A lawsuit was filed against Reddit alleging that the company fired an employee with anxiety for taking medical leave. The employee, Jamie Lee, had worked at Reddit as an accountant for over 4 years with positive reviews. In July 2022, Lee requested 3 days off for her health but was denied. She was later placed on medical leave after fainting, but was fired upon returning and accused of poor performance. However, the lawsuit claims others made similar mistakes. It also alleges Reddit’s new leadership under the CFO has created a “toxic, political, and not inclusive” culture, which two other employees also left over. This highlights challenges employees faced with the changing culture at Reddit.
The only thing a supervisor should be saying to “I need to take time off to address personal health concerns,” is “Take as much time as you need, your health is most important.”
The only thing a supervisor should be saying to “I fainted, and my doctor has put me on medical leave,” is “Take as much time as you need, your health is most important.”
My first ever direct report asked me if he could leave a couple hours early because his kid went to the hospital.
I told him I expected that if this happened again he just call me on the way to the hospital.
Or uh not call you… imagine letting him focus on driving and getting to his kid rather than talking on the phone with you. If you want to be a good manager then you should make it clear that communicating retrospectively is perfectly fine.
The problem is that for most companies, employee health is very far down the list in importance.
I worked at a company where my colleagues included two young brothers. One of them had a serious illness and was in hospital. One day the other brother, at work, got notification that his brother in hospital might not have much time left. He asked management if he could take the afternoon off to go and see his brother. They said no, they needed him to work late. This guy was an overly conscientious employee and he didn’t go to the hospital that day. His brother died during the night and he didn’t get to say goodbye to him. Those are the priorities of many companies.
Don’t ask for your employer to meet your time off needs. Tell them that your time off needs are going to be met.
I am not at all saying that it was the employee’s fault in your example. It wasn’t. The sad thing is that people have been conditioned that they need to ask for time off when emergencies arise.
Don’t ask for your employer to meet your time off needs. Tell them that your time off needs are going to be met.
Then you get fired, and in this economy, probably end up homeless.
Make it a country where it’s illegal to fire someone on medical leave, where firing them after they come back entitles them to unmotivated dismissal compensation, where they get unemployment pay even if they get fired.
Might sound like a fairy tale to people in the US, but countries like that do exist.
Yeah, it’s real systemic, there’s a lot of restrictive things all wrapped around everything that keep labor under the thumb of owners and their minions. If enough people stand up for their humanity, there will be a tipping point. Revolution doesn’t come without risk.
Seize the means of production.
I don’t see any riots. Seems to me that nobody cares—not even the people being made homeless.
Be the change you want to see in the world. You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Fired for taking 3 days off ?!?! What the actual fuck!??!
As someone in management, health is absolutely paramount and the basic building blocks of creating happy and productive workers.
I have a guy that will soon be taking 6 weeks of paternal leave (sucks I had kids too early to do so myself) and my only requirement of him is that he only thinks of himself, his wife, and his kid.Can someone who still uses that shithole of a site tell me if this article has any traction over there, the only way to fix this is more people leaving.
Lol I’m sure they’re talking all about it but it’s not gonna make anyone leave. People’s convenience and enjoyment will always trump any sort of morality.
I said I’d leave and followed through.
Between Spez and their killing of Apollo, I decided to part ways.
It is also really nice here @ Beehaw (thus far) to see that interactions are of a much higher caliber.
I don’t comment a ton, but I have yet to have any negative experiences.
Maybe the “human vetted” application process helps?
On July 25, 2022 the lawsuit alleges, Lee asked her supervisor for three days off using her floating holidays to attend to her health. Her supervisor allegedly rejected the request saying it “would be a burden to the rest of the team” and that “there is a lot of work to be done.”
What the fuck? It’s 3 days; fix your staffing!
“Sorry, I’m too incompetent to account for any minor disruption, no matter how common, unavoidable, or legally mandated it may be. Please suffer quietly.”
It’s reddit, what in the hell do they have going on at the end of July that couldn’t accounting couldn’t wait a few days for? Did they have to count up all the gains from the fake gold they’ve stopped selling people? Tax season is over, the new fiscal year is already started, seems like bullshit paper pushing to me.
Their software was open source. Their content is free. Their moderation is free. All they had to do was sell some ads and host the servers. And they fucked that up.
