RL Anger
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The anger continues. I haven’t heard back on the hr thing, I got sniped at by a nurse at my pcp’s office who insisted I had to call the satellite office, which was wrong. I had to argue via email over pto to go for some tests later this week. And my job has the accommodations paperwork that tells them I may need more time and more frequent bathroom breaks as a diabetic. Because I drink a ton of water to help stay hydrated and keep the sugar balanced. They are still trying to keep me to the same measly minutes they allow as a baseline. My doctor was furious to hear they only wanted to allow me fifteen minutes to handle a crash. I need fifteen just to let glucose tabs work. Now they will let me clock out for up to thirty minutes, and expect me to cut my lunch short, give up breaks and come in early to ‘make up’. My doc sent new accommodation orders, telling them I need time for dr appointments every month and a day I can take if I have had a bad crash and need to recover. They got this Friday and keep emailing me that they will call me. Nothing yet. When they felt there wasn’t much there they had it all discussed with me and my supervisor same day. They always had a mini fridge but it took three faxes from my doc to make them admit it and show me where it is so I can keep unopened insulin I might need cold. So pissed off with the bullshit.
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Keep documenting all of this. Keep a journal.
It will help if you later decide you want to file an action under the ADA.
This is a textbook case. I've seen the pattern.
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@ganymede I’ve been trying to get in touch with the ADA to see if what they’re doing is all above board. I honestly feel hounded when I sugar crash to get back in queue. My diagnosis changed six weeks ago and my treatment is still being adjusted so this will not be my normal, but jeez.
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You'll hear a lot of excuses. "We can't make too many exceptions." "We have to be fair to everyone." And it's all bullshit: fairness is about treating people based on their needs, not the same. And, thankfully, the ADA keeps this in mind.
It's not fair to force a diabetic to stick to the same schedule as people without diabetes, just like it's not fair to force someone without a leg to participate in an ass-kicking contest.
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@ganymede you’re amazing. It’s nice to know that there really are real protections for me.
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And then there are places that allow people to donate their unused sick time to other employees who may need it to deal with things.
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@misadventure said in RL Anger:
And then there are places that allow people to donate their unused sick time to other employees who may need it to deal with things.
Let me just say the following to vent. It's not a personal thing.
The above policy is not a substitute for ADA compliance, and is a bullshit way for a company to shove the responsibility of making reasonable accommodations onto its employees.
If Sally has Crohn's disease that must be monitored every two months by a doctor and requires her to take half-a-day off, the ADA mandates that such accommodation be given to Sally upon request without penalty. An employer should not be forcing Sally to take sick, vacation, or FMLA leave to do something related to a documented disability. That is literally taking money from Sally's pockets as a penalty for her disability, relative to other people who do not have the same disability. The employer could ask Sally to spend half-a-day's worth of time after work on other days to make up for the appointment, but that's a reasonable accommodation because she would be working the same hours as everyone else.
To me, employers that try to guilt their workers into donating their sick or vacation leave to another employee with a documented disability for which a reasonable accommodation can and should be made are actually defrauding the employees. And they shouldn't stand for it.
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I still need to sit down and make my doctor actually fill out the ADA paperwork for my job.
I want to see if they'll actually do anything at all.
Because I doubt it.
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My job is being amazing about my whole thing, AND allows for other employees to donate sick leave. No guilt or anything; as soon as I came back to work, people started approaching me in the halls asking if they could help, because most folks have so much stored up they'd like to use it to help.
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Because I doubt it.
The most frustrating thing about these sorts of issues is that the employer asks itself the wrong question.
It's not "do I have to do this to comply with the ADA?"
It should be "would it be the right thing to do to give my worker some extra time to deal with their documented disability?"
And the clients I have that operate and grow successfully always ask about the first before coming to realize the second gets you to the right answer a lot faster.
My job is being amazing about my whole thing, AND allows for other employees to donate sick leave. No guilt or anything; as soon as I came back to work, people started approaching me in the halls asking if they could help, because most folks have so much stored up they'd like to use it to help.
I misspoke. What I meant to say was that if the policy were to ask people to donate time rather than accommodate a person with disability, then that's a shitty substitute.
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Just got off the phone with Hr. This isn’t going to be pretty. The dr put in that I might miss up to four hours a month for appointment/treatment. They listed times they offer appointments. Which is during my nine hour workday, Monday thru Friday schedule. “Can’t you schedule outside of work hours? Can’t you schedule ahead and use pto?” This is for emergency treatment sort of thing. I can’t schedule that. They blew right past the time for recovery possibly being more than the break they want to give me, as pointed out by the accommodations. They’re calling this my ‘requests’. No bitch this is not a request
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Might want to look for a local employment lawyer.
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@ganymede The company in question has no problems being ADA compliant. The program allocates pay to people who have exhausted their own time off. Not extra days off without being fired, paid days that otherwise would vanish if unused. Atop paying for tier 1 short and long-term disability insurance. And there is no guilting unless you consider a paragraph on a web page about what health benefits and programs the company has.
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@misadventure except that they are not really willing. They expect a timed response and recovery to something that cannot be timed. They are not willing to allow me the time to leave for recovery as is considered a reasonable accommodation request- as in when I have two sugar crashes in less than eight hours- they do not want to give me the leave to rest and recover. They insist I clock in and out for every glucose check, injection and bathroom run - which handily eats up the thirty minute unpaid break they are willing to give me every day to handle my ‘issues’ - and leaves me no room if I do crash or spike. They also expect to come in and makeup that time. Which since I need those things everyday- means there is no way with the scheduled hours we are open etc for me to ever actually ‘make it up’ without cutting into the lunchtime
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@macha I was trying to highlight that some companies actually try, and say that yes people definitely deserve better.
That's not working out, so I'm bowing out.
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@misadventure I was on my phone, and it didn't show me all the posts. I thought you were trying to say MY company was being compliant. Sorry!
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So now they have sent me an incomplete accommodation document, are dodging straight questions about how they expect me to handle my glucose testing, injections, and bathroom breaks beyond the eight minutes we are allowed. They seem to expect me to use my fifteen minute breaks or my lunch to do these thing. I test five times a day during work hours. I can not time when I will need the lavatory or have a sugar crash/spike if I have one. Yesterday I had a crash ten minutes before the end of my shift. Clearly my breaks and all of that were past time. So wtf. I can’t wait for them to strike out when I add the ADA considered reasonable accommodation that will let me leave to recover if I am in a bad way.
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I take my dog to a local gated field for when he needs to do some sprinting. I've known for months that someone is living there, because there's a tarp under some trees with their stuff and every now and then the configuration changes. But until yesterday I had never seen that person.
Who as it turns out, is a late teens/early twenty-something trans girl. My heart just broke for her. I gave her my phone number and gave her a ride to the mall so she could charge her phone. I'm seriously considering stopping at the grocery store on my way there this afternoon and picking up some bread and peanut butter so she has something to eat.
I'm hesitant to contact any kind of services because I worry she'll get kicked out of the field. I think the only reason she hasn't been so far is that no one has noticed her. I don't want to be responsible for her being kicked out of the only place she has to sleep.