[mommamarci]

Okay, so I just talked to my boss and got permission to take 4 weeks off work after the baby comes!!! I will not reach my one year mark until September so I thought I would only be allowed to take off the 9 days I currently have stashed. However, he gave me permission to take up to 4 weeks. I will just have to take the rest unpaid. I am so excited! I had considered putting us on hold until I got closer to the one year mark so I would be able to take more time off. Now I don't have to. This is going to be a good day. The call can come anytime now...

[KristineM]

That is awesome!!

[Emster]

All right Marci! That is good--you will need every bit of that time off. I am at 2 1/2 weeks home with baby and the time flies. I couldn't imagine how tired I'd feel if I had to go back to work right away. Parenting an infant is like 2 full time jobs

[KristineM]

You are so lucky! I only got two weeks at home, but my husband was able to take 3 months with his job.

[StorkWatcher]

Marci!!! Major celebration!!! This is great. Way to go and do your research and just ask him for it. I am so happy for you! This has to be a huge relief right now.

That 4+ weeks will be the best ever................

[hotspice58]

Congratulations!!!!

[Guspiv]

That is GREAT!

[LisaCA]

Congrats!!! that's a smart boss. hate to lose a good employee over something like this. If only more bosses had their acts together like this one.

[Vogi2002]

Yeah! Congratulations, I know how much of a help that can be!!

So if you haven't worked at your job for a year you can't take FMLA?? I never thought about it!

Natalie

[randloar]

FMLA doesn't kick in for small businesses (less than 50 employees) either, so that could be.........

Congratulations on getting the 4 weeks, that will be great for you all!!! I hope you get the call soon!!!

[Vogi2002]

Is that 50 employees total or in a certain area? (we are based out of a bigger city in NJ, but there is only like 3 of us here in Dallas)

Natalie

[randloar]

I hope I am not misleading you, as that is what I found during my search (I am guessing there is more to this). Here is the dept of labor website that outlines the federal laws about FMLA. But my impression is that States and companies may have their own subpolicies.

Here is the website: http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/

Under the "covered employers" tab it says this: An employer covered by FMLA is any person engaged in commerce or in any industry or activity affecting commerce, who employs 50 or more employees for each working day during each of 20 or more calendar workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year.

So, it sounds like you could be okay!! Hope this helps!! But I would get your companies policy manual to see how they organize it to be safe!

[Vogi2002]

No thank you! I am not misled at all! I just looked at my book and it says NOTHING about maternity leave :-( So I don't know what that means, I am going to call up the main office and ask them about it to see what this means. I figured on no maternity leave pay but I just want to make sure I can take the time off without losing my job!! Thanks for the info!!

Natalie

[randloar]

It is so hard to find that information, I just hope that has some information that will be helpful to you! Maybe all you need to do is "tell" them you have this time available to take off without penalty and that will be it!! Wouldn't it be nice if it was that easy!!!

And for mommamarci, isn't it nice to see that some bosses/companies are able to be logical about these things rather than simply "following the rules", as that is so good to hear that he is understanding!!

[mommamarci]

Okay, so I am loving my boss today. He went one step further. He hates that I will need to take unpaid time off, so he told the other manager that works on Saturday that this would be a good time to take days off. (This guy has like a million vacation days saved up, so he needs to burn some anyway. He never takes them because no one wants to work on Saturday.) He is going to let me work several Saturdays to save up comp time (we cannot have overtime as we are salaried, so anything over 40 hours is comp time), so I will get paid for more of my time off!! He is being so wonderful!! It will mean a lot of six day work weeks, but it means less time without pay, so I don't care! This is a great day!!