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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
need advice on leave possibly being denied - gov't job
I work for the Federal Government. We were told today that there wold be no leave approved for the next 3 weeks. We are nearing a busy period but it wouldnt really start for another 1.5 weeks. Today, I received a call for a (non-gov't) job interview on Friday, which would be about an hour away. I'm really torn if I should fight this "no leave" policy or call in sick. I have great previous annual reviews and have never abused a leave policy. I'm really tempted to fight it to show upper management how ridiculous this policy is. In the end, if my leave is still denied but I take it anyway - can they fire me?
Thanks ladies!
Re: need advice on leave possibly being denied - gov't job
If you call in sick there's not much they can do, but I'd be careful because any boss with a brain would be pretty suspicious about sick days taken when such a policy was in place.
To answer your question - if you request a personal day, get denied and take the day off anyway, I'm betting that you could very well be fired.
Could you very professionally explain to the company that wants to interview what is going on at your current position? Maybe they would be open to an interview very early in the morning or after normal work hours?
Is it possible at your current job to work a full day, but come in an hour late? That way you're not taking leave, but just adjusting your schedule by an hour or so.
::butting in after the fact::
If you are within your career conditional time period, yes, they could have fired you for taking an unauthorized day off. If your supervisor has stated that no leave will be taken for the next three weeks, it's just that, no leave will be taken for the next three weeks. Doesn't matter if you've never used a single hour of sick leave or if you've never taken multiple Fridays and Mondays off all the time.
Taking sick leave instead doesn't mean you're ok. Based on the temporary leave policy your boss have put out, your boss could have asked you for a doctor's note to explain your absence. Yes, it is usually only required if you take sick leave in excess of 24 hours (three days straight), but it can also be asked of you if there is a suspicion you are abusing sick leave - or taking advantage of the fact that you have sick leave to run errands.
Also, you run the risk of not only being in a leave without pay status for the time you were "sick" but also being called AWOL. Yes, civilian employees for the DoD can be listed as AWOL. Your supervisor would have had to take the necessary steps first (call you, tell you you were supposed to be at work, and then you say that you were taking off anyway or that you were sick and you don't provide a doctor's note). At which point, not only would your pay be docked, you would also be subject to up to an additional 5 days leave without pay as punishment for one day AWOL.
I hope this doesn't come off as sounding mean or snarky, but I am a supervisor and have had to impose this sort of leave restriction before and had an employee who boldly told me she was going to "take leave anyway" despite my never having approved her request in the first place. I'm not saying this is how you're behaving, but think of this from your boss's perspective.
Also, "fighting" the leave policy is pointless. Supervisors don't really care for employees doing that if there is a valid reason for the restriction. I gather from your statement:
"We are nearing a busy period but it wouldnt really start for another 1.5 weeks."
that you know this is a typically busy time period or have some insight about what the project is, so fighting the policy only makes you appear like you're not a team player and don't care for your supervisor's authority. We don't take kindly to that sort of thing and that would have been enough for a supervisor to sit you down for a counseling session on attitude, being a team player, and to refocus your priorities.
Directly from the OPM leave website: "An employee may use annual leave for vacations, rest and relaxation, and personal business or emergencies. An employee has a right to take annual leave, subject to the right of the supervisor to schedule the time at which annual leave may be taken." (http://www.opm.gov/oca/leave/html/ANNUAL.asp) So you might have a right to take leave, but not right when you wanted to.
FWIW, I hope your interview went well and that whatever you decided to do to get there didn't cause flak at the office. In the grand scheme of things, taking three hours off may not have been such a big deal but you had limitations that you were expected to abide by.
::butting out::
Army Girl, been in since Feb 2003 married to an Army Man, in since 1990.