So I've worked for the same large, regional healthcare center for about 15 years. I'm a relatively healthy woman in my late 30s. I've never taken an extended amount of sick leave.
This company's policy on sick leave is that you have to pay the first 32 hours of any occurrence of illness out of your earned time off before you can access your sick bank.
So I never utilize my sick bank. I'm never sick more than a day or two, so they just nab it out of my eto. (This in itself has infuriated me more times than I can remember. The sick bank is a lie.)
But right on Valentine's day I finally caught COVID, and it was a bad enough case that I went to urgent care after running a fever for 3 days.
I go to the urgent care that's in the system that I work for. So that's where they tested me for COVID and informed me of the policy to not go back to work for 5 days.
They also gave me the option to take paxlovid, which the nurse said was only because my BMI is greater than 25.
Anyway, I notified my boss all of this as it was going on and she was cool about it all. But after two days of taking the paxlovid I developed severe abdominal pain and went to the ER. Turned out I was one of the lucky few whom it caused hepatitis.
So I was advised to stop taking the paxlovid and eat a very low fat, healthy diet, then to follow up check my liver enzymes and schedule a gallbladder function exam (because the ultrasound showed sludge in my gallbladder but no acute findings while my liver was enlarged and inflamed).
I went back to work after missing 1 whole week. So after I got my paycheck for that period I saw that they used 48 hours of eto. I should have gotten at least 8 out of my maxed out sick bank.
I talked to my boss about it and she told me I had to fill out FMLA paperwork to do it.
I thought, fine, I'll fill out the form.
So yesterday I checked my email and the HR correspondent is choosing to require me to provide medical certification.
It was just the last straw and I began crying in rage and disappointment. I've worked here for 15 years. I have, I think, over 200 hours of eto built up because I haven't taken a vacation in so long. And they fight me like this over a measly 8 hours out of the 500 hours I supposedly have but will never be able to access?
The problem with the medical certification is, that I've already been to the urgent care and the ER. I didn't know I needed FMLA when I was hunched over howling in pain in the ER,. And it certainly hadn't occurred to me when I went to urgent care before I had even missed a single work day. It's not likely they're going to want to sign off on that paperwork if I contact ER or urgent care. Plus, my primary care Dr. just moved to a different facility, so it was a whole ordeal (to me) to find out where that was, schedule the follow-up appointment and get my liver enzymes rechecked. And I got the F-you email from HR the next day, so now I'd have to go back to another appointment just to get the damn signature? At that point I start running the cost of that appointment against the 8 hours they're stealing from me and wondering if it's worth it.
I'm so frustrated and angry. I just wanted to vent. Thanks to anyone who reads this.