msmemory_archive: (Default)
msmemory_archive ([personal profile] msmemory_archive) wrote2004-07-21 10:37 am

Disability

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.
cellio: (mandelbrot-2)

[personal profile] cellio 2004-07-21 08:41 am (UTC)(link)
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.