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Default Apr 09, 2021 at 02:26 PM
  #1
I've been taking half days off on Mondays for therapy with a psychologist. Last week in a meeting my boss asked me about my half days off. I just told her they were medical appointments. She said she could ask me to get a note from a doctor. This week I asked for next Monday off and now she is telling me I must have the note. I texted my therapists but he hasn't gotten back. I don't want her to know that her bullying is driving me to despair either. I e-mailed my bosses boss and asked for the time off but she didn't respond.

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Default Apr 09, 2021 at 11:20 PM
  #2
Dear AceRimmer,

That sounds like an awful situation. I hope your boss or bosses' boss will be understanding. I also hope your therapist gets back to you soon.

Sincerely yours, Yao Wen
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Default Apr 10, 2021 at 07:31 PM
  #3
After I e-mailed the boss's boss I finally got a reply from my boss. She said they checked with HR and I have to get a medical professional to fill out paperwork for FLMA and send it to HR. They are so cruel. I never call in sick so I have a year of accumulated sick time. In the last meeting my boss said I had the right to use it. Then when I did she said that she never told me that. Now she says I need to give notice far in advance to take sick time off. That doesn't make sense to me. If I call a doctor and he says he can get me in the next day I have the right to take sick time.

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Default Apr 12, 2021 at 10:48 AM
  #4
Have you heard of intermittent FMLA? Your boss is wrong that you need to give notice. If you get your therapist or doctor to fill out the intermittent FMLA paperwork, you can take those Monday afternoons off all year and there's nothing they can do about it. Sorry you are dealing with crummy people.
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Default Apr 12, 2021 at 05:59 PM
  #5
Unfortunately the psychologist who I am talking to is old school and thinks FLMA is for medical doctor appointments and not psychologists. He says he has never filled any out before. He can shift my appointments to afternoon so I only need to take 2 hours off every Monday, I told him my boss probably wouldn't go for that. I think HR has a FLMA specialist. I guess I can try e-mailing him. But so far everyone I have dealt with has been a scumbag so I don't have much hope.

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Default Apr 13, 2021 at 06:04 AM
  #6
Ugh, that sucks your psychologist won't fill out the papers. He is so wrong. Is he saying that the appointments are not essential for your health? If they are, he needs to fill out the papers.


I hope it works out. Maybe your boss will allow the two hours. What do they expect you to do?
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Default Apr 13, 2021 at 04:04 PM
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Ugh, that sucks your psychologist won't fill out the papers. He is so wrong. Is he saying that the appointments are not essential for your health? If they are, he needs to fill out the papers.


I hope it works out. Maybe your boss will allow the two hours. What do they expect you to do?
She gave me a hard time about taking time off yesterday. Basically accused me of cheating on my sick time. She said she though it was questionable. I don't know if she will dock my pay for the day. I told her I could not provide documentation and would not take any more time. I asked the psychologist to e-mail me some kind of note I could give to HR, but he hasn't yet. I told him I am cancelling appointments.

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Default Apr 17, 2021 at 09:07 AM
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She gave me a hard time about taking time off yesterday. Basically accused me of cheating on my sick time. She said she though it was questionable. I don't know if she will dock my pay for the day. I told her I could not provide documentation and would not take any more time. I asked the psychologist to e-mail me some kind of note I could give to HR, but he hasn't yet. I told him I am cancelling appointments.
AceRimmer, I'm so sorry you are dealing with this. Unfortunately companies do have protocols, and it sounds like they just want the proper documentation. Owning a business, I can tell you there are different things regarding FMLA and sick time, so my hope is that they aren't just trying to make it difficult for you, but to put the proper pay designation on it. Employers also get some different breaks for FMLA with CARES right now. So maybe that's it.

What's more worrisome to me is your therapist's refusal to assist with paperwork. That really is his job, and if he won't even bother to look at the paperwork or actually read what FMLA is, then he doesn't sound, to me, like a therapist that is going to be very useful to you anyhow. Since my disability is psychiatric in nature, I need certain annual paperwork done by my therapist. If my therapist refused to do this paperwork, it would cause me a lot of problems.

Occasionally I have had to educate my therapist on certain forms of documentation, and answer their questions about it if they were uncertain or uncomfortable. I wonder if you could provide your therapist with a website or other resource that would educate him that he CAN fill out this paperwork and it's allowable and dispel the myths he seems to have bought into about it?

