Michigan woman fired for missing work after seeing husband off to war

[Judi Lynn]

Oct. 27, 2005, 12:41AM

Michigan woman fired for missing work after seeing husband off to war
Associated Press

CALEDONIA, Mich. — A woman who took an unpaid leave of absence from work to see her husband off to war 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., 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 published Wednesday.
(snip/...)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3419321
(Free registration required)

[opihimoimoi]

1. Thats about chicken shit as they come....the horrors...these guys never

do they?

[LiberteToujours]

2. Great PR

Don't worry, they'll be regretting it soon enough.

[Robb]

3. This one smells funny

I promise there's something missing from this story. Here's a no-reg link to the story.

[Hekate]

4. Support the troops; yeah yeah yeah, now back to work

Support the troops -- cut their hazard pay
Support the troops -- cut their benefits
Support the troops -- what did they expect? they volunteered, didn't they?

godless soulless bastards think the rest of us are peasants, peons, serfs, and cannon fodder generally :cry:

That poor woman may never see her husband again in this life. If he dies she'll get a folded flag and pResident *hole will call him a "hero who made the ultimate sacrifice," and after that she can starve to death for all he and his friends care. :cry:

Hekate

[benfranklin1776]

6. Indeed. Their hollow rhetoric is 180 degrees away from the cold reality.

No doubt though the heartless bastard that fired her has a yellow ribbon on his SUV, next to his W sticker, thus that is more than enough support thank you very much. Cheap symbolism triumphs real compassion any day of the week in Bush America. :grr:

[ninkasi]

20. Exactly, Hekate

I know that I would have been completely drained and useless the next day, like she was, and would probably have needed the extra day to pull myself together. We have become a cold, uncaring, unfeeling country, worshiping war and money, and voting (with Diebold's assistance) for the least qualified among us.

I hope she will soon get offers of a better job, and that her husband comes home safely to her. I pray, so much, for all of this insanity to end. This is not the America I was born in 62 years ago, somehow, I've found myself stranded in a nation I no longer recognize.

[moondust]

5. Management tyranny.

Nothing new here. Workers are terrorized all the time by capitalist management. It's a way of life for many.

[salin]

7. Ironic name for the organization, given the story

eom

[Stockholm]

8. Benefit Management - compassionate conservatives?

n/t

[Carni]

13. Grand Rapids is a bastion of those CC assholes

I am sure that is some right winged outfit

[Theres-a]

9. Rotten bastards

[Kber]

10. Support our troops

but fuck their families. Afterall, what's she gonna do, call her husband?
:sarcasm:

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. my local paper said she asked and got a week off for his leaving

but then didn't bother to return on the day she promised.

something is wrong here, but I am not sure exactly what.

[spinbaby]

12. What I suspect...

...is that she's got a history of missing work. Even employers who don't give a #uc# about their employees aren't going to fire someone for missing one day--it's just to hard to break in a new employee.

[Kittycat]

16. I'd have to say this is probably true. I had an employee the same way. &

BMA managed my healthcare plan before I became a SAHM. I had a very traumatic loss of one of my twins and the other was born at 24 wks. They were about the ONLY people sensitive to what happened. They didn't dispute anything, and followed up with me weekly to make sure things were being taken care of properly for my surviving son. We had 1.2M in claims over 5 months - they didn't bat an eye. And I wasn't even in my coverage area during the time.

I just can't imagine with the sensitivity and respect I was given, that these people would be that cold. My money is on the fact that she's probably a trouble-maker employee. I've had a few of those over the years, and the end result is never pleasant. In addition, they often try to claim some pathetic company failure or falacy for their own actions (It's always someone elses fault syndrome).

If she's got a clean record, it will come out.

Kat

[kestrel91316]

21. As an employer I would be mad as hell if an employee did this.

Remains to be seen if this is in fact what happened. If they GAVE HER A WEEK OFF, then she just didn't come back after a week, that is grounds for dismissal, and I can just about guarantee she wasn't a stellar employee if that's what they did. It was probably the last straw.

We like to keep our good employees, and cut them a lot of slack. Good help is increasingly hard to find, and training new staff is a PITA.

There is definitely more to this than meets the eye.

[ElectroPrincess]

32. Yes, there are two sides to every story EXCEPT ...

If this woman was not responsible for reporting to work on a regular basis, they should have "gutted it out" for at least another month. That is, give her a chance to get her mind and emotions together. Otherwise, even IF she is a "slug", the company still comes out looking like SCROOGE.

Not only insensitive of this company, but also the application POOR business sense. Is Bush a former owner? LOL

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. Must be a right to work state, which as everything the Republicans

do, means just the opposite: Right to fire.

[Strawman]

17. MI is absolutely not a "right to work" state

http://www.nrtw.org/rtws.htm (Terrible source, but useful map)

MI will be the last state that ever passes that garbage. Unions are still a force in MI politics. The day MI becomes a "right to work" state, that means unions are officially dead and workers should probably give up on the system all together and take to the streets.

