Advice Columns

[Auroranorth]

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If it's real, I feel like Liz is being held to a higher standard than the company or the person who injured her. His phobia just became her problem. They seem to be expecting an apology will fix matters and she's treated as out of line for not caring about his reason for causing serious injury and trauma. Management mostly seems annoyed that she had the temerity to quit when they had deadlines. And if I were a coworker, I don't think I'd feel all that safe around Jack. It's not like this went unnoticed, it happened in the workplace in front of witnesses.

[kateln]

Apr 5, 2017 14:07:50 GMT -4 Auroranorth said:

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If it's real, I feel like Liz is being held to a higher standard than the company or the person who injured her. His phobia just became her problem. They seem to be expecting an apology will fix matters and she's treated as out of line for not caring about his reason for causing serious injury and trauma. Management mostly seems annoyed that she had the temerity to quit when they had deadlines. And if I were a coworker, I don't think I'd feel all that safe around Jack. It's not like this went unnoticed, it happened in the workplace in front of witnesses.

See, I feel Liz is being understandably unreasonable. I can look at it, as someone not directly involved and see both sides--but Jack does have a phobia, and has done what he can to fix it (therapy) and explain it--so I can sympathize with the manager who doesn't want to fire him, and wants Liz to come back because it's inconvenient. At the same time, he pushed Liz down (by accident) when he was running past her--and she was injured. I can see not wanting to work with him again. Either way it's a lose/lose situation.

[Mutagen]

I have to say, it totally pissed me off how dismissive the comments were of Liz's injuries. I don't think Jack's a villain, but the bottom line is that she's seriously injured and now has no job (admittedly because she quit, but I think that's kind of understandable). The letter-writer sounded totally cold-blooded complaining about how they weren't meeting deadlines now, and so did that first comment sneering about how she wasn't going to look very good in job interviews. What the fuck?

[mrspickles]

Wow.

I think if the phobia is that severe Jack should have mentioned it to someone sooner so that they could at least try to keep him from situations where he might be subjected to his worst fear. I'd do that for an employee, and I suspect that accommodating a documented condition might be covered under some federal regulation, although I don't know if 'mental health' problems have been given that sort of parity or not. It is the responsibility of the employer to provide safe working conditions for both Lisa and Jack. His failure to disclose his issue up front means they put both employees in a potentially dangerous situation, and one was severely injured. I don't fault him for the phobia, but his management of his condition was poor.

I also think Lisa has every right to be angry and I think I'd be asking myself if that was really a place I wanted to work.

[eclair]

I feel bad for Liz and Jack, and also for the driver that hit her. They were just parking (I think) and someone was just about thrown under their tires.

I also wish Jack would get better therapy if he's been working on this for 2 years. NET or EMDR, or even hypnotherapy, should clear up a phobia in just a few sessions. But I didn't want to further derail a thread with almost 2,000 replies.

[Deleted]

I have ornithophobia myself, though it's not bad enough to require therapy and I don't have anxiety issues, so I can somewhat sympathize with Jack. It's a sucky situation all-around and Liz was well-within her rights to quit and her former boss just needs to let it go. However, Jack was not acting with malice and it was just an accident. A horrible accident, but an accident nonetheless. So I'm not comfortable condemning him either.

One time at my job someone left two windows open overnight on what was a very cold night, and two sparrows came in and were flying around one particular room all day. I managed to keep it together for about 90 minutes before I ran the hell out of the room and refused to come back. Fortunately, I did not injure anyone during my escape and we were able to arrange it so I could work in another (bird-free) room for the rest of the day.

I was working with three other people that day. One co-worker laughed at me until she realized how freaked out I was and then she was nice about it, one co-worker didn't think bird-phobia was a real thing and just kind of rolled her eyes at me, and one co-worker actually tried to chase the birds away whenever they came near me and didn't mock me or roll her eyes at all. Turns out her mother-in-law is also afraid of birds so it's something she's used to dealing with. I was mortified about the whole thing, and I felt like a stupid idiot. I can only imagine how horrible I would've felt if I caused an accident like Jack did.

[tszuj]

If you have a phobia so bad you're incapable of going outside without potentially causing a fatal accident then you need to take responsibility for that.

[cubanitafresca]

I think this is one of those shitty situations where no one is totally wrong and no one totally right either. I get Liz being angry and not wanting to work with him. But she doesn't seem to have even a modicum of compassion for someone with real issues. It would be completely reasonable to request that she not have to work with or near Jack. But demanding he be fired for an accident seems extreme. On the other hand the boss could have a little more empathy for Liz and try to find a solution. Let her work remotely or something.

[batmom]

This letter did not end up where I thought it would. My jaw literally dropped.

[addison]

Apr 19, 2017 15:54:50 GMT -4 batmom said:

This letter did not end up where I thought it would. My jaw literally dropped.

wow me too, how do you accidentally say that to anyone!? as some of the commenters noted, the boss did come across as kind of creepy, but nothing justifies her response.  I don't think any apology will take care of that.