It's unfortunate but a lot of healthcare providers don't actually fully understand a lot of laws that govern healthcare including HIPAA, FMLA, and all sorts of other stuff.

FIngers crossed the situation will resolve!

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Default Apr 18, 2021 at 12:14 PM
  #9
My boss and her boss called me into a meeting Friday and gave me a hard time about not having FMLA. Again I said the guy wouldn't sign off in it so I cancelled him. It was only 6 half days off and I cancelled so why are you giving me such a hard time I asked. They acted like they didn't believe me and said for my protection I needed documentation. All I could do was hand over my phone and show them some texts from the therapist. I don't know if that's a HIPAA violation or not.

At one point my boss said I have a lot of vacation time too ( 2 months) but when I used 2 weeks of it in February I got chewed out by the exec. They also docked me 2 days pay because I was so shaken up by their bullying that I didn't notice they approved the time off starting on a Wednesday instead of Monday. When I didn't show they didn't even call me, they just docked me 2 days pay.

At one point someone said they weren't trying to stop me from getting the help I need and I said I didn't need help, I just didn't want to work there under these conditions anymore. I was fine there for 10 years but now my boss is a micromanaging bully.

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Default Apr 20, 2021 at 06:14 AM
  #10
That does not sound like a great work environment. I don't get why they are hassling you about the FMLA now when you stopped taking the Monday afternoons off and the stuff with the vacation time is just ridiculous.
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Default Apr 20, 2021 at 07:51 AM
  #11
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That does not sound like a great work environment. I don't get why they are hassling you about the FMLA now when you stopped taking the Monday afternoons off and the stuff with the vacation time is just ridiculous.
We've been in a state of 'emergency' all year because of the pandemic. There was a time last summer and into the fall when we had over 1000 covid specimens to analyze per day, but now it's just a few hundred even though more people are dying. No one seems to know why. But there really isn't much work to do anyway. I'm a chemist and they shut down 90% of chemistry testing for covid. I'm supposed to help on data entry, but there's not much of that anymore either. Last week I entered data for an hour. So my boss made projects for me like uploading the lab's 4000 or so documents into a new system. She promised to get me some instructions from our QA manager but when they didn't come she chewed me out for not just doing it anyway. She's a horrible toxic person and she has turned everyone else against me.

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Default Apr 22, 2021 at 05:03 AM
  #12
It's wild how one bad boss can make your work life miserable. I have run into that twice. Once I managed to get a new boss and another time the new boss drove me out. Your boss doesn't sound like a great fit for lab work if she wants you to do work without having documentation.
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Default Apr 24, 2021 at 08:09 AM
  #13
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It's wild how one bad boss can make your work life miserable. I have run into that twice. Once I managed to get a new boss and another time the new boss drove me out. Your boss doesn't sound like a great fit for lab work if she wants you to do work without having documentation.
Back in 2009 I had a horrible boss. I got put on paid administrative leave for 6 months. They claimed they were investigating my alleged misuse of the work computer. They finally found me guilty of threatening someone with a bowl of pasta. They only lifted the suspension the day before they laid me off and shut down the cafe I ran. I had to hire a lawyer to help me get the suspension taken off my record. Cost me $3000. He threatened them with an ADA lawsuit and that may have helped.

Then I got to the lab job and the boss was a jerk, but not nearly as bad as the previous. Early on he asked me what program I wanted to work in and I said radiochem, but it didn't matter as long as I didn't have to work with blood. The next week he assigned me to blood toxicology.

Finally he retired and we got a really good boss for a couple of years. A Brit guy who was way overqualified but needed a job near where his wife worked. He left and they created a new level of supervisor and made this control freak idiot my boss.

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Default May 01, 2021 at 04:52 AM
  #14
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I've been taking half days off on Mondays for therapy with a psychologist. Last week in a meeting my boss asked me about my half days off. I just told her they were medical appointments. She said she could ask me to get a note from a doctor. This week I asked for next Monday off and now she is telling me I must have the note. I texted my therapists but he hasn't gotten back. I don't want her to know that her bullying is driving me to despair either. I e-mailed my bosses boss and asked for the time off but she didn't respond.
Does your boss bully you otherwise? Just curious why you call this particular instance bullying? My apologies - I did not read through your whole thread, and I don't know if you have other threads about your boss bullying you.

