What is your reaction to this?

It is very difficult to get a bad sup fired in State government. However, it can be done. After threee years of documentation, some union intervention, and even some political pressure, I was able to get one demoted. The sup in this new case will be heading down the same road eventually.

As far as my comments about Christianity and abortion, merely an attempt at sarcasm. Not mad at all.

Have a good one,

Abner

 

Here is the thing. An employer who has been informed by a worker the he/she has certain medical condition must accomodate said worker. The Office Manager (over all managers) told this workers supervisor she was to be given time to take her pills, since she was able to provide medical documentation. This is a wise management decision. In this case, the worker was going to take care of the line, the swallow some pills when the line was done.

Here is what started the whole problem. This supervisor took the food that the worker had placed "behind" the counter, and hid it? The particular food works in conjuction with the meds the worker is taking, so she panicked when she saw the food was gone. Swallowing some pills only takes a few seconds, so I would not call that a break. Anyway, I find this "taking" off the food strange.

Lesson of the day. If you are a manager and a worker tells you of certain medical conditions, accomdate him. If he informs you and you do not accomodate, you can end up in big trouble.

Gotta run,

Abner

 

I advised the worker to document everything. There is quiet a bit of documentation that I cannot post here. I will issue a subpoena for workmens comp records from a case involving this supervisor a couple of years ago. Apparently, a worker was badly harrased and berated until she had a stroke. She was taken to ER by the office Manager. Here is what I am looking for. The State Compensation Insurance Form stating "reason for claim". It should say something like "Stroke due to incident with Manager". I am also going to request the Managers personnel file to see if she was disclipined for said incident. Mostly likely, management brushed it under the table, not thinking this new thing would come up.

For the meanwhile, I had "chat" with this Manager. I let her know I am watching VERY closely. The problem with bad managers is once they get away with something, they think they can continue to do offense over and over again.

This one is actually going to turn out to be an interesting one. Here is the short of it. Denying someone their meds, then chasing them down is not good management, and it caused a lot of animosity amongst the other workers, who no longer respect said Supervisor.

I have been working with Director regarding this growing problem, as it relates to worker retention problems. I am glad to say she has come around to see my points. Bad managers need to be weeded out, demoted, or placed in other departments.

Abner :smile:

 

I think with a little (and I mean a little) common sense the incident should never have happened in the first place.

Who’s responsibility….and I mean RESPONSIBILTY is it to explain to the worker that:

a) First and foremost this is a business that depends on servicing customers to function
b) Her current job is to service the customers
c) Regularly scheduled breaks are given so that employees can use the restrooms, eat snacks, take medication, handle personal matters etc….this is so that everytime a person feels an urge to eat, drink, empty their bladder they aren’t taking off and leaving customers in limbo.
d) It is expected that with your condition, you would use your regularly scheduled break to eat your orange slice and take your medication, not wait until you’ve returned from break to decide minutes later that you now feel the desire to eat your orange slice and take your medication……all this while the customers in line (who also have complicated lives) are all made to sit and wait while you decide that now (with customers backed up) is the precise moment you want to take an additional break, as opposed to just eating the orange slice and taking her required medication during her regularly scheduled break like everyone else.
e) It is expected that when a situation like this arises, you don’t involve all the other employees, which then takes them away from servicing those poor people standing in line watching this completely unnecessary, self-created drama unfolding. The tragedy here is that customers (with lives and challenges of their own) have to stand and wait in line because a little common sense was not used.

All of this could have been avoided if she took her orange slice and medication during her normally scheduled break. Where’s the common sense?

Also you might want to mention to this person that if she indeed does have diabetes, it probably does not make a lot of sense to eat pie for snacks during the day. Again common sense.

 

That is one side. I appreciate your comments. And I will add, I like your style. Would you as Manager, handle the situation the way the one in question did? This is a pass or fail question. :evil:

I get the impression you did not read the entirety of my posts.


Abner :smile:

 

I did read your posts and I understand that the manager's fault under this scenario. My question is, to prevent this sort of thing from happening again, who sits down with this employee and explains to her that she has a role as well? I mean seriously, if she is an employee who gets regular breaks, lunches, afternoon breaks, etc, who and what is preventing her from taking responsibility and eating her orange slice and taking her medication during her scheduled breaks and lunch?

