Mom Loses Job After Family Gets Flu

[Roamer]

http://www.kten.com/global/story.asp?s=11309548

A mother of two loses her job for taking too many sick days. Deeda Payton has her story.

Christie Anglin says she did what any good mother would do, she called in to work and stayed home with her kids who were both sick with the flu.

Christie Anglin's son, Joshua came down with the flu at the first of September and she says that's when she took her first sick day. Then her younger daughter, Julie, caught the virus and she took more time off. Then both she and her husband got sick and the sick days kept adding up.

She says she started her job as a customer service representative at IRT, interactive response technologies, in June, and by October seventh she had missed seven days of work.

But, she says she didn't know what else to do.

"Whenever my children were running a temperature, you can't take your child to daycare when your child is sick. They say whenever you have the flu to stay home, stay out of the public, so that's what I tried to do."

Anglin says IRT did tell her that she was required to work 90-percent of her scheduled work days.

We did try to reach IRT for a comment, but our calls were not returned.

Deeda Payton, KTEN News.

[rockford2]

Unfortunately, this happens. A lot. When you have small children I cannot believe that mothers are FORCED to make this decision. Stay home with them or run the risk of losing your job.

Many times I have thought about this as my son was often sick when he was younger. Is this the real reason I never tried harder to get pregnant a second time? This really is an issue that needs to be addressed. Work places need back up help for when this happens as it's not only the people who have young children, but for when we care for our elderly parents.

And this mother that was fired? I can bet she wasn't paid when she took those 7 days off. So companies could use that money to hire temps, IMO.

[Roamer]

A new law needs to be passed. With the flu so prevalent this year, especially.

What they did to her, IMO, was just plain wrong!

[look4u]

From their website;
People
Interactive Response Technologies, Inc.

We are a people company. Our employees are the cornerstone of providing world class call center solutions for our clients. From the moment they are hired we nurture their development by providing them with state-of-the-art call center training, above industry standard benefits and robust advancement opportunities. Our employees are family, we establish mutual trust and respect that helps deliver world class call center results for our clients. We are steadfast in our belief that people make the difference.

Maybe just the wrong kind of people . I guess you can't always choose your family !

[Dellia]

Epidemic, pandeminic, flu reports are everywhere. What the world are people like this suppose to do? The mom needs to nurse her children back to health. She gets sick herself. If mom goes to work sick, she takes the chance of spreading the flu to potentially dozens of people. The company is wrong for letting mom go, JMO.

[texanne]

The reason diseases spreads so fast in the schools is because parents send their sick, feverish children to school because they feel pressured to always show up for work. This causes other people's children to suffer also. When will companies get enough brains to see that they are hiring humans, not robots. I have worked in jobs where staff cuts were so severe that one person being out caused big problems. Maybe a business needs to rearrange their business plan and profit expectations to more realistically reflect the real world...they need more staff to cover for times when someone is sick.

[RayStar]

I was in a warehouse club this past Saturday and the cashier had the sniffles. I politely told her to get some tissue and wash her hands. She complied. I don't care if the packages of meat are wrapped all it takes is a pin hole.

I guess we will have to have Congress pass a law against this and real soon. With fewer people having insurance can you image the number of undocumented cases we will see. People don't like being sick and this H1N1 is taking people out of here.

I learned about five years ago to rinse all packages off before storing them. I am faithful to rinsing and wiping down (paper) packages. Yes, I feel so paranoid.

[rockford2]

I was in a warehouse club this past Saturday and the cashier had the sniffles. I politely told her to get some tissue and wash her hands. She complied. I don't care if the packages of meat are wrapped all it takes is a pin hole.

I guess we will have to have Congress pass a law against this and real soon. With fewer people having insurance can you image the number of undocumented cases we will see. People don't like being sick and this H1N1 is taking people out of here.

I learned about five years ago to rinse all packages off before storing them. I am faithful to rinsing and wiping down (paper) packages. Yes, I feel so paranoid.

I didn't know that you should rinse all packages off before storing them. Thanks for this tip!