Family Emergency in Minnesota

[hm4cm]

Hi
I am wondering about alot of things concerning my present employer...but the one that has me really steamed is this:
My son has some serious physic problems. I have been battling these issues with him for several years. I informed my boss of things as they happened and about 1 month ago told her that I would need to take a leave of absence soon because of some testing and doctors appts for him. 2 weeks ago I asked for her to cut my hours back by 2 days in a pay period (2 weeks). Not a problem. She did that. But insisted that I keep my weekend hours, no problem for me. I explained to her that I was unsure when this leave of absence would need to take place or for how long and would probably not be able to give her much notice at all if any. See my son was on a waiting list at 3 different places to be inpatient for evaluation. And when they call and say "time to go" it means get there now! We finally got that call on Wed 3/8/06 and I was at work. When I called around to get someone to come in and work for me and was having no luck I called her at home of course she had already left for the day (this was at 4PM), she told me that "the hospital will just have to bend a little, when they say to bring him now they mean as soon as you can, you can wait till you get off work at 10:00PM!" Mind you we were taking him to Sioux Falls, SD which is a minimum of 2 hours away. I work at an Assisted Living facility with 14 residents and only one girl on during a shift. Our social worker was great! She helped me call around until I found someone. She even offered to stay until someone could come in. I would just have to give meds before I left because she is not certified to do it. My boss is an RN and could have come in and worked for me until someone else could get there. I had told her about the situation in advance and feel that this was a family emergency. Am I wrong? Do I have to give a 2 week notice or can I just quit because of this? I love the residents and other people I work with there but if this is how she is what do I do? She is also like this when we call her about residents issues, like being sick, or whatever. She does not like to be bothered for anything even when she is in the building. She just wants to pour meds and leave. She even has me doing all the computer and chart work!
Any Advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

[Pattymd]

The first thing we have to determine is whether this could possibly be an FMLA-related absence.

1. Does your employer have at least 50 employees at your job site or a total of 50 within a 75-mile radius of your job site?
2. Have you been employer for at least 1 year?
3. Have you worked at least 1,250 hours in the past year?
4. How much time have you missed TOTAL in the last 12 months for this reason?

[hm4cm]

1. Yes
2. No I have been there since July 2005
3. Not sure about the hours worked
4. Not sure about how much time I have missed because of this. I have been having migrains alot due to stress and the boss thinks it is because of the situation (she voiced this).

[Marketeer]

If you've only worked there since July 2005, your leave does not fall under the protections of the Family and Medical Leave Act. Thus, your employer does not have to provide you with a leave of absence no matter how compelling the circumstances are.

You can certainly quit without two weeks notice, but that's the sort of thing that can rebound on you when you go to look for another job.

[hm4cm]

I think that maybe I should explain more....
I do not want to have a leave of absence and expect them to save my job for me....I wanted to keep her informed of the situation. When I applied for the job I wanted only "on-call" hours so I had the option of saying no to work. They had a situation where another girl needed to take some time off so I reluctantly agreed to fill in for her, she came back and then someone else quit and so on....so that is how I ended up working regular hours. The boss has known about my situation from the start and why I only wanted call in type hours. What I am so upset about is that I thought that an employer had to allow you to leave when you had a family emergency. SInce I had kept her up to date on my situation and she knew that this might happen I thought it was her responsibilty to have someone there to care for the residents if I had to go. I honestly made every effort to get someone in there quickly to work before I called her. I did end up finding someone to come in but it was after begging and crying to them on the phone!

[cbg]

There is no law that says an employer has to allow you to leave for a family e emergency unless ALL of the following are true:

1.) The employer is covered by FMLA
2.) YOU are covered by FMLA
3.) The emergency is one for which FMLA would apply.

That is not the case here; you have not worked long enough for FMLA to apply to you. It is not her responsibility to have someone on standby in case you have to leave.

[hm4cm]

I guess my question is then.....what good does it do to communicate to your boss and try to make prior arrangements? She was fine with the fact that I might have to leave at a moments notice until it actually happened. Like I said before I was hired for "call-in" and was nice enough to fill in for her until she could find someone else to work there on a permanent basis. So I think that she could have been flexible with me since she knew the reason I wanted only call-in. I should have NEVER tried to help her out....seems to be getting me in trouble. I think I will be contacting some politicians and trying to get some things changed in the laws.