And yet, if 50 of your employees can’t meet at Applebees after work, someone taking leave might not have legal job protection. Even if the work is covered. Even if the team has capacity. Even if the impact is minimal.

Parental leave combines the most complicated parts of HR into one policy: protected classes, disability, paid time off and sick time, obscure payroll esoterica, employees who are "active" but not "working" (and sometimes don't come back when you expect), insurance (policy details, deductions, and a qualifying event), onboarding and offboarding (maybe more than once per person), a bajillionty federal, state, and local laws, many of which conflict

People often confuse their job being 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝘁𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗱 (by FMLA, etc.) with getting 𝗽𝗮𝗶𝗱. It's a common mistake. I'm sorry. I really am. I know you're going through a lot. I hate delivering this message when it's already too late. 

This wasn’t payroll. It was a cold case. Policies contradicted payroll data. Contracts were locked behind sharing permissions from people who’d left the company. Folder names were gibberish. People paid hourly were getting flat rates with no timecards to confirm overtime. A million Scribe docs with no annotations. Hours of 20-minute videos with no transcripts.

It feels “leaderful” to manage policies, approve exceptions, or update payroll. That’s how power shows up for managers at big companies. But when founders take on those tasks, they lose sight of the strategic decisions that compound long-term.

Just like us, dogs align themselves with power. Oscar intuitively knows who the pack follows. Once he knows who’s the boss, he tries to win them over just like everyone else does. 

I forgot. I’d asked the new office manager to grab “breakfast” for the VIP meeting. I forgot “breakfast” was code for something different around here.

Even the fancy ben admin tools. Somewhere behind the curtain, someone is downloading a form and forwarding it to a carrier. Often using unsecured email.