Having a new baby is a very exciting time, and friends, family, and even co-workers should be happy and supportive for you.

When the overnight worker’s wife in this story was expecting a baby, he asked for some time off around the due date, but his boss denied his request.

After a lot of back and forth, he found a way to take more than a month off of work without his boss knowing or being able to stop him, resulting in the boss having to scramble to get coverage.

Check it out.

No Vacation/PTO Until October; Okay I’m Taking All of October Off!

For context, at the time my husband worked overnights at one of the largest supermarket operators in North America.

I was about 6 months pregnant and the store he worked in had a change in who the store manager was and when I went shopping I used either a wheelchair or a scooter with a cart on it due to a disability that makes it difficult for me to walk under normal circumstances.

Background:

This is a very exciting time.

Originally we had felt pretty lucky that between all the pregnancy tests I had done to confirm that yes, I am in fact pregnant and the ultrasound, the earliest and the latest due date we had been given all fell in the first week of September.

So, my husband had planned to use one of his weeks of vacation that week, and then use his paternity leave after that week so he would be able to be there while I was at the hospital in recovery and for the first days of our baby’s life.

His boss seemed genuinely confused by the request (he was 22, single and called his truck his baby) but had said something along the lines of “Hey man, its your vacation you should use it how you want to.”

They can’t delay having the baby.

Then about a week later I came home from one of my Dr appointments to a message on the answering machine saying “Unfortunately I have to deny your request for vacation and paternity leave in September as someone with more seniority has put in for those days off as well. I hope this doesn’t cause problems between you and your wife.”

I burst into tears on the spot, but my husband said he’d go talk to the person who requested those days off, explain that he asked for that time off because it’s when the baby is due and see if he could offer them something to give him those days off instead.

Unfortunately it was one of his co-workers who was going to have major surgery and needed that time off to recover; so we couldn’t ask him to trade vacation weeks for us.

My husband put in for time off for the 2nd week off in September and is denied.

Then he tries the 3rd week and is denied again, but this time his boss tells him that he won’t be able to use any of his vacation time until October due to his position and who has time off.

Cue the Malicious Compliance:
We realized that because this boss was new, he probably didn’t realize that my husband had been saving all his vacation days, PTO and paternity leave.

When we added up all the time it amounted to 3 weeks of time off.

And if we worked it around to start around when his days off were, he would be able to be home with the baby from October 1st until November 9th.

His co-workers on the night crew and several of his friends on the morning crew felt that he had been seriously shafted by the new boss so they got in on this plan with us.

Timing that request is perfect.

We waited until the boss’ day off and that’s when my husband put in the schedule for the time off he was requesting, which was approved by the scheduling manager and the night crew manager.

This was in July so the only thing left to do was wait.

How exciting!

Our baby was born in the early hours of the morning, about two days before our earliest due date after 29 hours of Stage 2 and 3 labor.

I ended up having an induction due to the fact I had been in early stage labor since the beginning of August and it just wasn’t progressing.

When my husband called the night shift manager to say that I was going to the hospital to give birth he told my husband to call in if he was going to miss any more days of work and they would make sure it got covered.

It wasn’t PTO, but it was considered an excused absence.

After I came home from the hospital, my mom started staying overnight with us temporarily to help out preparing meals, taking care of the dog and the household chores so I could focus on taking care of myself and the baby.

That first month home was pretty rough so I was relieved when October rolled around and I finally had his help 24/7 and my mom was able to take a break.

The Aftermath:

First up was the 3 days of paternity leave.

On the morning of the 5th day of this 40 day long vacation, the boss woke me up at 6am wanting to talk to my husband. I told him he was feeding the baby and asked why he was calling.

He said he was checking in to see why my husband no call, no showed the night before and I said, sarcastically “Oh No, that’s terrible! I’ll go get him for you.”

Why wouldn’t the boss have looked at the time away schedule.

I put the phone on speaker so my husband can talk to his boss while he’s feeding the baby so I get to hear everything.

The boss very smugly informed my husband that his paternity leave was over, and since he didn’t come in the night before, he would be written up for a no-call no show.

My husband said “Yes, I know my paternity leave is over, but my first vacation week started last night.”

The Boss: “First vacation week?”

Husband: “Yeah. I have three. I was going to use one in September, one in October and one in November, but since you told me I couldn’t use any PTO until October I decided to just take all of October off to be with my wife and newborn.”

The Boss: “I’ll call you back after I look into this.”

I don’t know how I managed to stay silent and not laugh at this conversation, but somehow I did.

