Posted on 10/26/2005 3:40:21 PM PDT by SmithL
Caledonia, Mich. -- A woman who took an unpaid leave of absence from work to see her husband off to war with an Indiana National Guard unit has been fired after failing to show up for her part-time receptionist job the day following his departure.
"It was a shock," said Suzette Boler, a 40-year-old mother of three and grandmother of three. "I was hurt. I felt abandoned by people I thought cared for me. I sat down on the floor and cried for probably two hours."
Officials at her former workplace, Benefit Management Administrators Inc., a Caledonia employee-benefits company, confirmed that Boler was dismissed when she didn't report to work the day after she said goodbye to her husband of 22 years.
"We gave her sufficient time to get back to work," Clark Galloway, vice president of operations for Benefit Management, told The Grand Rapids Press for a story Wednesday.
He added that other factors were involved in the decision, but he declined to elaborate.
On Oct. 16, Boler went with her husband, Army Spc. Jerry Boler, 45, to an Indianapolis-area airfield, where he and others in his National Guard unit gathered to be transported to Fort Dix, N.J. The unit will soon be deployed to Iraq, where he will help guard convoys from insurgent attacks.
Although the Bolers moved to western Michigan 14 years ago, Jerry Boler, a diesel mechanic, decided to remain with his Bloomington, Ind.-based Guard unit, the 150th Field Artillery Regiment.
Suzette Boler had received permission to take off work the week leading up to her husband's departure. As a part-time employee at Benefit Management, she did not receive vacation pay and was not compensated for her time off.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
That is explained in the story.
She was supposed to return to work on Monday. She told them it might be Tuesday. When she did not show up on Monday they fired her.
And exactly how far should a company go to accomodate a part time employee? Seems like they've been giving her plenty of time off in the past. This may have been the last straw.
Well I'll go this far. If they truly are the bad guys, I do not approve. Thanks for bringing the subject to our attention.
Apparently we don't know the whole story.
Boler recalled being asked, not ordered, to start back at her job Oct. 17, the day after her husband left. She told her bosses that she would try to return that day but if she could not, she would definitely be back Oct. 18, she said.
But on the afternoon of Oct. 17, she received a call from work telling her to come in the following day and get her things because she was being fired. Her pink slip said the reason was she failed to show up for work Oct. 17, a Monday. "If I had even an inkling that I would be fired for not coming in Monday, I would have been there," she said.
So if she's telling the truth, it looks like the company was a bit harsh on her. Or it could be that she was a crappy employee and they were looking for an excuse to get rid of her.
There's a lot of unanswered questions here, where's the rest of the story?????? Was the day after departure one of the days requested? If so, I've got a problem with her being fired.
Or perhaps this was the final straw on the list of reasons the company had compiled against her.
Ok, what do we know about this? Nothing, except that she was fired.
I have a feeling that there was an emotional component for this woman. She may not have been ready to return on Monday.
Excellent point.
Unless she was a civil service employee working under contract you're probably right it wasn't necessarily unlawful but she still has a right to sue the employer to get her job back. If I were her I probably wouldn't waste my time with that company...
Not really. The part you excerpted has her claiming that they didn't order her to be back at work on Monday the 17th. He said/she said. However the company gave her the entire week off before her husband's departure on Sunday the 16th, she admitted returning home Sunday nite of the 16th, and deciding not to come in on Monday the 17th. If the company is telling the truth, then the headline is misleading and she didn't show up to work when she was required to.
It seems some project manager for whom I was doing some work got into a snit because I was not there (never mind that for the previous 10 months, I had worked my a$$ off, including lots of OT, to work on this project). My boss told the snitty dude.."look, her husband has been gone for 10 months, she hasn't seen him..I am NOT going to tell her she has to come into work."
My point being that the headline assumes that she is telling the truth and the company was lying. It is a he said/she said situation, so that is irresponsible (but par for the course for the media and its templates.)
Thanks for clearing that up!
This is why if you are a coach with a losing season, you need to be squeaky clean on everything. This is why the US reelected Clinton in 1996. The economy was good so why fire him. This is why sleaze bag Jerry Tarkanian always had a job waiting for him.
May I interject, in a been-there-done-that format, the departures of large units don't always get off without a hitch. There are speeches and formations and hugs and kisses and gathering of gear and loading up and putting out the fires that always seem to crop up at the last minute and paperwork and a little bit of chaos thrown in, to boot.
So if the Indiana troops were scheduled to be off by 3:00 and didn't actually get away until 8:30 (again, been there, done that), expecting this lady, emotionally drained and under extreme duress, to drive 300+ miles and then get up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for her receptionist job the next morning may not have been feasible. Thus her comment that she told them she would try to be there on the 17th, but if she couldn't, she would definitely be there on the 18th.
Without knowing indepth details at this point, I'd say a little compassion and leeway would be in order.
Or maybe she said she was coming back on Monday, and didn't show. But came in on Tuesday.
And it could be she was the employee from hell too (OK, can you tell I've been a manager ;))
In other words: SHE PLAYED HOOKIE. There's likely more in play. They gave her the day to see him off and she didn't return when required. She was in control of her continued employment situation and chose to screw her employer. Tough luck and HOW DARE SHE use her husband's deployment as an excuse for skipping out on her work obligation.
She's an embarrassment to military wives and widows everywhere.
Loseing some sh!tty part time job is not worth crying over.
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