What is the additional "special accomadations" requirement, if she already has scheduled breaks and lunches that already make it possible for her to ALREADY take her orange slice and medication as needed.

My real question is, who sits down with her and talks some common sense with her, or is does everyone say "not my problem" ?

 

Pie recipes are available for diabetics.

 

If I was the supervisor and knew an employee was pregnant or had medical issues I would have sat down with him/her to discuss needs and fitted them into the workplace.

 

Conversly. Who sits down with the manager? This happened to be a morning where half the staff was missing for one reason or the other. This young lady had to take a late break, and forgot to take her pills. She was suddenly, brusquely told to cover this post and that post.

Let me clarify something. My job is not defend the manager. My job is to defend the worker.

So, what is my job? To determine if violations have occured against a worker. I am not judge and jury, as I clearly stated with my FIRST post. Does this cause rise to the occasion of worker violations. Yes. Does the manager have a past problematic history, yes.

My job is done, based upons the facts, and witness statements.

Abner

 

Which is the senseable thing to do. The labor commision does not take kindly towards non-complaince of pregnant women.


Abner

 

Who is to say the pie recipe was not non-sugar?

Abner

 

:ugh:I always try to be flexible.....but manager frustration in stressfull situations can do strange things!

Also, some managers just shouldn't be managers!!!!

 

Exacly my point. Heck, I have done strange things. However, I am not a manager.

Abner

 

The Office Manager that the employee ultimately went to. He obviously has an open door policy, since the employee immediately went to him. He personally delivered the food to the employee. I'm sure he had a conversation with her manager to hear her side of the story as well.

Although she was asked to go to her work station by her supervisor, there is nothing in her story that indicates her break was cut short causing her to forget to take her medication. Her failure to take her medication and eat her orange slice during her break was completely her own doing.

Understood from the beginning.

What violation occured? The food should not have been brought into the counter area, that is company policy. You don't nosh while dealing with customers. The food was removed from the area. The manager acknowledged she had removed it, since food isn't allowed in that area. When the employee asked for the food back, the manager asked to have a meeting (most likely to discuss not bringing food into the counter area). The employee refused, she went to the bathroom, then went over her head to her supervisor to get her food back. The Office Manager (the main boss) sent her to the break area, went and got her food and delivered it to her. She the ate her food and returned to work. Problem solved.

Is the fact that the manager removed food from the counter area (in keeping with company policy) the violation?

I don't think the pregnancy had anything to do with it. If the situation was that critical the employee wouldn't have "forgotten" to take the medication over her break......and if this episode was as trauma filled as written, then surely she would have needed to take the rest of the day off to recover from her suffering (unless of course it would be unpaid).

I think the real lesson here is "don't mess with my pie or you'll be sorry". If the worker has the ability to wield this type of power, by crying foul over anything she deems is unacceptable to her (company policy be damned) then management needs to cut their losses and either give her paid leave or give her a token job in an area that doesn't involve direct customer contact.

 

As a manager and someone with a passing understanding of law, though by no means a lawyer.

1. Abner - unless you're a notary and police detective I don't trust your statement that you checked something out thoroughly. Sorry.

2. Public opinion doesn't matter the least bit in terms of what is right or wrong with the events stated in your initial post. There's law and there's what happened.

So the question back at you is, in your estimation based on your thorough check, what's the law in this case and how does the employee, employer and retained legal counsel interpret it?

Unless you seriously think that any of our opinions are a good basis for advising the worker in question.. I'd strongly suggest against that thought process.

Best,
ITJD

 

On the other hand, some employees just should not be service employees either...just saying :salook:

 

It's very clear what your doing and how you feel. I feel that the manager never had a chance. Witnesses? Did you ever talk to the Supervisior?

Were still friends just my thoughts :yumyum:

 

Abner - It's clear that you think the supervisor was wrong. So just say so. She doesn't necessarilly need to be fired but c'mon man, what's the real issue here? You seem to know who's right and who's wrong....