Maternity Leave Read Online Free PDF Page B

two rest days, a prologue and twenty-one stages, including two time trials and a near even distribution of flat stages and mountain stages. The Tour de West, which is being sponsored Lydia Jackson, a popular fashion designer, avid cyclist, and outspoken feminist, is likely to attract the interest of all of the big European and American women’s professional teams. Thirteen teams, with nine women to a team, will take to the start on August 30th.
    I sat stunned and then read the article again. By definition, grand tours are cycling races that last three weeks and are between 1,800 to 2,400 miles in length. While professional men have raced grand tours in Italy, France and Spain every year for over one hundred years, women’s tours of these same countries generally last one week, and never more than two weeks. The distances covered in the women’s version of the Tours of Italy, Spain and France, are always significantly less than the men’s races, in terms of both overall distance and distance per day. Further, just as women’s cycling has always lagged behind men’s cycling, American cycling has always lagged behind European cycling. The longest cycling race in America, for men or women, is two weeks. Most U.S. stage races last only four to eight days. American race promoters have never bothered creating a three-week stage race for men because they know such a race cannot compete with the prestige of the three European grand tours. The Tour de West would be huge for both American and women’s cycling. Figuring out a way to attend the inaugural Tour de West became my project for the day in lieu of both legal work and my other methods of procrastination.
    There were a number of obstacles to my entering the Tour de West. First, assuming I was even talented enough to turn pro, I would have to be discovered by a professional team. Only professional teams, not individuals, would be welcome to race the Tour de West. There were no scouts at the Florida women’s races where I competed on the weekends. As a result, I could only be discovered if I traveled to other professional women’s races on the NRC schedule and did well. I needed to find a way to attend the five- or six-stage races leading up to the Tour de West so that I could try to get some results and increase my visibility to professional teams.
    The second major challenge was my job, or more specifically, avoiding my job. My three weeks of vacation time for the entire work year began on July 1 of each year. Even if the firm allowed me to take my entire three-week break at one time, which was unheard of, I would only be able to attend the actual Tour de West. I couldn’t even squeeze in travel days to and from the Tour, let alone other races in the months leading up to the event. It was a catch-22. I could use my vacation time to try and qualify for the Tour, but that wouldn’t leave any vacation time to actually race the Tour. If I saved my vacation days for the Tour, I would not be able to qualify for it. Ideally, I would need time off from work in July, August and September, which was nine months from now.
    The only way to do this was to quit my job, which would solve the time problem but create a money problem. I didn’t have savings to support a week of racing let alone three months of racing. I could sell my house, but the market was in the shitter and I hear buying high and selling low is not the best financial move. Besides, I couldn’t even imagine the hassle of moving all of my stuff into storage for three months, then moving it to an apartment during the off-season.
    David walked by my office as I was pondering my dilemma.
    “Hi Jennifer. Can you come by my office? I have a conference call on the Zimmerman file. I know it’s not yours, but I need someone on it for about three months until Sandra comes back from maternity leave.”
    “Sure, be right there,” I said as the most obvious idea in the world dawned on me.
    I would pretend to be pregnant