by Beks
I knew my employer was going to struggle a little when I left for maternity leave. I lined up two temp workers and trained both to cover my workload with as few hiccups as possible. What I didn’t expect?
Numerous phone calls, a dozen or so text messages, and several e-mails…
all in the first three days.
If you’ve ever been a new parent, you’d know it’s difficult enough to remember your name in the first three days. Helping out at work via satellite (unpaid of course) is more than annoying.
I didn’t answer at first, assuming they’d get the hint I was busy with the whole ‘newborn child’ thing, but the number of calls simply escalated.
I’m torn between my obligations as a good employee and my responsibility at home. In my sleep deprived thinking, I felt the need to keep my steady paycheck and was willing to lose on more sleep until…
I went to my first pediatric appointment and couldn’t remember my zip code (of the home I’ve lived in for 4 years) and didn’t feel strong enough to carry my newborn from the overwhelming fatigue.
I e-mailed my employer and told him not to contact me again unless the building was on fire.
It was perhaps the WORST thing to write in my tired state but, I haven’t heard a peep other than ‘We appreciate your help. Give our love to the baby.’
I think they got the hint.
Hopefully, I still have a job in a few months.
(Please forgive any spelling/grammatical errors over the next few weeks. I’m running on zero sleep!)
Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.
It gets easier :-). I remember at two weeks thinking
“I have to get out and go for walks. I only have six weeks of maternity leave left.”
It took me two weeks just to be able to go for a walk!
Don’t worry – you will still have your job.
Speaking from experience of being on medical leave – legally they are not allowed to contact you once you go out. They probably figured you would not mind but I am sure now they know they stepped over the line and that you deserve your time off.
Congratulations on your new little one!
It was definitely the right thing to do to e-mail them and request no contact. I mean geez, what were they thinking – you just gave birth and are caring for an infant! I would think they could figure out whatever their issues are on their own! Take care of yourself! And congratulations!
I feel for you.. With the simple line, “I’m torn between my obligations as a good employee and my responsibility at home.” I felt all your stress and heavy heart. <3 your baby is first and God will cover the rest 😉
I’m pretty sure you’ll have a job when you go back. Sounds like even trained replacements can’t compare. 🙂 That being said, I’m glad you told them to back off. You need rest, and lots of it. I love the Chinese tradition of a mother and baby not leaving the home for a full month after a birth, and for family visits to be all about caring for the mother and baby. Stay home, stay down, sleep when the baby sleeps, and let someone else do the chores for awhile. This is the one time in your life when you have every right to take care of yourself. Do it, woman. 🙂
Definitely the right thing to request no contact! I was in the same boat when my son was born – but I didn’t draw the line. It got worse and worse, and I ended up working from home way before I should have. I think it ended up causing some really long-term stress effects. This really is one time in your life when everything can wait 🙂
If you are on medical leave, they are not legally allowed to contact you. It’s sad that you have to enforce that.
You totally did the right thing. Unfortunately a lot of employers forget that you are not supposed to be contacted (bugged). In most cases, they just forget and hope you nice enough to help them. The temps are probably running around helplessly lost.
How long are you planning on being on maternity leave?
zero sleep? Been there, done that, three times over!
It does get easier so hang in there and rest when you can.
Good for you for putting an end to the work calls.
You deserve to focus all your energy (whatever you’ve got) on your new baby!
It does get better, trust me. Otherwise why would any woman in her right mind have a second child… HA!
Aww… I feel for you! Glad you stood your ground though, you have mommy issues to deal with now! 😉 Hang in there!!! Hugs!
lol We walked the baby to Tim Hortons at 3 or 4 days old (just down the street- I’m not superwoman; though this girl will go to extremes to get her coffee..) and a young cashier asked me what my son’s name was. I drew a complete blank and just stared at her and then looked at my husband who answered her thankfully. She looked at me in shock and said, ‘You forgot your baby’s name?!’ Forget his name? ha. she’s just lucky I didn’t start bawling.
It’ll get better, promise. I’ve done it twice. The second baby, I was working from home 3 days after delivery….kinda crazy.
Get ready for the mom memory to keep up though. I can’t remember anything unless it’s specifically about the kids, then I remember it all.
Good for you for drawing the line. They would just keep calling/emailing/etc. until you came back to work if you hadn’t put your foot down. And besides, how accurate can your information be if you’re sleep deprived?! 😉 Congratulations and enjoy your time off bonding with your new little one.
I had a college savings jar set up at my work for the kid’s college fund. The boss agreed this was a cute idea.
If they called me they had to put a dollar in the jar.
(I made no money):)
Lynn,
You are a genius.
I was home on bed rest and I took calls because I was bored. Someone shared the story of how someone else stopped her from excessively calling them. I realized that it wasn’t about me being awesome, but about others having fuzzy boundaries, and starting using the technique she told me about (similar to office hours) when I went back to work. My kids are 5&6 and I still struggle with kid time/work time.
I am really glad you wrote this post. I am on bedrest and in and out of the hospital with about 4 weeks to go. I’ve gotten so many calls, text msgs & emails that I had to turn my phone off. I sent an email and asked if they had hired a temp yet and reminded them of the handbook I created that included everything including passwords for systems. I haven’t heard back since and my preterm labor has subsided..