TL;DR: I applied to a job making it clear I had a lifelong disability, my employer bullied me for months regarding the impact my illness had on my attendance and performance, waited four months before asking for proof, and then fired me for recording a meeting that my supervisor had told me she was understanding of before it even started. I tried to kill myself and I wish I'd succeeded.
Hi guys.
I've honestly gone back and forth so much between posting this and not. This happened this past friday, and I haven't been able to be alone since because I've been suicidal and not even able to take care of myself due to how hard this hit me.
I'm just going to apologize in advance because I am posting this on mobile and I'm also using voice to text because my hands are still shaking so much that I don't think I can type this out without needing frequent breaks.
To start at the beginning, last year while I was working for a completely different company, I was formally diagnosed with SLE (systemic lupus erythematosis). The Healthcare system here is so overloaded that they couldn't even get me in with a rheumatologist for 6 months to start medication.
For those who are not aware, lupus almost always goes undiagnosed for very long periods of time. They call it the disease of a thousand faces because it manifests in almost every patient differently, and a lot of the symptoms by themselves mirror symptoms of other illnesses.
In my case, it was likely triggered when I was young. I'm 31 now, and it's estimated that this has been periodically causing my body to attack itself for over two decades.
Obviously this has completely crushed me. When I requested accommodation from my job at the time, they refused it and requested more information from my doctor, so I sent it off to them and they were in the process of filling it out when I was laid off due to “work shortage”. I was one of the only people laid off, and just so you guys know… The job I'm referring to above is not the job I was just fired from. The job I was just fired from is the job that I acquired when this position laid me off.
When looking for work, I made sure to specify that I had a lifelong disability in my applications. I landed an interview with a company that was based out of the province neighboring mine, and was looking for remote workers. I had two interviews, and was very transparent about the fact that I had lupus, because I was so worried about them finding some reason to lay me off the way that my previous employer had the second that they found out I was sick.
They acted extremely accommodating and understanding of my illness during the interviews and the period of time leading up to starting training there.
They did not stay that way.
Every single month, I was penalized in my monthly reviews for absences. They would act understanding in the moment when something happened, but I would be criticized and disciplined for it in my touchbases which were two times a week. They also expected us to have a maximum of 30 minutes of follow-up time to complete tasks each day, regardless of how many customers we interacted with and how many tasks we had to complete.
To break this down, we were required to respond to live chat, while taking calls, filling out tickets and sending them to other departments, actioning and responding to emails from other customers, and also maintaining contact with our supervisors. If I took 23 calls a day, I was expected to take no more than an average of 1.3 minutes to complete tasks. I don't even mean tasks related to the call, I mean any and all tasks, including if I was in the middle of troubleshooting a customer over live chat.
A lot of these tasks were extensive and required contact with other departments, as well as waiting for those departments to get back to you.
I was harassed on a semi daily basis for being over these targets. Things begin to escalate. They would acknowledge the validity of my health issues and then penalize me for any absence related to it in meetings. I missed less than 70 hours over the course of 4 months, even though I was experiencing regular flares, at one point even had covid, was going through testing and appointments with my Healthcare team, and dealing with some pretty debilitating mental issues from having to come to grips with the fact I've been sick my entire life.
I told my parents all the time when I was a kid that something was wrong, that I didn't feel okay, I missed about a month of school every single year due to illness. I caught every single flu and bug that went around, when H1N1 reared its head it put me in the hospital and still my parents never thought that there was something wrong. They called me a hypochondriac and that's how I learned what that word meant.
So yeah it's been crushing to me because I still can't even wrap my head around the fact that I have this, and that I now have to make all these changes to my life. I've been on hydroxychloroquine for about a month now, and the side effects have been pretty bad and it won't start doing anything good for me for a while yet.
I also had a pretty invasive medical procedure done, and only missed 1.5 shifts recovering from it even when I literally couldn't wear pants because it hurts so much to sit down or bend over. And I was made to feel inadequate due to the pain affecting the amount of time it took for me to complete tasks.
My employer waited until 4 months after I started working there, and was recovering from this medical procedure, when they had a meeting with me. In the meeting they told me that they were going to go softer on me because I was clearly ill (My body reacted badly to the procedure in the form of the worst inflammation and butterfly rash I've ever had).
They did not go easy on me. In fact, they requested supporting documentation to prove that I was ill, in the form of a lengthy sheet that included my physical capabilities, which is odd because it was a work from home position. They told me that I could take my time getting it filled out but that it was necessary for any type of leniency regarding my absences or need for more time to complete tasks.
I can't tell you what all of this did to me mentally, because it gets so much worse.
I reached out to my healthcare provider the same day, and explain the situation to her and the staff. She said that there was a requirement that I be present and make an appointment to fill out the form together due to a lot of the questions they were requesting. Questions like what illness I have, when it will be resolved, etc. Her next appointment however, was in 6 weeks. She had a cancellation that day though, and offered that spot to me.
I reached out to my supervisor at work, and they strongly urged me to stay and implied that I would be penalized for leaving for this appointment, even though it was for a form that they were requiring for me to be able to work at my capacity. I explained to them that it was the only appointment, and they continued to say that it was my choice but that they would strongly urge me to stay for the duration of my shift to avoid penalization.
I did stay that shift, and I worked so hard in so much pain that I cried multiple times whenever I had a second between calls. I made my work aware of my condition and situation every step of the way in an effort for them to be understanding.
Although I was told there was no deadline for the form, I received an email from HR when I came back from my scheduled days off saying that it was due back within less than 4 days. My Healthcare office encouraged me to start documenting everything, because they believed that I was being discriminated against based on disability. And luckily (?) I had already begun to do just that.
