Posted by Emma on June 06, 1999 at 18:32:57:

In Reply to: Re: Fired from my job posted by Michael AG on April 28, 1999 at 18:23:37:

First and foremost, if you are fearing for your job get an attorney who deals with disability cases before you are fired, you may keep your job longer. I've heard that 50% of Narcoleptics are out on disability by the age of 40. My goal is to stay employed for as long as possible.

My Dad is an appellate attorney and I've learned to sling the legal jingo well enough to strike fear into the hearts of middle management, I have gotten every manager to back down so far, but I've been exceedingly lucky and I've done a lot of homework and might I add even more sucking up to management.

Now,
The reason you need a reprimand in writing is for records. If you are being formally reprimanded already, you don't have much to lose, and you might get Snidley Whiplash to back down. (To do this you need a strong backbone and be very well informed about Narcolepsey, the ADA, your states labor laws, as well as your company's work policies, the company doctor and human resources can be very helpful with the latter regard.)
The ADA is a very powerful tool and we need to use it. Get them to write the problems /gripes against you. If it can directly related to your narcolepsey you can nail the SOB's for not making reasonable accomidations. Example, your company can support a female 6-8 weeks of medical leave for a baby but refuses to give you a medical leave for a drug holiday. Of course my favorite is the reasonable accomidation made for smokers: three 10min smoke breaks a day are socially acceptible, where as a 20 min nap is not. (A paid 20 break is required by law in NYS, most managers in my company are totally unaware of this)
With a written reprimand, if you get fired and the company is at fault you may have records to show that they did not obey every single letter of the ADA -- you might just want to mention that to Mr. Whiplash as well. Mr. Whiplash just might be breaking some obscure little labor law, and really does not want a group of legal sharks running through the last seven years of employee records.

If you do get fired because you just can't function any more you now have a stack of reprimands and your personal records (keep a record of everything, time worked, accomplishemnts, sick days, how you addressed issues raised by your employer, overtime, all extra personal effort on your part) to show the friendly people who want to deny you your disability that your narcolepsey is so bad you cannot work, and you now have a stack of paperwork that states exactly why.

The reprimand should state what you are failing to do, and also identify a course of action for the employee. Make certain that your manager signs it and dates it. ( If you really want to pull out all the stops you can get witness signatures and /or request to have it notorized, if you think that he will dispute that he ever wrote it before.) Write a followup letter stating exactly what you plan to do or why you disagree.

The one thing that I found extremely effective is to teach your supervisor everything about Narcolepsey. I put together a booklet of information I've colleted over the years (30+pages). I included everything I could get my hands on, from ADA laws to the "typical problems" that narcoleptics have in the work environment. (You can pull all this stuff off the web now). It helped my current manager realize that this really is a disability.

But most importantly, KEEP A RECORD!

--Emma

Follow Ups:

---