Title: How Some Employees View Fringe
My law firm once had an employee named Isabel who was repeatedly sick with many illnesses and also with “female” problems
and she ultimately had to have a hysterectomy
and her physician ordered to rest in bed for 6 weeks to recuperate.
As Firm Manager, I became uncomfortable when we called her house to ask her something about her work and her child told us she was driving her Mother around.
Then we called a few days later to ask a similar question and the child told us she had “gone to the Mall to look for a present for ‘someone’.”
So when she returned to work, I talked with her about using so very much “Sick Pay”
that I thought it she was abusing it
and that it made her “too expensive” to the firm because not only were we paying her while on sick pay and holding her job open for her return to work,
but that we also had to hire a temporary employee to perform her work while she was out “sick.”
That it was, in effect, “double cost” to the firm when she was “out”
and that the law firm simply couldn’t afford to keep her if she didn’t stop using illness as an excuse to get paid when she was not required to stay home.
She replied to me:
“Oh, Mr. Jorrie, that’s not part of my cost to the firm,
it doesn’t cost the firm any money …
that’s just an Employee Benefit.”
My law firm once had an employee named Isabel who was repeatedly sick with many illnesses and also with “female” problems
and she ultimately had to have a hysterectomy
and her physician ordered to rest in bed for 6 weeks to recuperate.
As Firm Manager, I became uncomfortable when we called her house to ask her something about her work and her child told us she was driving her Mother around.
Then we called a few days later to ask a similar question and the child told us she had “gone to the Mall to look for a present for ‘someone’.”
So when she returned to work, I talked with her about using so very much “Sick Pay”
that I thought it she was abusing it
and that it made her “too expensive” to the firm because not only were we paying her while on sick pay and holding her job open for her return to work,
but that we also had to hire a temporary employee to perform her work while she was out “sick.”
That it was, in effect, “double cost” to the firm when she was “out”
and that the law firm simply couldn’t afford to keep her if she didn’t stop using illness as an excuse to get paid when she was not required to stay home.
She replied to me:
“Oh, Mr. Jorrie, that’s not part of my cost to the firm,
it doesn’t cost the firm any money …
that’s just an Employee Benefit.”
Robert Jorrie
November 16, 1990