Disability

[msmemory_archive]

My boss called today - she noticed that I was attempting to get VPN set up so I could do a smattering of little work from home. Seems working from home violates my disability status, so I can't. Okaaaaay. I will now proceed to sit on the phone with the person who's supposed to update the Intranet, who has never written anything in html, and talk her through a task which would take me 15-20 minutes to do in person.

Why does this make sense to our HR people?

EDIT: When (if) they ask me to do the phone consult, I'll point out that HR needs to approve first. Boss, above, is office manager and also part of HR, so it's a short path to a decision.

Comments

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

It's the law - it doesn't have to make sense.

Tell her you just want to read your email. (:-)

[umbran.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, disability status is not generally set by HR people. It's a legal thing outside their control. So, it is a choice between doing things the hard way now, or risk having to answer hard questions later.

Remember, if the system were perfect and rational, the Universe would fall in upon itself out of sheer boredom. :)

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

My guess is that your HR people don't really want you consulting over the phone, either. That puts a bit more sense onto it, once you think about the problem of telling who's disabled and who isn't.

Suppose you could do X% of your job at home. Then it would be tempting, presuming the costs of disability insurance work out right, for your company to keep you as a "disabled employee" for as long as possible, since they're getting a percentage of you for a fraction of the cost.

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

In a way, it would be tempting to give them a fraction of me, for a fraction of my current pay scale, in return for the free time. When the company was short on funds during last winter, there was some talk about requiring each employee to take a week's leave, or a day off per week, unpaid, to make the corporate bank account stretch. Alas for my home projects, they decided not to try to juggle that.

[cellio]

It's a legal thing, as others have pointed out. I think the intent is to protect disabled employees from being taken advantage of by forbidden eployers to get any work out of them. This is often the right call, but can be maddening. I had a coworker who was dying of cancer and out on long-term disability as a result. She desperately wanted to interact with her coworkers in a professional capacity, to take her mind of things, and she wasn't allowed to. We found ways to let her talk to us about work in ways that slipped under the radar (she was one of our domain experts), but it was maddening that she wasn't even allowed to set foot in the building to visit the gang.

[johno.livejournal.com]

Legal ditto ditto ditto...

Which means you're not really supposed to be doing the phone consulting thing either.

The person who contacted you about this issue should get their wrist slapped.

1) You are on disability and therefore legally unavailable to work.

2) You're recovering from surgery!

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Well, there is the tacit misunderstanding in the law that says a person who works is probably bending metal or something.

Knowledge workers can do lots of things while they convalesce... Except sit in a chair for long periods of time.

[johno.livejournal.com]

"can" and "legally allowed to" are two seperate things.

[isisofcool.livejournal.com]

Legally, there is also the concern of the opposite situation. There was an occasion that I know of where the employee was out on disability, and then proudly told his boss how he had used his time off to repaint his house.