I'm sure this woman was an "at will" employee and not in a union.

[LiberalFighter]

26. It's called Employment at Will

Just about every state has it.

Unless an employee has a union contract, individual contract or it is covered in their employee manual they can be fired for any reason not in violation of state or federal law.

Those with union contracts can only be fired for just cause and even then it has to go through steps.

[Psephos]

22. You're quite wrong there

Michigan maintains a long tradition of union rights and fair worker treatment.

There's something fishy about this story. If you read the link you start to sense there's more to it then missing a day of work. That's my impression.

Peace.

[The Backlash Cometh]

23. I yield to your greater knowledge.

[DainBramaged]

15. There are 2 Benefit Management Administrators Inc. Caldonia

[phone]

Both use same phone number.

[Coventina]

18. I'm witholding judgement at this point.

Something doesn't smell quite right to me.

There could be more going on here.

[iamjoy]

29. I Agree - More Going On

Not to take the side of the company over the worker, but maybe she wasn't as good an employee as she thinks. Maybe they had an inflexible "No Call/No Show = Termination" policy and misunderstood, it sounds like there could have been confusion over exactly when she was going to return. Maybe they were looking for a reason to get rid of her, and she gave it to them. Maybe all three of these things.

[lonestarnot]

19. Benefit Management must be one of those repuke outfits, and Clark

Galloway is a fucking NAZI!

[Megahurtz]

24. That's really stupid.

Sounds like corporate bullshit.

Stuff like this really happens. If there is more to this than meets the eye,
it may fall on the employer, not the employee.

People do not always fire people for good reasons.
She just saw her husband off to Iraq, for Kripes sake!:hurts:
That's got to be draining for sure!

[MADem]

28. From reading the article, it does not seem that she called them to say

she needed the extra day. What it sounds like is that they gave her the week off, without pay, since she was part time, and expected her back on a given day, that she agreed to, and she just did not show up.

If this is the case, she should have called to let them know she would not be in when they expected her. That's common courtesy.

The article is ambigous enough that you cannot really know what happened.

[MI Cherie]

25. Local links:

http://www.mlive.com/news/grpress/index.ssf?/base/news-25/1130338189209260.xml&coll=6

http://www.woodtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4039492&nav=menu44_1

[MADem]

30. Those are good links, they give a greater picture of what happened

We have infractions where she was the highest Internet user, even though she had no reason to be on the Internet...something like over 6,000 sites in a week, numerous abuses of time and performance," said Henry Bledstoe.

They say the last straw was when she didn't show up for work.

Guess they didn't go for the surfing instead of working!

[northzax]

27. my question is: did she call them and say she wasn't coming in?

on the day after her vacation? it sounds like she had some problems with them "she was asked, not ordered to return on monday" that's a funny phrasing, when you take a week off, and they say 'see you monday.' I recommend showing up on Monday.

that said, she's a grandmother of 3 at 40? wow.

[Judi Lynn]

31. From the first of the links posted by MI Cherie....

Boler also had a different understanding of when she had to be back at work after her five-hour drive to Indianapolis. Although she and her husband moved to West Michigan 14 years ago, Jerry Boler, a diesel mechanic, decided to remain with his Indiana-based Guard unit, the 150th Field Artillery Regiment.

Boler said she originally was granted two weeks of unpaid time off to say goodbye to her husband. As a part-time employee, she was not given vacation time.

On Oct. 4, she said, she was summoned to Hogan's office and told she was asking for too much.

Boler recalled Hogan asking her, "Would you please do your best to be there Monday morning?"

Boler said she agreed to try but did not know then when her husband would leave. She said she promised to be there Tuesday for certain.
(snip)

You apparently haven't been around women who have just seen a husband off during war time.

I was visiting a military family in Japan when our husbands shipped out during the Viet Nam war, and it laid waste to all of them. They were surely done in, emotionally, and they didn't have a five hour drive to get back home ahead of them, either. They were all red-eyed, unhappy, and in pain. It's nothing to take lightly.

The fact she may be 40 years old with 3 grandchildren is not an acceptable reason to ridicule her. Not everyone is given an easy beginning. Poor people tend to marry far earlier than others.

[northzax]

33. I wasn't ridiculing her

but I've been in an office where people simply don't show up on the expected day. it's not a good way to run a business. a 35 cent phone call from a payphone, in the middle of the night "Mr Hogan, I'm sorry, but Joe left yesterday and I'm a wreck, I won't be any good to you tommorow, but I'll be in bright and early on Tuesday, thanks" probably would have saved her job.

no, I've never sent a husband off to war (being male, they wouldn't take him anyway) but I have had close family members die suddenly, requiring a flight across country. First call, the airlines. second call, the office.

I reiterate that there is more to this story, she was not let go for this isolated incident.

and the grandmother comment, I still say wow to a 40 year old grandmother, that's two generations of breeding before 20, bet she's a great-grandmother by 60. wow.