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 ...
She was off for a week, with their blessing. She didn't return the day after her husband left, when I'm assuming they were expecting her back.
Maybe she was still not back in town and could not return the day after he left, but it sounds like she didn't communicate her intentions very well and left them in the lurch.
I am supportive of our troops and supportive and sympathetic to their families left at home. But this wasn't a lack of support by the company issue. She was given a full week off and then didn't return on time.
Could be she pushed her luck a little too far.
Yeah, in blue Michigan they fired her...
There is no justifiable reason to start spamming this company.
Why didn't she just call in on the 17th and let them know she wasn't coming in? At least she'd have had a chance to be told that she SHOULD come in or risk losing the job.
Apparently, it's a difficult concept to grasp.
Yes, it's heartbreaking to hear she was terminated after leaving to see her husband off.
However, I have fired several employees over the years who've had even more heartbreaking reasons they missed their last day of work. Family emergencies, deaths, you name it.
But the one thing they all had in common was that they'd burned all sick time, vacation time and personal time early in the year - generally for "unscheduled vacation" (that is, calling in sick to stay at home and watch Jerry Springer) or because they were too hung over to come to work.
They then found themselves in a disciplinary status during each subsequent, post-exhausting of benefit leave (vacation, sick, personal) absence.
Once they'd reached a level of absenteeism, they removed my option to NOT terminate them. Yes, it's sad to see someone lose their job. No doubt about that.
But I've never fired someone who didn't cause the condition that resulted in their termination.
There's nothing I hate more than to fire someone for attendance issues.
This is not passing the smell test at this time; awaiting additional info
That's my reading of it as well, but there's definitely more than what's here.
Never been in management, eh?
He sounds like an international class-warrior.
She had evidently agreed to return to work after he left. It says she "failed to return"...
Sometimes "is" is...
28 years a Navy Wife....said farewell to hubby numerous times. Requested time off...got it...returned to work on the day I promised. Never tried to take advantage of my employer. Never treated badly by my employer.
I believe there's something more to this story.
Sue in Virginia
Looks like you're not content to jump to one conclusion.
They accomodated her a week's worth. She didn't show up after he shipped out. How long were they supposed to wait for her to decide she wanted to show back up.
Some of the excerpted part suggests that it is a he said/she said situation. She admits that she got back in town the night before she was expected to show up.
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"She usually worked Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays....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.
When Boler returned home from Indiana on the night of Oct. 16, a few hours after leaving her husband at the airfield, she said she felt drained by the emotional ordeal and decided to return to work Oct. 18.
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."
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So apparently she didn't call in Monday telling them that she wouldn't be coming in.
Thanks Sue. I don't like to see a story like this. I understand the support for the woman, but the employer may be very patriotic. We just don't know. All the best to you and your family. Thanks for the service.
Or at least she should have called in and asked for another day off.
It is easy to get rid of a part time employee...just tell them you don't need them anymore.
This statement is key: "He added that other factors were involved in the decision, but he declined to elaborate." Seems to me that her employer was looking for a reason to fire her because she was a problem employee. She may have had a long history of unreliability, inexcusable absences, attitude. etc. Good employees are hard to find and I doubt the employer would have fired her over something like this if it was a first-time occurance for an otherwise good employee.
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