I’m sure most of you will say it’s a bad idea, but I’m considering telling her my dx and maybe even say why I was in the hospital. All I told her in my text when I was in the ER last week was that “I have a chronic illness that can be deadly if it gets out of control.”
I normally keep such information on a strictly need-to-know basis, but with this “no one takes breaks or lunches” nonsense that she said to me the last time I worked, I’m thinking she needs to know. I’m looking for a different job already, anyway, on account of the no breaks thing, so I don’t really have much to lose. Not to mention she can’t fire me over it.
I think even without telling her this she will be understanding of me needing breaks the first week or two back, as will my coworkers if they know I was in the hospital, but that won’t last long.
My dean at the college knows, and it has gotten me more leeway with calling off, and the same is true of my boss at the last pharmacy I worked at. So yeah, telling my boss worked to my benefit in past.
For those who work a paid job, have you ever told your manager about your illness?
Summary: I’m considering telling my new boss about my MI, as she normally frowns upon techs taking breaks/lunches, and doing this has benefited me in the past. Also, I wonder how many employed forum members have told their bosses.
I told my boss AT THE INTERVIEW. I seriously thought that was a big mistake and forgot about the interview for two weeks. Then I got a call saying sorry they took so long but they want to offer me a job.
And I get as many smoke breaks as I like. As long as all of my work is done, and all of the deadlines have been met, they basically just leave me alone and never say anything. Lucky I guess.
I’m wondering if this is in violation of labor laws?
I don’t know where in the U.S. you live/work, but in California, breaks are required for non-exempt (hourly paid) employees, based on how many hours they work in a shift.
She lets techs take breaks if they ask for them, and if they are working enough hours to be legally entitled to them, just as she let me take one the last time I worked. She just makes it clear that taking them is heavily frowned upon.
Then there’s the peer pressure, knowing that the other techs don’t take them. If I leave the pharmacy, even for fifteen minutes, that’s fifteen minutes that the other techs have to pick up the slack. And here I am, the only one taking breaks.
I don’t really want to work a job at which I will be resented by my coworkers.
I told my supervisors at two different jobs and lost both within weeks. Be careful.
At the first job, it was when I was first being diagnosed. I told my boss they were “talking schizophrenia.” I ended up being confronted about my frequent callouts two weeks later and they pressured me in tears to quit my job, knowing they couldn’t fire me.
At my last job, I went on a short term disability to attend a two week inpatient program through my local community services board. My pdoc at the time cleared me for return to work even though i wasn’t remotely ready. I had frequent callouts after that point, because I just couldn’t cope. My supervisor was less than sympathetic about it and called me into her office a lot. Three months later, I changed pdocs and my current one has me on long term disability through my state employee retirement system. If that hadn’t happened, I’d have no doubt been pushed out of that job too.
That no breaks thing happened to my mother in law. The state stepped in when someone called and reported it. Everyone got checks for the back pay they were owed for working through the breaks. They were not getting breaks but the time has been deducted from their checks.
That’s shitty that they deducted the pay for breaks they didn’t even take. They don’t do that at the pharmacy. The fifteen minute breaks are paid; if I was to take a lunch, then half an hour of pay would be deducted, and rightly so.
Right, I meant if we take those fifteen minute breaks we still get paid for those fifteen minutes, nothing gets deducted from our pay, except for a half-hour lunch.
I was excited about taking lunches there, considering it’s practically right across the street from a Taco Bell, my favorite fast food, but now I’m not sure about taking lunches.
My last employer knew I was ill and accommodated me in every single way possible. I had several periods of disability that lasted months and they stood right by my side and held my job while I was trying to stabilize on my meds. The last time I went out they held my job forever before they finally just had to hire someone to ease the toll it was taking the other ladies as far as working overtime to cover my shifts. But they made it clear that they would find something for me whenever I got better enough to work. That was five years ago. I still have a job if I want one. There are some good employers out there.
I had to tell a boss once I had a disability but I didn’t tell her what it was. I didn’t lose my job though. I eventually quit and left for a higher paying job that I only lasted six weeks at.
I was very quick to tell my coordinator and so far it hasn’t affected our relationship or my workload. Idk if he told anyone else, but everyone seems pretty chill about mental health issues in general, so I think it’s fine as long as I do my job.