Sally

Working up to the due date!!! You can hardly breathe and have to pee every few minutes!


Davy seems to be saying back to the kitchen for women...no surprises there.

All the best to the OP, a very special time.

BritGuyTN

I know but even though its 'at will' employers still have to document everything to avoid punitive law suits.

Rushman

and bloody right he is too. Until the bump is so big it stops you standing close enough to the sink to wash up you're still fit for active service.

dbj1000

It's funny the way these message-board pissing matches go (and I'll admit, I started this one). You say something I find obnoxious. I respond, saying it's obnoxious. You respond saying that I can't possibly know what I'm talking about because I don't agree with you.

Let's look at it this way. A good company should exist for its employees, and not just its senior management and owners/shareholders. As such, a good company will take the financial hit caused by an employee using their full maternity rights. In fact, a really good employer will offer more than the basic rights to attract and keep great employees - paternity leave, for example.

In the long run, both sides win. Sure, you can found a super-profitable company based on minimal benefits, low pay and poor worker morale, and you could even make that money quicker than a start-up with excellent, expensive benefits, empowered employees and great staff morale. But that doesn't mean that all companies should be run by and for people who treat their workers badly, or see them only as a necessary expense to be minimized.

The world business, even in a 100% capitalist country like the US, does not revolve purely around maximizing profit and making the shareholders rich. There are plenty of examples in this country of highly successful companies that go to great lengths to make the lives of their employees better. You just happen not to work for one. It doesn't mean that yours is the only outlook on business, and for that I am thankful.

Rushman

Plenty??? Plenty as in 5? 50? 500? 5000? How many of these wonderful companies are there in this land of 250 million people?....Roughly.

anotherlimey

Anything with a Union... lol

You could try these for starters: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortu...007/full_list/

I think there's more than people realise; e.g. Florida Power and Light paid for my neighbour's education, now he makes $150,000 a year repairing electrical distribution equipment.

Note to self: Get job at FPL.

EDIT: <- man this smiley sucks, looks like Sylvester Stallone on the toilet.

Rushman

Add up the US employees column and then give me the percentage that makes of the US workforce...be very lucky if thats even 1%.



Or Lionheart in his "cheesy balls" pic

Lord Lionheart

Man of 1000 faces............. all of them ugly

penguinsix

My wife's leave in the US was nice--they gave her 2.5 months paid for 'bed rest' (though she worked from bed on different projects). Then there was 4 months paid for the 'official leave' and then 1 extra month unpaid (but she was offered 3 unpaid total). Now that she is back they've offered her 2 days at home and 3 days in the office as a readjustment package for the next year.

It helps, of course, that her job is something that can be done 'remotely' from our home office.

My advice in your situation is take every possible second of the leave the jerks offered, and then take every second of sick leave, vacation pay, etc. When that is done, quit. Find a new job. F' them.

dbj1000

I don't have numbers, and that's not the point. I'm sure the vast majority of companies don't treat their employees as well as they should/could. That doesn't make it right.

TimFountain

Yeah, I got crap from my boss for taking 1 weeks paternity leave. And I had to take it from my sick days. Compay policy is supposed to be 2 weeks paid and then up to 2 weeks sick, but afer 1 week I was getting 3 calls a day from my boss, and snide comments about other colleagues not taking so much time off. I though he was joking at first, but he was serious. It's enough to make you tell them where they can stick their job.... if only.

Good luck

- Tim

Neathborn

That's all very well and good, but being reasonable and trying to work with the boss is more productive and a better bet in my opinion. How does it help if someone leaves the company having burnt their bridges, so to speak?

There are some very good places to work for in the U.S. I've worked in a variety of industries and without exception my boss(es) have worked with me regarding maternity leave. Having said that, in my opinion it is partly the employee's responsibility to make sure there is a smooth transition when possible. Discussing maternity leave as soon as possible helps -- even though you're not obliged to do this, in my experience, my bosses were much more receptive and appreciative of having advance warning.

Anyway, I wish the OP the very best -- and the above is not really addressed to her, but more a general comment in response to what others have said.

Sophia_S

YES!...my eldest son was a real bugger from the time I got ill in nov.'87' until,in desperation, we sent him back to the UK to live with his father,he was 10 until 12yrs old.......he literally did everything he could possibly think of to cause trouble between my husband and myself and him......we did absolutely everything we could to cope,other than sending him back,because we knew that would be THE worse thing for him in the long run (and it was!)...he was even put in a childrens pyschiatric facility for a few weeks,for evaluation,even though we knew there was absolutely nothing wrong with him,mentally,....he was just determined to have his own way......anyway,while he was in the facility we used to go to the family consultation meetings,and even the pyschiatrist told us he was just an extremely determined child and suggested we should send him to live with his father,he also told us that California(where we were living at the time)had laws saying that you could not smack your children!,I turned round and told him that after three warnings and a spell in the corner,my kids would get a smack,no matter what the law said!....my mum used to slap the hell out of me ......with no warnings...and it never hurt me!.......as for my eldest son...he went back to live with his father when he was 12..........we told him exactly how things would be if he went back,but he wouldn't listen......and by the time he was 12,we were on the verge of divorce,and he was starting to teach my youngest son to be the same as him......things turned out exactly the way we told him they would..........he's 29 now...and has three 6 month prison terms behind him, he wishes he'd listened to us,as he can't come back into the US because of the prison terms.............the strange thing is........I've brought my youngest son up exactly the same way as the eldest....and he's a fantastic 20 yr.old,everybody really likes him(girls love him!!),we've never had a single problem with him,never been in trouble for any reason at all....hardly ever had to spank him his whole life,and only got to the corner once or twice!,how could two kids be SO completely different?!..........Sophia

p.s. Every best wish for your upcoming birth,hope you work things out with your maternity leave.....GOOD LUCK!!!!!

Celsius

but on the other hand, your spouse and your baby were probably happy to have you around at that particular time in their lives.

Bob

yeah, they just say that someone is no longer working there, no reason, therefore can't be done for discrimination which is very hard to prove.