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I literally worked for most of my child's 8 month life, from her ICU room, I worked the morning of her 9 surgeries, I worked through the genetic diagnosis, I wo
by kingsloi 5y ago
I literally worked for most of my child's 8 month life, from her ICU room, I worked the morning of her 9 surgeries, I worked through the genetic diagnosis, I worked through being told my child has brain bleeds, neuroblastoma, is deaf, re-intubated, etc... if my insurance wasn't tied to my work, I would've quit in a heartbeat.
I'm convinced I'll go to my grave with working that time being my biggest regret in life. I had benefits, but was saving the limited time for when my wife returned to work... to only lose it when my child passed.
I couldn't advocate more for maternal/paternal leave.
- ChrisRR 5y agoIt's times like this that I'm happy to pay my taxes for the NHS. Everyone gets ill, cares for someone who gets ill, or is someone who is just very unfortunate in life. Our health is the most important thing we have, and we should look after that
- commandlinefan 5y agoDid you ask for an extended leave of absence? Many employers are a lot more humane than a lot of employees give them credit for, whether they're bound by law or not.
- teawrecks 5y agoI assume you mean an unpaid situation?
- familyemta123 5y agoI created a throw away for this, but during a recent family emergency, my small 100 person company decided to fire me rather than allow my request for 3 months off without pay. They could easily have supported it, and I was a good employee, but instead I heard now they've replaced me with an Eastern European contractor for cheap. So rather than help me in my time of need, after I had saved their ass from some other crappier contractors in the preceding year, they took it as a chance to cut costs. They had also just gone public and have a huge war chest from that, so it isn't like they were strapped. I'm not going to respond to those comments, inevitability, that will say there's more to this story, because there isn't, I was a good employee and understood my job, but they just saw a replaceable body. I'm never going to dedicate more than the minimum effort to a company ever again.
- Domenic_S 5y agoNo FMLA?
- bell-cot 5y agoA slightly more sophisticated strategy - dedicate more then the minimum effort to a company...but only after they demonstrate decent devotion to good employees. So "Tit for Tat", very roughly.
- mrtesthah 5y agoOften an employee won’t find that out until they’re fired for getting pregnant.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- chinchilla2020 5y agoIt might be an ethical move to name and shame this company. It could save a future employee from joining them.
- SuoDuanDao 5y agoI too think it would be proper to share that information if you feel it would not impact your job search (and let's be frank, if they would do what they did they can't do much worse). Protecting abusers is not a good policy.
- familyemta123 5y agoUnfortunately, due to a legal agreement I signed to get them to pay for medical benefits for a few additional months and have a small separation payment, I cannot do so. If I did, they could sue me for several times the amount of benefit I gained, and I'm not in a good position for that now.
- 5y ago
- mooreds 5y agoThis is heartbreaking. I'm so sorry.
- kingsloi 5y agoI hate evoking empathy/sympathy, but with my child being gone, I really think it's important to share the real story and things that made our/my situation worse.
- conductr 5y agoUS? FMLA? Just curious if you felt you couldn't take it due to company culture or if it just didn't apply to you? Either way, a horrible experience for you I know. I’ve been fortunate to work with folks that are family friendly when things like this arise. I can’t even imagine opening my laptop while in the hospital and in that headspace.
- sangnoir 5y agoFMLA leave is unpaid. Not many people can afford to go through 8 months without income, especially with a child in the NICU.
- conductr 5y agoGood point. Suppose I was assuming that wasn’t a factor here since they said they would have quit if not for employer based insurance.
- kingsloi 5y agoIf I didn't have to pay for medical, I likely could've survived on savings and GoFundMe.
- sircastor 5y agoIt’s insane to me that our absurd health care system has routed around insurance systems shortcomings by literally begging friends, family and strangers to help us afford basic living. And the insurance companies are laughing all the way to bank.
- handrous 5y agoIt's an alarming sign of political and social rot, IMO, that this has become so normal that barely-computer-literate people out in my flyover part of the US regularly launch healthcare-related GoFundMes, if their kids get seriously ill especially, and there hasn't been an overwhelming "holy shit, this is very not OK, drop everything and fix this now" reaction.
- lordgrenville 5y agoHeart-breaking to read this. I'm so sorry for your loss.
- vadfa 5y agoSorry for your loss, but this is textbook appeal to emotion.
