Boss Won't Stop Contacting Employee About 'Work Stuff' Even Though She's On Medical Leave — 'She Needs To Respect My Healing'
What she really needs is rest and recovery, not work.
PattyPhoto / Shutterstock When you take time off from work, you expect that time to be honored. However, sometimes bosses have a difficult time accepting that you are truly unavailable.
That happened to one woman who used her PTO for “major surgery.”
A woman who was out of work after having surgery found that her boss continued to contact her.
One employee took to Reddit after her boss repeatedly contacted her even though she was out of the office on medical leave.
“So, I had major surgery two weeks ago — a complete hysterectomy with my tubes removed, appendectomy, cystoscopy, plus endometriosis and Endosalpingiosis excision from multiple organs,” she said. “My surgery took an extra hour due to the extent of the lesions.
This employee did the right thing and let everyone know she would be out. “I notified my entire company that I [would] be out on medical leave the day before I had surgery. My automatic emails are in place,” she shared. “However, my supervisor knew for over a month that I would be out.”
Despite this long-standing knowledge that the worker would be absent for a significant portion of time for a very serious reason, her boss didn’t give her the space she needed.
“My supervisor had my assistant reach out multiple times to [me] about work stuff, starting three days after my surgery,” she said. “I’m using PTO for my recovery, and I think they shouldn’t be contacting me at all.”
Now, this employee is worried about how much she is doing when she is supposed to be resting.
“I’m already doing too much physically and need to rest,” she stated. “Am I in the wrong? My doctor wanted me out at least four weeks. This is a six to eight-week recovery, and I also have an autoimmune disease that slows my healing down.”
“How do I tell my boss she was wrong and needs to respect my healing and PTO?” she asked. “Do I just leave [it] be since it already happened?”
Is it legal for an employer to contact you when you’re on medical leave?
While it may sound outrageous for an employer to reach out to you when you are trying to make a recovery, the legality of it may be a bit of an unknown area.
According to The Spiggle Law Firm, “If you are out on leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) because of your own or a family member’s health issues, you and your employer can have some contact. It’s generally acceptable if your employer reaches out to you to ask a question or clarify an issue while you’re away from work.”
However, the law firm did add an important clarification: “But if you’re being pestered constantly or asked to work while out on leave, that may violate the law — as long as you don’t voluntarily comply with the demands.”
This is where things get complicated for the employee who posted about her problems. First, if she already engaged with her boss after she contacted her multiple times, she may be seen as “voluntarily complying.”
What’s even more troublesome, though, is the fact that she doesn’t appear to be out on FMLA leave. Instead, she said she’s using PTO.
Rules for PTO are much more relaxed. When a reader wrote in to CBS Money Watch and asked if their boss could text them when they take PTO, they were told, “Simple answer: Yes. It’s legal. No laws require vacation time.”
If this woman is just taking PTO instead of a specified type of medical leave, it is likely completely acceptable for her boss to stay in contact with her.
The only question that remains is whether it is ethical.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.