I was fired from my job on Thursday. They were nice enough to let me finish out my day before escorting me in to a small interrogation room to give me the news. What did I do to find myself in this unfortunate situation you ask? I got sick. To be more specific, I made the mistake of getting the cold/flu. About a week or two before I got sick, our Human Resources department sent out the following email to everyone.
“Gang,
There is a great deal of talk already about the upcoming flu season. An added concern this year is the H1N1 Virus (Swine Flu). This is a concern for everyone and either in the workplace or at school. We have some pointers for folks as we near this time. Please share this information with your teams and let's do everything we can to keep our Citizens healthy!
Current Guidance:
o People
* Stay home if sick
* The current guidance is to stay home for 24 hours after your
fever is gone (without fever reducing medicine)
o Maintain good flu hygiene
* Cover your cough
* Frequent hand washing or use of hand sanitizer
* Frequent cleaning of surfaces
o Community
* Be aware of changing CDC guidance
* School closing
* At-risk groups
* 'Stay At Home' guidelines
* Follow local health department recommendations if applicable
o Business
* Maintain the calm
* Ensure cleaning and sanitation supplies are on-hand
* Hand sanitizer
* Sanitizing surface wipes
* Encourage sick employees to stay home
* May require doctor note to return
* Report cases via the Emergency Hotline
As time goes on, if there are any updates or further guidance I will get it out to everyone.”
I became sick not long after this email was sent. I did exactly what the email stated to do. I stayed home from work & I waited 24 hours after my fever was gone. I was sick from Wednesday, September 2nd 2009 to Tuesday, September 8th 2009 (Monday, September 7th 2009 was a holiday (Labor Day) & my company was closed for business). It was actually a bit longer than that if you want to count the following week where I was coughing up fluid from my lungs. If you’ve ever had the flu, you’ll know that this amount of time isn’t at all abnormal. As a matter of fact, the Center For Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) says the following about the flu on their website.
“How long is a person with flu virus contagious? The period when an infected person is contagious depends on the age and health of the person. Studies show that most healthy adults may be able to infect others from 1 day prior to becoming sick and for 5-7 days after they first develop symptoms. Some young children and people with weakened immune systems may be contagious for longer than a week.”
In theory, according to the CDC, I may have been contagious from Tuesday, September 1st 2009 to Wednesday, September 9th 2009. This means that it’s possible that I was spreading the flu to other people the day before I began calling in sick (which isn’t avoidable because I’m not psychic) & even on the day that I came back to work. If a business was actually interested in minimizing the risk of spreading illness, don’t you think that they would encourage their employees to stay at home during the period in which they could be contagious? The email sent out by the Human Resources department seemed to indicate this & the CDC actually recommends it under their “What To Do If You Get Sick: 2009 H1N1 & Seasonal Flu” guidelines.
“What should I do if I get sick? If you get sick with flu-like symptoms this flu season, you should stay home and avoid contact with other people except to get medical care. Most people with 2009 H1N1 have had mild illness and have not needed medical care or antiviral drugs and the same is true of seasonal flu.”
“How long should I stay home if I’m sick? The CDC recommends that you stay home for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone except to get medical care or for other things you have to do and no one else can do for you. (Your fever should be gone without the use of a fever-reducing medicine, such as Tylenol®.) You should stay home from work, school, travel, shopping, social events, and public gatherings.”
I could’ve went to work sick, miserable & potentially contagious, but I instead decided to do what I thought was the “right” thing to do. I decided to stay at home to take care of myself so that I could come back healthy the week after, to avoid the potential spreading of my illness to other employees & to spare my company a week of low productivity (it’s a productivity-based company). I thought that the email that was sent out by my Human Resources department was a sign of “concern” & that the CDC guidelines were something that employers actually considered. It appears that I was mistaken.
On Tuesday, September 8th 2009 I emailed my manager to let him know that I was still sick but that I would try my hardest to come in the next day. I was still sick & while I thought that I may have had a fever, I was beginning to feel guilty about being at home because I actually had it in my mind that I was needed. Several hours later I received a response.
“Since you have missed more than 3 consecutive days due to illness, I must sign you up for FMLA and you will need to provide doctors documentation to cover these days.”
I had never heard of this policy before so I checked my company’s “Attendance Policy” which I had a copy of. There was nothing in this policy that mentioned the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or anything happening after missing 3 days except for accruing “attendance points” or “job abandonment” (the latter only being the case if one didn’t call in). The policy is as follows (only relevant portions have been included due to the length of the document).
“Good attendance is essential for the success of ***. The *** Attendance Policy is in effect to ensure that employees have a clear understanding of attendance expectations and the consequences for sub-par attendance.
APPLIES TO
All *** non-exempt (hourly) associates.
