In Maryland, accepting the severance meant I was leaving voluntarily and it stipulated that I couldn’t apply for unemployment. I wasn’t leaving of my own accord, though – the job had been reclassified from public relations/communications and public outreach to a mental health educator, a move I had recommended several times, as I was not comfortable going out and teaching high schoolers about depression and suicide awareness without any qualifications.
I got two weeks for a year and a half on the job. I was pretty down about at it at first, but came to see it was absolutely the right move.
Eight weeks of severance seems to reflect some sensitivity to the employer of the young woman’s circumstances. They are giving her a graceful way to leave and to have some funds to cover expenses while she gets appropriate medical care. I would take it in a second. Get an attorney (I had my DH look at mine; a family friend might work as well; the $$ involved were not worth paying an attorney for) to look at the agreement and then don’t look back. The only thing I’d insist on is clarification of her status to future employers. I would put the acceptance of the offer in writing and reiterate her understanding of the package and any actions the employer will make in the future.
Depends. I had to wait because my severance was treated as pay. I also had to have a few long conversations to explain to the UI folks it was worded to me as "X weeks pay. (Pre-email days, some delay in communications from my employer.) So some of this will be YMMV.
1 is a great deal. The Company obviously has a different opinion of what happened. It seems like a big deal right now,but it's not. Just take #1 and move on. Lots of jobs don't work out. It's nobody's fault.
I’ll put it in perspective. DH works for a company for two years…and was in excellent standing. They decided to close the local office…and he had to take care of all that was involved to close it. He received two months of severance…and that’s it.
Your daughter has worked for this company for 5 months…and she is getting a better release package than my husband got after two years of employment.
It sounds like the HR folks want to make this a clean, and as easy as possible job end.
If you want to have this offer riveted by a lawyer, by all means do. But from my backseat…it sounds pretty good.
And I agree…she should be looking for jobs NOW while she is still employed.
While I tend to agree with all of you that have said she should accept option 1 and move on, the decision is hers. I think she is definitely leaning towards this. I also think that it would not hurt for the agreement to be looked over by an employment lawyer just to cover all bases. But it would probably not be in her best interest to try and persue this any further than that.
I find it interesting that her time of employment keeps getting shorter on this thread. She will have been employed for the firm for 1 1/2 years at the end of July, not 5 or 9 months. Her work was always praised until she was perscribed a medication that has a known side effect of depression. ( Which her doctor did not inform her of) Her doctor suggested a two week disability leave which she took to help keep her job.After going off of the medication, her depression changed dramatically. But how they treated her when she went back to work also changed.
So to go from a praised employee to a fired one in a short time because of a reaction to a medication, so it seems, that her doctor prescribed seems so wrong. But life is filled with these wrongs and unfairness.
But even for 1 1/2 years…the first option is not a bad one.
Did she ever present any medical information to her employer,about her medication and it’s side effects? Not that it matters now…just curious if this happened. Did she take FMLA?
Thumper, do you mean Family Medical Leave Act? Not sure if she did or how it would apply. Yes she had to provide info from her Doc to get the disability leave. But I have major questions about this Doc, even before this all happened. So who knows what was really conveyed.
This Doc just recently suggested the same medication to my D. Apparently he did not read or keep notes. She is changing doctors.
@morrismm, I think your daughter was treated horribly. Unfortunately, at least in my state and probably in most states, employers have more rights than do employees. I do think consulting a lawyer is a good idea, however, although not with the goal of litigating but to find out if “option 1” is reasonable under the circumstances.
I feel for your Daughter. I hope she finds a new job soon.
"Her work was always praised until she was perscribed a medication that has a known side effect of depression. ( Which her doctor did not inform her of) "
At least in our case doctors don’t go over side effects when they prescribe medications.
The information about side effects is always printed on the information that we receive at the pharmacy. In fact there was a time I didn’t bother to read the information that Kroger originally gave me and I ended up having a cough for about 3 months until I read it and figured out that my new Blood pressure med could cause a chronic cough. So now I try to always read the information although a lot of times there are a zillion potential side effects listed and I wonder if it’s just a way for them to cover their butt.
