The other day when we were discussing work, Chris’s brother seemed surprised and exclaimed, “Wait, I thought you quit!” I’m not quite sure how that notion came about but it’s far from the truth!
It then occurred to me that I don’t talk about my job a whole lot, but I guess that means there isn’t much to complain about. I’m pretty content with what I do and I have a good work-life balance. I hit my 5 year anniversary at Myriad RBM this past September and I plan to work until I go into labor. People say that’s serious devotion but for me it’s a matter of maximizing the amount of time I can spend with the baby when it gets here. With most American companies, parental leave and infant care don’t fit into the corporate world too well. The United States has the worst policy in the world in terms of paid leave – no paid leave. All one can expect is a total of 12 weeks of unpaid leave with unchanged benefits and a guarantee that the same job will be available on return. Luckily my company offers some compensation though. They require that I use five days of my accrued paid time off for the first week but after that they will give me 70% of my salary for the remaining 11 weeks. Payment for 6 of those weeks have to come from short term disability insurance though so there is a lot of paperwork to deal with, and after over a month of waiting I still haven’t heard back from my company’s HR headquarters.
When that gets squared away though, and after my 12 weeks are up, I’m hoping to be able to work from home. My work is pretty computer-heavy so I could feasibly get a lot done remotely. Unfortunately after my company got acquired by Myriad in Utah, we now have to jump through hoops for things. Apparently they have a strict no-working-from-home-without-the-CEO’s-approval policy. Not RBM’s CEO, but Myriad Genetics in Utah’s CEO. And according to our local HR rep, getting his approval is very tough. Luckily my boss, my boss’s boss, my boss’s boss’s boss, and RBM’s CEO are fully supportive of me working from home when the baby comes, but all of them still need to submit a proposal and pitch it to Utah. Oh the joys of being a subsidiary. Well, the proposal has been in the works for a while now and I just finished a personal statement to add to it:
"I am seeking approval to work from home after my maternity leave expires so that I can ease the financial burden of infant care and experience the benefits of raising my newborn. It has been extremely challenging for me to find an infant care program that can match the level of care that I as a mother would provide. Unfortunately, over half of my take-home salary would be required for such a daycare. Also, aside from the prohibitive costs, I would feel immense guilt over leaving my baby at a facility for 10 hours each day. I would miss important milestones in my developing child’s life and would not be able to justify it from a monetary standpoint.
Thankfully my current job position is one that I can succeed at remotely off-hours. Having a flexible schedule and no commute would allow for my husband and in-laws to care for my baby when I work. Avoiding the distress of placing my newborn in daycare would also help my productivity – it will be much easier to focus on work with the knowledge that my little one is in good hands!"
We’ll see where this goes. Hopefully things won’t continue to stay up in the air like this for too much longer. The due date clock is ticking… just 24 more days!
It then occurred to me that I don’t talk about my job a whole lot, but I guess that means there isn’t much to complain about. I’m pretty content with what I do and I have a good work-life balance. I hit my 5 year anniversary at Myriad RBM this past September and I plan to work until I go into labor. People say that’s serious devotion but for me it’s a matter of maximizing the amount of time I can spend with the baby when it gets here. With most American companies, parental leave and infant care don’t fit into the corporate world too well. The United States has the worst policy in the world in terms of paid leave – no paid leave. All one can expect is a total of 12 weeks of unpaid leave with unchanged benefits and a guarantee that the same job will be available on return. Luckily my company offers some compensation though. They require that I use five days of my accrued paid time off for the first week but after that they will give me 70% of my salary for the remaining 11 weeks. Payment for 6 of those weeks have to come from short term disability insurance though so there is a lot of paperwork to deal with, and after over a month of waiting I still haven’t heard back from my company’s HR headquarters.
When that gets squared away though, and after my 12 weeks are up, I’m hoping to be able to work from home. My work is pretty computer-heavy so I could feasibly get a lot done remotely. Unfortunately after my company got acquired by Myriad in Utah, we now have to jump through hoops for things. Apparently they have a strict no-working-from-home-without-the-CEO’s-approval policy. Not RBM’s CEO, but Myriad Genetics in Utah’s CEO. And according to our local HR rep, getting his approval is very tough. Luckily my boss, my boss’s boss, my boss’s boss’s boss, and RBM’s CEO are fully supportive of me working from home when the baby comes, but all of them still need to submit a proposal and pitch it to Utah. Oh the joys of being a subsidiary. Well, the proposal has been in the works for a while now and I just finished a personal statement to add to it:
"I am seeking approval to work from home after my maternity leave expires so that I can ease the financial burden of infant care and experience the benefits of raising my newborn. It has been extremely challenging for me to find an infant care program that can match the level of care that I as a mother would provide. Unfortunately, over half of my take-home salary would be required for such a daycare. Also, aside from the prohibitive costs, I would feel immense guilt over leaving my baby at a facility for 10 hours each day. I would miss important milestones in my developing child’s life and would not be able to justify it from a monetary standpoint.
Thankfully my current job position is one that I can succeed at remotely off-hours. Having a flexible schedule and no commute would allow for my husband and in-laws to care for my baby when I work. Avoiding the distress of placing my newborn in daycare would also help my productivity – it will be much easier to focus on work with the knowledge that my little one is in good hands!"
We’ll see where this goes. Hopefully things won’t continue to stay up in the air like this for too much longer. The due date clock is ticking… just 24 more days!
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