<$BlogRSDUrl$>

Friday, January 13, 2006

A Flawless Scheme 

The other day I was thinking that one good way to get free vacation from work would be to fake a pregnancy. Now, there are a few caveats to this, but overall, I think it's a good plan. It presupposes a couple of criteria, one being that you are morally bankrupt, and the other that you don't work with people who you see with outside of work on a regular basis who would care that you lied to them.

Now, let's take the easiest case: You're a male. My company offers paternity leave, I think, of two weeks. I don't have any children, nor have I ever tried this scheme, but my guess is that they really don't check that you've actually had a kid. I don't know what steps they take to prevent people abusing the system, but I'm willing to bet they're not many. Now, if you're a promiscuous guy, it's certainly possible that you actually are having multiple children by many different women. Realistically, if you were fathering 2 kids a month, you could never work.

My guess is that to qualify for paternity leave, you don't just have to father a kid; you're supposed to be a father to a kid. That's harder to prove, of course, but it'd be pretty easy for HR to check that you're not adding dependents to your tax filings. It's possible that the mother is always getting custody (as would be likely if you're a chronic impregnator), so I think HR wouldn't know for sure that you're not really fathering the kids. Still, I'd think this scheme would likely work once every couple of years.

But if you're female, the situation's a little different. The task would be harder, but the reward of three months of maternity leave (or whatever is common these days) might be worth it. First of all, it's not 9 months of the pregnancy charade - it's more like 4 or 5. Hell, it's not likely you'd even tell a co-worker before the first 3 months. Then, you could start wearing a series of increasingly large apparati that made you look pregnant. You could search for something lightweight and not too hot, so that you'd be comfortable. On the other hand, pregnant women are rarely comfortable, so maybe you want a bowling ball or something to haul around, just to help with the ruse.

Just looking pregnant probably wouldn't be sufficient, unless you were so detached from the rest of your office that no one would really bother you about the details. But they'll probably want to know the name of the baby - this is your opportunity to pick something completely absurd. They'll probably also expect to see pictures of your child in your office, but those are easy to find and print online. Although, the baby won't look anything like you, but you don't need to indulge your nosy co-workers by responding to their accusations.

HR would never know, as I imagine most times the husband/father takes the deduction. Just make sure you go to the bathroom a lot, and come in looking really sleepy and ragged in the mornings after your leave is up. As you'd expect, this ruse can only be pulled once every 9 months, but I'd be willing to bet that you'd get no questions the first 3 or 4 times you tried it.

I think this plan bears further investigation. Faithful readers, please try it out and report back to me. I'll be happy to forge any doctor's notes your company requires.

Saturday, January 07, 2006

Salutations 

Making up for lost time:

Happy Thanksgiving!

Merry Christmas!

Happy Hannukah!

(I'd say Happy Kwanzaa, but I don't believe I know anyone who celebrates it. Does anyone actually celebrate Kwanzaa? Does anyone know someone who does?)

Continuing...

Happy New Year!

And, finally, Hail to the Redskins!

(Life's been crazy. I'll post more eventually. You can rest assured that there's always something out there I want to blather on about.)

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?