But based on this one post, it's unreasonable to expect that your boss will accept a half day off every single week for a doctor appointment, or in reality, a therapy appointment. It appears as not wanting to work and pull your weight. I don't know anyone in a working environment who takes a day off once per week. I myself, work my therapy appointments around my work schedule and meet with my therapist either during my lunch break or after working hours. It IS reasonable of your boss to require a doctor's note.

Emailing your boss's boss is also a no-no because you're going above your boss's head when this should be worked out with your boss directly. When you go above the boss's head, you piss off your boss. It makes sense that the other boss did not respond - she/he probably wants you to work it out between you and your own boss.

I hope you work this out and can get what you need.

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Last edited by Have Hope; May 01, 2021 at 05:11 AM..
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Default May 06, 2021 at 02:50 PM
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Does your boss bully you otherwise? Just curious why you call this particular instance bullying? My apologies - I did not read through your whole thread, and I don't know if you have other threads about your boss bullying you.

But based on this one post, it's unreasonable to expect that your boss will accept a half day off every single week for a doctor appointment, or in reality, a therapy appointment. It appears as not wanting to work and pull your weight. I don't know anyone in a working environment who takes a day off once per week. I myself, work my therapy appointments around my work schedule and meet with my therapist either during my lunch break or after working hours. It IS reasonable of your boss to require a doctor's note.

Emailing your boss's boss is also a no-no because you're going above your boss's head when this should be worked out with your boss directly. When you go above the boss's head, you piss off your boss. It makes sense that the other boss did not respond - she/he probably wants you to work it out between you and your own boss.

I hope you work this out and can get what you need.
I have 18 months of sick time saved up. That's more than anyone else. Because I never use it. Then when I need it my boss accuses me of faking medical appointments. My boss went over her bosses head and then went over that bosses head to HR until she got the answer she wanted. She doesn't only bully me she sexually harasses me. I reported that. I reported her for starting arguments over petty things like the temperature in the lab. Nothing is going to happen to her. At my last job the women who was showing up 4 hours per day kept her job when I got laid off.

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Default May 08, 2021 at 06:15 AM
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I have 18 months of sick time saved up. That's more than anyone else. Because I never use it. Then when I need it my boss accuses me of faking medical appointments. My boss went over her bosses head and then went over that bosses head to HR until she got the answer she wanted. She doesn't only bully me she sexually harasses me. I reported that. I reported her for starting arguments over petty things like the temperature in the lab. Nothing is going to happen to her. At my last job the women who was showing up 4 hours per day kept her job when I got laid off.
I understand. I've dealt with bullying from bosses in several different jobs myself, so I understand how you may feel. It's horrible. It's not right or fair to be treated unjustly by someone in a position of authority above you, and then have it also be unfairly played out. Hugs to you.


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Default May 08, 2021 at 07:48 PM
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I understand. I've dealt with bullying from bosses in several different jobs myself, so I understand how you may feel. It's horrible. It's not right or fair to be treated unjustly by someone in a position of authority above you, and then have it also be unfairly played out. Hugs to you.

It just gets worse and worse. Now she is ordering me to do something unethical at work. If I do it I could be fired for lab fraud. If I don't do it I could get fired for insubordination. Great choice. I spent 2 days writing a report to the chief on how her order would give bad results on a chromatogapher and I e-mailed her saying it was unethical. The report sat in her mailbox all day Friday. The problem is that the chief doesn't know anything about chromatography. Zero. She even admitted it a couple of months ago when we had to get her to sign off on something. My boss know almost nothing about it either. She has done 99% of her time in radiochemistry and atomic absorption.

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Default May 08, 2021 at 08:19 PM
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Ugh. Both choices are leading termination. Can't you report this to the higher chief/boss?
Sorry that you have to feel this way.
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Default May 08, 2021 at 08:36 PM
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Ugh. Both choices are leading termination. Can't you report this to the higher chief/boss?
Sorry that you have to feel this way.
If the chief does nothing I can report it to our QA officer. I doubt she knows anything about chromotography either. We supposedly have an ethics officer but I don't know who that is. And reporting things to higher ups is dangerous too. At my last post I was managing a cafe and my office mate the dietitian was only working 1-4 hours a day for YEARS. I finally reported it and then I got accused of throwing sausage at her and threatening someone else with a bowl of pasta. Then I was suspended while they claimed to be investigating my alleged misuse of the computer. After 6 months my cafe was closed and I was laid off. I had to pay my lawyer $3000 to help me get the suspension off my record.

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