If One Cannot Hold a Job Down Because of Some Impediment...

[Ventus]

Something a lot of people don't seem to understand - myself especially - is that there are activity rules. If you're absent from school too many days, you have to repeat the year. If you're tardy too often at work, you get fired (or asked to resign or whatever). If you sleep in, you miss the party.

But, there are also crap tons of exceptions. For example, I could bring in a Dentist's note one day to school to get off free. Or if I'm hospitalized or bedridden, adjustments could be made via my siblings and online classes. I'm not too sure about work, though, as I've never had a job that allowed me to work from home ;p

So I want to know. If one cannot hold a job down because of some impediment, should they be removed from that job? Or should exceptions be made depending on the situation?

 

[Mercedes]

Well, we're human beings. Human beings will always get ill and have situations arise which will necessitate time away, that's the case for everyone, so penalising people for the occasional days or weeks they need to miss work is a bit stupid and no place really does that, especially if something is out of a person's control. Usually work has contingency plans to handle employees taking time off or when they can't make it in, that's how any good company works.

That said, it just depends how excessive it is, really. If I break my leg and can't work for a few weeks, or get pregnant and take maternity leave, I wouldn't lose my job, but if I was taking time off every other week and I was popping babies out like Activision pops out Call of Duties then yes, I'd probably get asked to leave my job. So it's situational and contextual; how often do these things happen (rarely, or is it too often?), were they out of a person's control or is time off due to self incompetence and little thought to work (someone ringing in ill because of an accident, fair enough; ringing in ill because you drank too much and are still drunk, not going to slide as well), and is the company in a position to require and ask for it not to happen. As is usually the case in life, everything in moderation really.

So, it really depends on a lot of things, I couldn't really give a general answer. It's all about context and situation whether someone should keep a job or position if they're not fulfilling it anymore.

 

[misskitten]

A woman over here got a terrible infection, which spread and as a result they had to amputate both her arms and legs. Her employer came to visit her while she was in the hospital and let her know that there was a job waiting for her when she got out, it took a year of physical therapy, of learning how to operate four artificial limbs. She managed to return to work, not in the same role as she had before, but one where she could still be a valuable worker for her employer.

So my answer is this, if it's something beyond someone's control; injuries, illnesses, etc. then they should have the option to return once they are able to. This woman and her employer managed, meaning it's possible for pretty much anyone out there.

 

[Baysiderulez]

The United States has protections in place for things like Maternity leave, FMLA (Family Medical Leave act), Short term/long term disability, ect... The ADA has a title 12 stating that employers cannot discriminate based on a whole list of things, two of them being disability or pregnancy.

Should someone with frequent absences be able to keep their job? I guess it all depends on the job, and the ability or flexibility. Some jobs have multiple people working on the same common project. Like medical billing for instance, insurance companies have 5-10 people in an office all working on claims. They don't really rely on each other but they are all doing the same job. So if one called out sick, yes there would be more work for the others but the job would still be getting done. Lets say you have a private doctors office and the doctor calls out sick quite frequently... Well the Nurses, admin personal, ect aren't certified to do the same job as a doctor and so that particular workplace is stalled while having the doctor out on sick leave.

I say if the job has ways to be flexible then yes by all means help the employee out to whatever extent the employer can. But if its a more inflexible job, perhaps it should be on the employee to see that they really cannot meet the demands of the job due to their life situation and find a more flexible work environment.