I continued to receive negative feedback on my follow-up times while struggling to even remain for my shift, and my recovery time was drawn out due to not being able to take time off to heal. I started to make a concentrated effort to track my own follow-up times, and to listen to my own call flow in an effort to pinpoint where the issues were and how long it took me to complete tasks after an interaction.
This is where things get really fucked up. In fact, I have not been able to sleep more than 4 hours a night since Friday.
The Monday before I was fired, I had live listens with my manager. Live listens are where you go on a team's meeting together, screen and audio share supervisor listens to your call with you so that they can help you with any issues you might have or give you tips on how you can do better. All calls are recorded, and my supervisor made sure that I was aware of that, and has even sent me previous calls to review. All customers are made aware that calls are recorded, for quality and training purposes.
I noticed a feature on teams that allowed us to record teams meetings, so I decided for this live listen I would hit record. Both people in the meeting can see that it's being recorded, and when my manager asked if I was recording I said yes and explain that I wanted to be able to pinpoint issues with my call flow because I was serious about getting better. I had so many tools that I created for myself and document form to try and do the same thing because I was so serious about this job and wanted to show that I had what it took to be a good employee even with my illness.
This part is important, she seems surprised that I was recording but also understood, and said that made perfect sense. She also acknowledged that I've been trying and said I've been making good progress. This was Monday.
Halfway through a customer call when I was in the middle of doing some investigating for the customer, she messaged me in the call chat and said that it might be an issue with confidentiality and that I should probably stop recording. I gave her a thumbs up and immediately stopped the recording, and then realized that I couldn't even access the recording because it's stored on Teams servers. At this point my supervisor reassured me, that every team's meeting was already recorded anyway.
I worked on Tuesday and had a touchbase with my supervisor that went very well. She mentioned that I had seriously cut down my follow-up time and that I was doing better and that she was really excited for my next touch base to see how much better things would be by then. I had Wednesday and Thursday off, so my next touchbase was scheduled for friday.
Just another thing to note, my manager always told me that if there was a serious issue I would know about it instantly, and that I wouldn't have to worry about going into a meeting and getting fired because I would know well before then there was a problem, and that they would work with me.
On friday, I noticed that my touch base meeting had been moved from the middle of the day to the very beginning of the day. When I logged in for the meeting, something told me that maybe I should record this on my phone. We live in a single party country, where only one person's consent is required for recording of any kind. There were no customer interactions during this touch base, so no confidentiality was breached. These are all things that I confirmed before doing that.
I'm so glad I recorded that meeting guys. Because in that meeting my supervisor and her manager were there. Her supervisor told me that I had violated confidentiality policy by recording a customer interaction. I mentioned that my supervisor had allowed me to do so, and that the second she asked me to stop I had done so, and manager said that supervisor had reached out to HR for confirmation because she wasn't sure about the policy. She also said that I should have been aware of the policy, and refused to answer whether or not my supervisor had received that same policy when she'd been hired. She refused to acknowledge that I had been given the okay, and that they waited literally four more days to fire me. I was given no warning, my benefits were terminated that day, and now I can't afford the treatment I need to get better, let alone rent.
The person that fired me smiled the entire time she was doing it. I told her that what she was doing was highly unethical. I told her that my supervisor giving me permission to do it and that the second that she said to stop I had. I also said that I couldn't access the recording to begin with, and that my supervisor had said everything was recorded anyway. They did not care, they continued to talk over me and tell me that they wished me the best in my endeavors while also telling me to return all of the equipment that I was working from home with within three business days.
I got the entire thing recorded. I can't even listen to it because this entire thing crushed my entire fucking soul. I tried to kill myself on Friday, by taking a bunch of the pills that were prescribed to me for my fibromyalgia (which, along with Raynaud's disease, I also didn't know I had until my rheumatologist appointment).
I even said to them, you know that you're destroying someone's life right now, for no valid reason. They just continued to interrupt me and wish me the best, so I hung up in complete tears and shock.
Ever since then, my partner has been telling me that I need to go to human rights. Here in canada, I've already been informed I have a pretty much ironclad case with our federal human Rights commission for discrimination and termination based on disability. But I have to go through finding a new job, applying for unemployment, filing a huge claim that I'll have to go over every painstaking detail of my entire employment with this company for, and I've barely been able to get out of bed since this happened. I feel completely defeated and like even though I did everything I could to advocate for myself (which is really fucking hard because half the time I can't even believe this illness is real, I've been told for so long that I was just imagining it), and they completely destroyed me.
I just don't know what to do and I feel so guilty for my friends and family that have tried to help me pick up the pieces of my life for the last 5 years, and I've seen me get knocked down over and over again. They've given me a lot of emotional and financial support and I feel so undeserving and like a colossal burden on everyone. I feel completely hopeless and everyone keeps telling me not to give up but I just don't want to be here anymore. I feel like this is just going to happen over and over again and I'm never going to feel useful or valued, I'm so easily replaceable and don't deserve to exist because I can't contribute to society enough to even earn my keep. And knowing why, it doesn't do shit. I can't help this stupid illness and it's literally ruined my life and I wish more than anything I could either get rid of it or just stop existing.
To anyone who read this, I'm sorry for how long it is. I just really needed to get it all out without putting it on people in my life who are probably exhausted from having to help me so much.
Edit: I just wanted to let you guys know how much time I missed while I was at this place. Because if I had missed a ton of time and not been a good employee that would make a lot more sense, but I missed less than 70 hours combined over the course of 4 months.
This is including time taken for work from home issues like storms/power outages, an apartment break-in, coming down with COVID, getting COPD, and of course the Lupus and medical procedure I just had. My shifts were 8 hours. We have a federally enforced 10 paid sick days per year, and since a majority of the absences were prior to December, I had used less than 2 of my sick days for this year.