THE *** ATTENDANCE SYSTEM
***’s Attendance System is based on a Rolling 12-month Calendar. Points are administered in the following circumstances:
0 P O I N T S
- Use of appropriate benefit time which covers your entire scheduled shift
- Absences which are related to a Leave of Absence
1 P O I N T
- Unscheduled absence
CORRECTIVE ACTION AFTER THE FIRST 90 DAYS
Points are accumulated on a rolling twelve month calendar. Points will drop off after one year from the incident date. For example, a point that is earned on September 30, 2008 will drop off on September 30, 2009. Action will be taken after the 90 day period at the following points:
1 - 7 points Informal Warning
8 points Written Warning
9 points Final Warning
10 points Subject to Termination
GENERAL PROVISIONS
- Employees who are absent three (3) consecutive work days without notifications will be assumed to have voluntarily quit, due to job abandonment.
- Employees are responsible to know the status of their points at all times.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Unscheduled Absence: Missing two hours or more of a scheduled shift without receiving advanced approval.
RESERVATION OF RIGHTS
The implementation of this policy and its terms do not modify the at will nature of the employment relationship at **/***. The company reserves the right to interpret, change, rescind, or depart from this policy in whole or in part.
STATEMENT OF ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I hereby acknowledge I have read and understand the *** Attendance Policy. I agree that I am responsible for familiarizing myself with the policy and the information therein.
As you can see, there’s nothing within this document that mentions FMLA (other than the portion that mentions absences covered under a “Leave of Absence” giving you 0 points). I recognize the fact that this doesn’t necessarily mean anything, legally-speaking, but it certainly raises ethical concerns. What would prevent a company from adding a section to this policy stating that “if you’re absent for more than 3 consecutive days, they reserve the right to apply for FMLA on your behalf”? They certainly didn’t waste any time reserving their “right to interpret, change, rescind, or depart from this policy in whole or in part”. If “the attendance policy is in effect to ensure that employees have a clear understanding of attendance expectations & the consequences for sub-par attendance” why then would something so important be left out? Is it because they don’t want people to know this fact? I think that this would be a reasonable assumption if assumptions can indeed be reasonable.
I attempted to see my primary care physician the day before I went back to work (the same day that my manager told me that I needed to provide “doctor’s documentation”) but his office was unable to get me in. I instead went to an immediate care center. A doctor wasn’t available so I was instead seen by a Nurse Practitioner. I explained to her that I had been out sick for 7 days, including that day, with what I thought was the cold/flu & that my manager requested that I bring “doctor’s documentation”. The nurse practitioner looked me over for a few minutes & asked me what I had been doing to relieve my symptoms. I told her that I had been on a steady diet of water, chicken noodle soup & Nyquil/Dayquil. She told me that this was good & she wrote me a doctor’s note stating that I was “able to return to work on 9/9/09 (the following day).
I returned to work the following day & when I attempted to give the “doctor’s documentation” to my manager, he told me that this isn’t what they wanted. He said that he had signed me up for FMLA & that I would be receiving an email with instructions & forms that both myself & my doctor would need to complete & submit. I had a feeling at that moment that something strange was going on & that this was more serious than I had suspected. I became frustrated that I was going to have to pay to see my doctor a 2nd time. I felt like I was being punished for being sick. It was even more frustrating knowing that the only other place that I had been for past several weeks besides work was home so that it was quite likely that I had contracted this illness at work. I received the email later that morning. It was from my leave of absence caseworker. She notified me that she would be emailing me a “leave of absence packet”. I responded to her email.
“I would just like to state for the record that I didn't request a leave of absence. My manager, ******* ***** has requested a leave of absence for me, despite the fact that I don't think that me having a cold or the flu constitutes a "serious health condition". Our HR department (specifically ****** ********) sent an email out a week or 2 before I was sick stating that the business should "encourage sick employees to stay home". I had personal &/or sick time to cover my absence & while I could've physically made it to work, I thought that I was doing the right thing by staying at home so that I wouldn't bring down my team's productivity &/or quality as well as avoiding the possibility of potentially spreading my illness if I did turn out to be contagious. I'm familiar with the attendance policy guidelines that have been presented to me & I don't see anything within this documentation that states that anything that's going on here as being a possibility. I have emailed my HR department (specifically ****** ********) for a copy of the policy that states that all of this is necessary, but I have yet to receive a response. If I'm stating to you that I was simply sick with a cold or the flu & that my illness isn't serious & that according to the FMLA guidelines as listed on their website, this wouldn't be covered, I don't understand why I'm being forced to go through this process when my request will almost certainly be denied. There's something rather strange going on here & I would appreciate it if I was given an in-depth explanation as to what. Thanks!”