- kingsloi 5y agoI don't want sympathy or want to invoke empathy. I've heard enough "I'm sorry for you loss" to last me many, many lifetimes. I just want to share my 2c on how my/our situation was made worse, now my girl is gone, I feel like it would be a disservice to her if I sugar coated my experience. I would've loved to never have worked a single moment during that time. Also, I'm a British guy who used the NHS extensively before I moved here. So there's that.
- organsnyder 5y agoThank you for sharing your experience. Your testimony is both heartrending and necessary.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 1-more 5y agoit's so depressing working a good job in the imperial core and having it be like this. The generations of exploitation and extraction we've waged against the natural world and the people outside of the imperial core would at least make some sense if we all got to have the good stuff stuff but we don't.
- ido 5y agoI've heard it stated as: you're always 3 terrible months away from being destitute, but you're never 3 great months from being a billionaire. Let this inform who you have class solidarity with.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoSorry to hear - you did the best under circumstances - you could not help her medically or otherwise but did the only thing in your control - make sure the insurance coverage was there.
- AnthonBerg 5y agoThis is not untrue. With complete respect, I feel I must add however: Society on the other hand did not do the best it could have done – sheltered and cared for the people in this situation. It isn’t even efficient at any scale or context to just let it ride like this. This breaks people. Grief and burnout burns people up. They shouldn’t have had to keep powering the treadmill, shouldn’t have to had to do anything to ensure insurance coverage didn’t run out. Earnestly and calmly speaking, I honestly think it’s most useful to view the practice as… barbaric.
- tibbydudeza 5y agoNoted and agree with you i.r.o our western first world society but he was dealt a shitty deck and did the best he could with the cards dealt.
- AnthonBerg 5y agoAbsolutely true. Deeply, deeply respectable. Thank you.
- kingsloi 5y agoI can't edit this post, but I just want to add that I feel incredible lucky that I was able to work from my child's bedside at all. We met many other parents in the ICU who worked jobs that weren't remote, crane operators, waste management professionals, mill workers, etc. I imagine they share the same sentiment as me.
- chriselles 5y agoI am so very sorry for your loss. As a parent, your post is incredibly impactful. As a company owner(20 FTE), I've had several staff take leave for catastrophic health issues in their immediate family. It's been incredibly costly for my small company to keep paying them indefinitely beyond their accrued and used holiday/sick leave, but it's been worth it in the long run. It has engendered the kind of effort, loyalty, and performance that can't be bought, only earned. From the company's perspective, it hurts a lot up front but it makes sense ethically, morally, and I think financially as well. Here in NZ, we have paid parental leave. Mostly taken by mothers, but with some nudging for fathers to take some of it as well. When we had our children it was 12 weeks total combined paid parental leave. It has since been extended to 26 weeks combined paid, with up to another 26 weeks unpaid.
- Domenic_S 5y ago> It has engendered the kind of effort, loyalty, and performance that can't be bought, only earned. Hot take: it can be bought -- you bought it with paid leave! Ok, I know what you're trying to express. But I don't think it's dirty at all to acknowledge that taking care of your employees generates loyalty. It's a competitive advantage to offer benefits like this -- that's why all the big tech co's do it.
- ido 5y agoI Germany it's 14 months total (if both parents take at least 2 months, otherwise it's 12) & it still felt like too little! I wish I could have spent more time with my kids when they were babies but I had to go back to work.
- grecy 5y ago[flagged]
- DangitBobby 5y agoIt can, it just has no interest in doing so.
- ChrisRR 5y agoI think a lot of people have interest in doing so, but a lot of rich and influential people don't
- xtracto 5y ago> if my insurance wasn't tied to my work, I would've quit in a heartbeat. This is something I just don't get to grok about the US. Here in Mexico we are supposedly "copying" the best of the US (sigh), having the option of paying for "major" health insurance with insurers like NewYork Life, along with other local ones (GNP, AXA). A year of mayor medical insurance costs around $3,000 USD a year. Sure, it is by no means a small amount, but it is definitely doable in case of an emergency. There´s even something called "excess insurance" that you can buy as a individual while you are working. It covers any spending "on top" of whatever your companies' insurance covers, and serves to "exhaust" any cooling-off periods, so that if you are out of your job at some point, you convert it to full private insurance and get all the benefits.
- Gatsky 5y agoSometimes I think we will never escape the fundamental brutality of life. Thank you for sharing this story, I'm so sorry this happened to your family.