But Miz Scarlett, I don't know nuthin' 'bout birthin' no babies!
4:57 p.m. - 2005-04-26
I'm livid.
Come to find out today that I've been wrong about the measly six weeks of maternity leave that I was supposed to get. I don't get those six weeks after all. I. GET. NOTHING. Nada. Nil. NO maternity leave whatsoever. I do have the option of using my sick days (all 7 of them!), and then, if I decide to be all greedy and act like a week off of work isn't enough of a break after birthing a child I can go into my extended sick leave. That translates to be 60 days of leave with 65% of regular salary.
Which should definitely be enough, right? Especially since I'll be having the baby at the end of October/early November and Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks will be coming up, so I'll have even more time than those allotted sixty days. Wrong again. They count the break time in WITH the sixty days, so you get sixty days, max, take it or leave it, tough shit if you don't like it.
I guess I was under the wrong impression when I assumed that employers were required to give women a maternity leave. Silly me. Everyone knows that we're supposed to pop that sucker out and head right on back into the classroom. Don't forget, however, that if I trail some blood in I have to use MY dollar to buy the Bounty to sop it up with. I've been buying my own school supplies (paper, pencils, copy paper, dry erase markers) for the past six months because the parish is $3 million in the hole and can't afford to give us anything else.
Still, I shouldn't complain too much. After all, I always have the option of not coming back next year and still getting that summer pay. Except, NOT. Seems I can't do that either because the school board will end up demanding their money back from me if I don't work a certain percentage of days next year. Doesn't matter that I signed a 12 month contract, because for some reason or another they're not obligated to pay me for twelve full months.
How fucking bad does it really have to get before people say that enough is enough? I'm not going to be able to afford insurance, so unless I get on Medicaid I suppose I'll have to find a manger somewhere. Or maybe it'd be better if I just threw down a couple of old sheets in the living room, put some water on to boil, and got the sharpest knife out of the drawer.
I don't even know who to be angry at anymore. All I know is that I'm pissed off, pregnant, and worried, and I wish that someone gave a damn.