We got a call back later that day that went something like this:

Silly boss, your needs don’t matter to me.

Boss: “Yeah, I’m going to need you to come into work tonight. I never would have approved your request for time off if I knew you were taking the whole month off.”

Husband: “You didn’t approve it. The night manager and scheduling manager both approved this, so I’m not coming in tonight.”

Boss: (clearly thinking this is a gotcha moment) “I didn’t approve it and I need you to come in tonight. So you’ll be here at 10 on your regular schedule for the rest of the month, or you’ll be written up.”

Husband: “No I won’t. I submitted the request in July and you never denied my request, it’s been approved by the other managers and it’s already started so it’s too late for you to deny it now.”

Boss: “I’ll call you back.”

Unions can be really helpful in these situations.

After that my husband called the Union Steward to confirm that he was in the clear and they say that he is.

We got another call the following Sunday, which was my husband’s next day off, asking if he would be coming in that night since he wasn’t listed as being on vacation in the system.

Husband: “Am I on the schedule?”

Boss: “No.”

Husband: “Then, it’s my night off so no.”

He hung up after that, but we got a call like that every night my husband wasn’t on the schedule due to it being one of his regular days off and him not being marked as being on vacation in the system.

This was very sweet of them.

Some of the ladies in the Bakery/Deli section of the store put together a card shower for us and gave them gift cards since we never said anything to them about when my baby shower was or where we were registered (oops).

Later that week I made a trip into the store one afternoon to pick up some stuff and introduce them to the baby and my mom came along too.

While we were over there the store manager came up and said “You must be Husband’s wife.”

I was feeling petty so I pointed out that we would have met sooner, if he didn’t have a habit of running away and hiding in his office when customers approached him.

I don’t know if that irritated him or if he was planning on saying this next anyway, but the next words out of his mouth were “You don’t look like you need help with the baby. Husband said he was taking time off to help you with the baby because you have a disability, but I guess you don’t need it, huh?”

He deserves to be fired with this attitude.

The bakery deli ladies glared at him, and my mom went pale because she knows I usually react very strongly to those comments.

But, my mom also raised me to be civil and mannerly so I just smiled and said ” I hope you don’t speak to your employees like that; that can get you fired. Bless your heart.”

And one of his employees told him I was right, so he sulked off.

He seemed so desperate to find any reason he could to force my husband to come back to work before the end of the month I started wondering if he was was being petty and might try to retaliate after my husband came back to work, or if he was just desperate.

So, I called one of my husband’s co-workers.

Why am I not surprised about this?

Remember when I said new boss was 22?

Well, he also had a habit of bragging about how he started working for the company as a cashier when he was 17 and worked his way up to management in just 5 years.

At some point after the baby was born, District came and did a walk through and it turned out his dad was the District manager and he didn’t work his way up to management he was a Nepo Baby!

That burned bridges with more than a few employees.

Then, he turned up in a Brand NEW truck and said with the year end bonus he was going to get he could pay it off in one go several employees walked, including two on the night crew.

Since my husband was on paternity leave he had to work overnights to make up the slack.

He’d never showed up to cover overnights when they were short handed before that, so we figured he was desperate to get my husband to come back because working overnights was cutting into his dating time.

Finally, the end of my husband’s vacation time came and his boss called again.

Boss: “You used up your paternity leave and your vacation weeks. You’re coming in tonight right?”

Husband: “No, I still have PTO days left this year, and since I won’t be able to use them all between November and the end of December and they don’t roll over into next year, I decided to take them now.”

Boss: “Well, when are you coming back to work?!!”

Husband: “November 10th.”

Boss called back the next day to tell my husband, that actually he had used up his paternity leave while he was at the hospital giving birth, so he would have to use PTO to cover that, and actually he had used a week of PTO when he took me to the hospital with “fake labor” so actually, he would be coming back to work on November 1st.

This husband did a great job standing up for himself and his family.

My husband called the Union Steward and filed a complaint that his boss was retroactively deciding what counted as paternity leave and what counted as PTO and trying to force him to use PTO days to cover days where he either went in late, or left for a couple hours and then came back and stayed late to make up the missed hours.

He went in to fill out some paperwork and we didn’t hear from his boss again between then and when he got replaced at the end of the following January.

The boss just didn’t want to give up on his harassment, no matter how wrong he was.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Yes, this comment was perfect.

Every country is different.

In Ireland, this would not be an issue.

Here is another person wondering how this can be real.

Yes, I hope they tracked them.

This manager thought he had the power, but he was put in his place.

What kind of person denies paternity time off.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.