Unfortunately many doctors are are not as informed about the side effects of drugs. There are so many things they need to keep track of and there are so many new drugs coming out. Not to excuse him but I don’t think that I’ve had a doctor talk to me about side effects except when I’ve experienced side effects or if I’ve brought up to them about them (such as not prescribing 2 medicines together as they shouldn’t)
Years ago you went to your local pharmacy with your local pharmacist and they caught these things. They would talk to me and they are the people who knew everything about the drugs you were prescribed. Now a tech fills the prescription and only if you ask do you see the pharmacist. It’s a chain and you don’t know anyone or the prescription comes from a mail order house. Now you get a paper.
It’s not right what happened to your D. I’ve never talked about this but my H was accused by someone (he wasn’t the only one either) anonymously that he had to defend. Not anything bad but a accusation of his competence. His boss chose to believe this anonymous complaint instead of the work of a 30 year employee. Who was very respected and was thought of highly in the company. H even had to go through a series of testing which he passed. Not just passed but very high numbers.
H has 30 years and a nice pension. He wasn’t let go but he needs to stay to collect his retirement. The whole situation stinks still.
It would matter in the industry in which I worked. We had to account for every six minutes of the work day. If she called in sick it would have to be charged against an overhead account. Using sick time was frowned upon to put it mildly. If it was unpaid FMLA it was tolerated.
Your daughter was offered a very generous separation package. Take it and move on.
I think some of us were calling months based on “7 months after going permanent and 9 months after starting.” Now I see you meant that’s when the personal issues began, more or less.
She did get HR approval on the two weeks, right? Not just disappear. But what we can’t know is what the days/weeks leading up to the leave were like, in terms of performance. Or how she operated when back, how competitive the business needs of that company are. Some are simply less understanding than others. Some can’t be more understanding.
Morrismm, it’s clear you’re upset and our hearts go out to you. But if we all opened up, we could fill a thread with our own business frustrations and unfair things done to us or our kids. It happens. We try to move forward. Take care of your girl, help her get back on her feet. Let us know, at some future point, and we’ll celebrate with you.
Sylvan8798, I also have a ptsd fit wen I think of a problem with a boss, 20 years ago.
My D2 was let go for stupid reasons, issues that had been approved or were customary in her dept. (Like OP’s, she was hired from temp, glorified, moved into full responsibilities fast.) She was fired weeks after getting two dept awards and positive write-ups. In her case, I had to tell her to chalk it up to office politics. What happened next was she then moved into work more in line with her own goals.
It matters a lot whether it was FMLA leave or not. Your job is protected DURING FMLA leave, for one thing. It’s a whole different deal from calling in with the flu. You use your sick days first, then FMLA leave.
I, too, feel for your daughter. It is never easy to lose a job. However, since I deal with this stuff much of my day, I know there are usually two sides to the story. It’s hard to get the whole picture from posts on a message forum. I think what they are offering is extremely generous, and more than I have seen almost any company offer in a similar situation given the short length of employment. I know she will find another good job.
Not necessarily. Leave can be both sick and FMLA if the employer does not provide any kind of separate paid FMLA-type leave. And employers are not required to do that. All they are required to do is hold your job. FMLA can be sick leave, vacation, time, or unpaid.
At my employer, you can use sick if it is your illness (as opposed to caring for a family member). You can also use vacation time. If you run out of those, you are unpaid.
FMLA only applies to employees who have a year or more of service, also. Which may or may not have been the case here–from what I can tell there was more than 9 months when the illness came up, but I’m not sure how much more.
1or2musicians- that is incorrect. FMLA is medical leave to care for a qualified medical condition of you or a family member. Yes, you must have a year of service and a certain number of hours worked. FMLA is not vacation. Almost all employers are required by federal law to provide for FMLA leave. It is unpaid but your job is protected. Once you run out of FMLA leave your job is not protected unless you qualify for an ADA accommodation leave after engaging in an interactive process with your employer. I suspect in the case of the OP’s daughter, the interactive process did not happen.