my how a lot has changed

What a warm welcome back...

My first week back at work after maternity leave was uneventful except when I was noticing on my pay stubs my PTO (paid time off) was in the negative. I was under the assumption that my time cards were entered incorrectly and therefore my PTO was negatively accounted for. Mind you, before I went on leave the HR person with whom I spoke to had indicated that although I was part time I still would qualify for paid leave and the first week I had to use my PTO, leaving me with a positive balance of 25 hours (or 5 PTO days) for after I returned to work.

Naturally, the next week I contact HR and indicate the problem I was experiencing. That woman with whom I spoke with was very nice and had informed me that I have a specific HR person who is assigned to me and that I would need to speak to that woman -- Carmen. Well Carmen was unavailable at that time and was instructed through a message to call me back.

I receive a call from Carmen about 30 minutes later and she is an ass to start off with. Secondly she is telling me that due to my position with company I was never eligible for paid leave and that the negative balance of 50 PTO hours (those not including the PTO unaccounted for on my next check I was due to receive) would need to be paid back because i was essentially 'over paid'. As I am speaking with this woman, who knows full well that I just had a newborn child then decides to tell me that instead of working everything out the only option would be for me to get no paychecks... for the next 5/6 weeks. I am livid at this point and we are going around in circles that I had been misinformed. Carmen of course not wanting to believe me, because how could I have possibly been misinformed due to HR ineptitude. Mind you, I had started the process for my leave back in January. I had to explain to this daft woman, who by the way works for me because she is my HR person, as to how in the world I would have been planning 6 weeks of leave on false information given to me back in January. Then apparently it started to 'click' for her and she was calming her attitude and trying to empathize with my situation. The conversation ended with her putting me on 'pause' to do her research and she would give me a call back.

Of course at that moment I go to my immediate supervisor and state that if they are going to be taking my paychecks I would be walking out that day. How dare they even try to corner me like that. I have been more than dedicated to my job and all of the responsibilities that have been assigned to me.

Long story short, my supervisor was able to speak to Carmen's superior in HR and they got it all worked out to where I won't be paying back 5 weeks of pay but in return I won't be granted anymore PTO for the year. It's bittersweet because there are guaranteed days that I will need to call off due to my child being ill and what not, but on the same token when I was only granted 55 hours of PTO by the company I ended up getting about 150 hours paid. So I can't be too angry about that.

All in all, it got resolved but damn did it have to go that far?