got fired today

Hi,

I don't know whether to say congratulations or offer you my sympathy

I do understand your not wanting to fight it. I have been in that kind of position over work before. The employer certainly shouldn't be firing anyone for being sick and in some ways we don't want them to get away with it but that all depends on how stressful fighting it is going to be.

The stress of certain jobs is certainly something to be taken into account. I have been off work now since August 07 and only back working a few hours a week since March this year. The important thing for me is that most of those few hours a week are done at home, when I feel up to it, with no-one staring over my shoulder.

My job wasn't stressful in the usual sense because I was my own boss but I taught people English in companies and I just found coping with that amount of concentration very stressful. Just staying alert and responsive for a two hour lesson, followed by another and then another was sooooo hard. I now have one day where I have 2 hours followed by 3. I have only done the full day three times since starting back as it is so hard to do and some weeks I just haven't been able to.

I'm very lucky as I can change direction and build up far more business from home (I also did translation and that's nearly all I do now) but for others it is not so easy.

My rheumy would like me to stop working but understands that financially it's not really possible and also, when my brain can be counted as "present", I enjoy working even if it does very much have to be at my pace.

One of the hardest things for me to deal with is the brain fog issue with concentration and memory problems. They make teaching very hard to do. At least with translation, if it doesn't come to me, I can leave the documnt five minutes, come on here, have a cup of tea and then go back to it. I can't do that in class. I have to be "active" and push and encourage etc. and I simply don't have the energy.

Yesterday a translation colleague said to me "but surely you need that one day's teaching to see people" - well no, I would be deligted not to see anyone if seeing them means teaching them!! :rotfl:
Thankfully I see plenty of other people and am not yet ready to become a hermit!

Financially it is always a big question and I know for many people living off whatever disability they can get is not an option but, often, we think we couldn't manage with less and we can. When we HAVE to, we find ways of doing it. I know I'm not the only one on this board to have survived a long "rest" period. Of course, it all depends on your individual circumstances and only you know what is right for you.

Life in general can be pretty paradoxical. Sure it is not great to be kind of forced to stay at home through illness but, if I hadn't been, I would never have had the time to develop my translation business which is what I really wanted to do (and also means 2 hours less driving - and fuel - every day).

Being self-employed in Belgium is not at all recommended if you're sick as the disability system doesn't work the same way but, on the other hand I have no stress. If I feel I can't do a job, I just say no - that's it - no one shouts or screams or even raises eyebrows, no is no, that's it. I work pretty funny hours. I'm hopeless early in the morning, so I come on here, get my English back in gear, browse the web a bit, have a chat with a friend on msn and then, gradually get going. I then might work for a couple of hours or even 3 or 4 if I'm feeling good. Then take the dog for a walk, pick up the kids, relax a bit and then, sometimes, I'll work another hour or two in the evening. Generally if I do all that in one day, the next day is pretty much a rest day. Rather like my brain has fried itself :lol:

crikey, you have my life story now
Katharine

thanks for all your replies. i'm doing pretty good today actually. I got outside & did yard work. I got unemployment set up for now, but I probaly will keep looking pretty hard for something. AFTER I take a few weeks off. I am just wondering what that will be like because I won't have stress or not as much anyways and will probably feel alot better. I'm hoping anyways. I will tell my dr. about it, see what she says. I know that she has suggested that I cut back on hours if I could, which I kinda did, but that didn't work out for them. I am going to check into disability. I don't know if they would give it to me or not. The only reason they might is because I know from experience that I get sick, cant' work full time, even if it was part time I can't promise that I would be there on certain days because if it's a bad day I won't be going. My bad days include headaches, aching all over my body to the point of not being able to walk to move my arms & stuff, throwing up, and just plain old tiredness & lack of concentration. I do have at least 2 of these days per week and they are not predictable, so I'm not sure how that will work with a new job. Well, I guess I'll just take it one day at a time & do what I can.

Did anyone hear your supervisor say why she fired you? Have you been out missing days? Did they try to put you on a flexible FMLA (which would have secured your job for up to 3 months of time out)? If you can prove they fired you for Lupus, I would encourage you to go ahead and sue them, but for money, not for your job. You can sue for lost income.

Meanwhile, I agree, go talk to your doctor and see about filing for disability. You need to have at least one doctor who will agree to compile paperwork (preferably your GP). Social Security will want to be certain you are under the care of a doctor, the more often you see one the better from their point of view.

The new rules looked to me to boild down to "if you have one body system affected by Lupus AND have fatigue or malaise or (some other items), then you qualify for disability." I will hopefully know more after I see my doctor in a week, I left a copy of the new rules with her (per her request) so that she could go over them.

Good luck, don't be surprised if you start sleeping better. I know I am.

It was a very small company that I worked for, there were about 8 office & about 10 field. It was a remodeling company and I did the design work as well as 2 others. My boss basically said this: It just isn't working out, we need someone who can be here all the time. I was scheduled to work M, W, Th, & F. They gave me Tuesdays off to work from home thinking that if I could have at least one day per week to not have to go into the office it would help. I still did get sick & call in sometimes. I know that they legally can't fire me for being sick, and the more I think about it the madder I get about it. This is a guy who once told me that he would not give me a promotion that I wanted because I was a woman just getting married & didn't know where my life would end up because women usually follow their husband's career!! I let that one go without a fuss too. There was another woman sitting in her office who probably heard the conversation. This company was the cheapest one I can ever imagine. They took away my medical insurance when they found out I had lupus, told me that flex plan was not available even though others had it. I don't know. Part of me wants to let it go & part of me wants to be upset & sue. I am going to make an appt. at the SS office next week. Just even to go talk to someone about where to even start with it. I have had many people tell me to try going on disability with reasons being that I can't handle work & stress. Although I could probably do things still I can not be dependable. If I work one full day usually the next day I can forget about doing anything! I know you all know what that is like. I want to thank you all for your support right now, it means alot to me. JoD, I will check out that site, even if I don't do anything about it, I'm still curious. I understand their point of view, that it is hard to have an employee that calls in sick or works from home or something. But, don't you just wish that for one week, some of these people could experience what we do, just so they have some kind of idea of what it's like. I don't wish for anyone to be sick, but after that 1 week, take it away. That way they might understand. That's a bad thought.

Maybe it's a bad thought, but I have thought it sooooooo many times. The only people I've found who sort of understand the fatigue are pregnant ladies while they're pregnant.

I agree with everyone about at least telling someone (govt agency) about what happened with your job/boss. It might not be worth it to you to legally pursue damages, because it would probably take a long time and involve a lot of stress. Then again, there might be lawyers out there who would do most of the work for you, and then just take a big cut of, probably, your settlement.

I left a job in April for the same reasons - I was an assistant, but couldn't guarantee that I would be there all of the time, due to medical appointments and flares. I was first diagnosed in the first few months of my job, and went through many specialist appointments and much stress. Luckily, I worked for a large company with very good benefits, and was able to take short-term disability, both for time off and to work 30 hrs/week while being paid full-time. Still, in the end, and even though I could have used FMLA, it was an unworkable situation for my supervisor, and I was miserably stressed out.

It's been very difficult to accept that I need to find something part-time and/or flexible. I'm still sort of in denial.

I worked in legal, so my boss would never have just up and fired me, like yours did, no matter how much she would have liked to. That kind of thing is so way illegal and causes big problems for employers.

Has anyone on the forum ever taken action against an employer? I wonder how much is involved with it, and how much stress it would be, or how much energy it would require. It isn't worth it if it is too stressful and if you're able to get assistance from social security, in my opinion - health is most important, and the money will work itself out.

Good luck, and please keep us posted!