I never received a response. I printed out the FMLA documents. Most, if not all of the information that I was supposed to fill out, had already been completed by my caseworker. I took the documents to the immediate care center & left them with the lady at the front desk. She told me that it may take a day or two to have them completed. I attempted to contact my caseworker via the phone number that was provided in the documentation. I was forwarded to a representative that I assumed because of the accent was in India. I explained to her that I had some concerns & that I wanted to speak with my caseworker. She said that she would leave notes in the system & that the caseworker would call me back “shortly” on my cellphone. She didn’t call me that night. I called back the next day from work. I spoke to another representative that I assume was in India. I asked her why the caseworker hadn’t called me back. She stated that she hadn’t called me because I had never requested for her to do so. I explained to her that I had called the night before & made this request. She said that the notes stated that I had called but that there was no request listed. I gave this representative my cellphone & work phone numbers. I asked her to have the caseworker contact me at work if it was before 5:30PM & at home if it was any time after & this was my schedule every day except for Saturdays & Sundays. A few days later, my wife picked the documents up & the day after that I faxed them to the given number provided by my caseworker. The caseworker finally called me, but it was only to leave a voicemail asking me to call her, on my cellphone, which I’m not allowed to have at work, despite my earlier request for her to call me on my work phone during that time.
I later received a letter in the mail as well as an email stating that my request for a leave of absence had been denied because of the dates listed by my nurse practitioner not matching the dates that I was off. Well, of course they didn’t. The nurse practitioner didn’t see me until the 7th day of my sickness. I wouldn’t expect a professional to state that I needed 4 days off of work when by the time I got to her I was barely sick. According to the FMLA guidelines an employee can actually go to a doctor up until the 7th day of their sickness. However, it’s ultimately up to the doctor to decide whether or not they’ll sign off for those days prior to that visit. The nurse practitioner that I saw didn’t want to do that. I even took the documents back to the immediate care center to see if they would be willing but the lady at the front desk refused to even ask the nurse practitioner to change the dates to include the days prior to my visit (this is about $15-25 each time that you do this I might add, not counting the co-payment for my previous visit). I don’t blame these healthcare professionals. There are probably a lot of people out there that abuse the FMLA system. Unfortunately for me, I had made the decision not to go to the doctor during the first few days of my sickness. My wife had to take our only functional vehicle to work, I didn’t want to put anyone else out or give them my illness & we were saving for a trip overseas so that I could meet my wife’s family & we didn’t really want to waste money on something that I had recovered from several times in the past with over-the-counter medicine & rest. However, in my defense, I’ve never worked for an employer before that requested/required anything more than a doctor’s note if I was sick (despite the amount of time). Also, according to the CDC, you don’t need medical assistance unless you’re “very sick”.
“Most people with 2009 H1N1 have had mild illness and have not needed medical care or antiviral drugs and the same is true of seasonal flu.”
“Do I need to go the emergency room if I am only a little sick? No. The emergency room should be used for people who are very sick. You should not go to the emergency room if you are only mildly ill. If you have the emergency warning signs of flu sickness, you should go to the emergency room. If you get sick with flu symptoms and are at high risk of flu complications or you are concerned about your illness, call your health care provider for advice. If you go to the emergency room and you are not sick with the flu, you may catch it from people who do have it”
I finally received a telephone call from my caseworker 19 days after I requested that she called me. This was after the initial deadline for the FMLA documents. She only called me because my wife & I tricked her in to it. We predicted that she would eventually call my cellphone again while I was at work, so I had my wife take my cellphone to work every day, so if she did call, my wife would force her to call me at work. Our plan worked. It’s easier to avoid/ignore people when they’re not actually speaking with you. I wanted to ask the caseworker why she was avoiding/ignoring me but I didn’t think that line of questioning would get me anywhere, so I instead told her that I had suspected from my first day back at work, through my own research, that I wouldn’t qualify for FMLA & that this entire process had been a waste of time (for both parties) & money (on my part). I then told her that my nurse practitioner wasn’t going to comply with my request to change the dates to include those prior to my visit. I asked her what would happen if I was denied for a leave of absence. She told me that I would accrue attendance points. I told her that I wasn’t concerned about this because I didn’t have many & that these absences weren’t enough to give me the amount of points that I needed to be terminated (I only had 4 & even if they gave me 1 for each day that I was out, I would end up with 8, which is 2 short of the amount that they need to terminate me), according to the attendance policy. She said “OK”, asked me if I had any further questions & that was that. Or so I thought.
According to one of my next pay stubs, my sick/personal time was used to cover those 4 days (this left me with 3) & I was paid for them. I never received an email, which is normally sent, when you acquire attendance points, much like the one below that’s actually the last one that I received.
Violation History:
1 Point(s) Absent on 6/8/2009
1 Point(s) Absent on 6/9/2009
1 Point(s) Absent on 6/10/2009
1 Point(s) Absent on 7/24/2009
Several weeks went by & while this whole ordeal had been frustrating & was still in the back of my mind (mostly because my peers were asking me for updates) I had assumed that it was over with. As you now know, because I already told you that I was fired, it wasn’t. I won’t pretend that I wasn’t a little paranoid that something like this might occur, mostly because of shady things within the company that have gone on in the past, but I was trying to be as optimistic as possible, especially since my caseworker had never indicated that I my employment would be terminated. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do at this point but let’s just say that I’m exploring my options. No matter what comes of this, I must say that I’ve learned a few life-lessons from this. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Feel free to post comments if you have them.
