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 ...
Suzette Boler had received permission to take off work the week leading up to her husband's departure.
Let's be clear: She had a week off. Time off up to his departure. She didn't show up the day after her time off ended. She didn't meet the terms of her time off.
She's pissed she didn't get any extra special treatment above what she already got (the week off) and runs to the press screaming "boo-hoo, I lost my job because hubby's gone to Iraq," which is a TOTAL LIE. She's opportunist scum. I hope her egotistical idiocy doesn't cause her husband such unnecessary stress as to get him injured or killed.
As they used to say, "If the Navy wanted you to have a wife, they'd have issued you one with you sea bag."
Posting of partial facts is disgusting.
No call, no show, no job. What's so hard to understand?
Would this lady be covered under the provisions of FMLA (Clinton's Family & Medical Leave Act?)
In ages past, you held a job only so long as your boss wanted you around. In private, non-union employment, that's still the case to a certain extent. Real good incentive to work hard, be pleasant, and not cause the boss any grief. That's life. Deal with it.
That being said, some employers (for no better reason than the fact that they can) treat their employees like dirt.
Twice now, a good friend of mine has taken jobs that offered employee health insurance after six months.
Each time, she worked her tail off and received favorable evaluations.
Each time, just before she would have been eligible for health coverage, she was abruptly fired.
In one case, she had quit another job and taken a cut in pay for the chance to finally get health insurance.
If this case is just another instance of an employer sticking it to an employee 'just because' then they deserve all the negative publicity and legal grief that can be brought to bear.
Indeed.
If I knew I was gonna be fired, I would have shown up. Kinda says it all.
"It's really pretty common and it is disgusting. I once listened to a supervisor tell a new hire (about 60 days) that she could take a day off for her wedding. She took the agreed upon day off from work, returned the next day and was there long enough to get called to the office and fired.
It's no wonder factories need security these days."
If I take a vacation I make sure client approval is in writing and hardcopy is at home before I leave.
I've never had any trouble yet, since I take care to leave things in the best shape I can, but sooner or later some crisis will come up that nobody else can solve and who knows what'll happen then.
I did RTFA, did you?
According to MapBlast it's less than 5 hours of Interstate highway driving to get back to Caledonia from Indianapolis.
So unless his departure was delayed until very late at night, there's no reason she couldn't have gotten back. If it was scheduled as a late departure she should have made arrangements to not work on that Monday.
But if the flight departed much later than scheduled, she should (and may have) called in to work and they should have accommodated her. If the latter is scenario is what happened, and I wouldn't be too surprised, then the company is a bunch of scumbags. Not atypical of those in that sort of business.
I don't know. Just because an employee is not compensated for her time off, it doesn't mean the absence was without cost to the employer. Chances are high they had to hire a temp to cover for her. And temps are a lot more costly than permanent hires because of the middleman. Further, they would have had to arrange ahead of time for coverage.
If the woman took off the week before, meaning she had nine days straight off, it would not seem unreasonable to expect her back the following day. If the woman was the emotional type (and by age forty she ought to know that much about herself), then she should have scheduled her week for Tuesday through Monday, instead of Monday through Sunday.
I'm guessing she just presumed she could take Monday off without penalty and didn't even bother to call in. Result? Employer is scrambling to cover for her at the last minute. Not cool. Not professional. Not employed.
I am sympathetic to her travails but then I would have scheduled the day off afterwards to chill out if I were the emotional type. At the very least, I would have called someone as soon as I knew coming to work on Monday would be difficult. And if they had requested I show up anyway, I would have been there, tissues in hand. I know that might be a little hard-hearted and it might be that I tend to be the type to distract myself from emotions with work rather than wallowing in it.
Still, I'm sorry it happened. If I were advising the company, I would have told the manager to wait until the next infraction and then lower the boom. The timing is lousy.
That's all explained in the non-excerpted part of the story. This is really a case of he said/she said, and we don't really know all the details. Nevertheless, see my post 14.
But she says she told them she might not make it in on the 17th. Unless they then told her she had to come that day, then, assuming she is telling the truth, then they are typical sweat shop Clymers.
Clark Galloway-------Putz.
Why should a compoany need a part-time employee so badly .
Probably because half their force is part -time that way the cheap A-holes dont have to give benefits or overtime.
"Or it could be that she was a crappy employee and they were looking for an excuse to get rid of her."
Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner!
Sounds like she was already a bad employee who didnt show up when she said she would. I had an employee who was constantly absent. One day se called in claiming her grandmother had died. That night she walked into an impromptu Happy Hour.
Imagine the look on her face when she realized she walked into a bar full of co-workers who thought she was taking the day off for a funeral.
OTOH:
From Caledonia, MI to Indianapolis, IN
Distance: 292.4 miles
Granted, it's a 5-hour drive...however, we don't know how long she was with her husband that day...or her emotional state, either....(not making excuses for her...but she may have also been extremely emotional).
Uh, Minor detail. Sounds like she deserved it.
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