay) for paternity, there is no such thing as actual paternity leave.
[...] The thing about Laureen’s writing is how it can make you angry, then astonished, and then laugh, all in the space of a paragraph… ElementalMom [...]
At the school district I used to work for in the US, all maternity leave (you were allowed 6 weeks) was without pay. If you wanted to be paid, you had to accrue sick days and use those for your maternity leave. One teacher I knew had used up all her sick days with her kids and her cerclage – she couldn’t afford 6 weeks without pay. We all offered to donate sick days (I was unmarried and healthy with no pregnancy plans back then and had accrued something like 37 sick days), but the admin wouldn’t allow it…
Sometimes I think the US is stuck in the Dark Ages.
KEM – also glad to live in a welfare state now!
[...] rules, if you’ll recall from part I of this rant, are that if you’re disabled during the focal review period, you are ineligible for raises, [...]
[...] rules, if you’ll recall from part I of this rant, are that if you’re disabled during the focal review period, you are ineligible for raises, [...]