First of all, I’d like to begin this rant with I’m not the person to take advantage of the system by having children and choosing to work, I strongly believe we know how difficult it can be with work to balance the two, especially once it comes down to taking care of your kids when they are sick and the risks you take by staying home with them instead of responding to work.
But this guilt is eating me alive both on a parental scale and employee scale.
I have my son set up in daycare as many of us do and he has had a fever for a week. I set up a second sitter to care for him at home because I knew I couldn’t afford to take the time off, and felt guilty for even thinking about calling in. I save all of my vacation time and sick time in the events my son gets sick.
She got sick, I accepted that I’d stay home with him yesterday and take care of him.
My job is fully capable of being remote when this happens, where if I or a fellow team member is feeling healthy and we need to work remote, the owner always approves and doesn’t find it to be an issue because we’ve built that trust with him.
Please note I do not try to do this often as I worry it might be overseen as trying to take advantage of the company. So I tread carefully.
He approved me to work from home yesterday.
Today, I stayed at home with him again, updated both the owner and my service manager as he still needed to be 24hrs symptom free before returning at daycare.
Asked to work remote again.
He responded with “Yes of course” and followed by his response my service manager follows with “Don’t worry about work, take the day off, take care of your son and let us know your return date. “
Confused, I call my service manager to clarify. She states “Mmm, we are trying to lean away from remote, so we prefer you just take the day off”.
Mind you the entire company dislikes her, the owner doesn’t like to get involved when she’s involved with disputes.
I didn’t fight against it as I felt I should.
I’ve been at my company for three years and I’m thankful I have a good, steady paying job with benefits.
I love my job but I’m tired of feeling guilty and getting tension and remarks from a few of my colleagues, when they run into the same issues when it comes to taking care of our children.
Feeling the system is broken.