... makes me sick!!

A coworker in another area of my department is one of the worst employees I have *ever* encountered in all of my career. She uses up all her sick and annual leave as soon as she receives it. She also has FMLA leave for headaches and a few other illnesses, which she has regularly used up her allotment of for a year's time. She's a complete mooch on our system, but she also just plain sucks at her job. She works nights, and calls programmers when a job crashes in the middle of the night. She'll call FOR NO REASON, forgets procedure or doesn't follow it, and she's been doing the job for something like 10 years???

She recently informed that she's pregnant with her second child. Of course it's a high risk pregnancy, because she was very, very overweight (not judging) prior to getting pregnant in the first place. Now? She sounds like she's half way to death just walking down the hall every morning when leaving work. Were I in her position I'd be fearful this pregnancy would kill me! Cause me a heart attack or something! I mean seriously!

Recently we received our yearly evaluations and she received very low scores, putting her well below all expectations. She basically isn't doing her job *at all*, and general scenario is to put a person in her position on probation. Apparently, she's contacting a lawyer. A LAWYER! She's trying to claim that we're trying to fire her for being pregnant.

AAAA!!!!!

Considering I make it a very open topic that I do not want children and am a secure employee investment, this kind of thing makes me SICK! I fully believe in making sure woman are given reasonable ability to maintain employment and bare children - regardless of my childfree choices, but what she's doing is WRONG. It's just disgusting and I had to vent about it :/

My future SIL works with a girl who sounds a lot like your coworker. She totally abuses FMLA. She's got 2 kids, one is permanently disabled (practically comatose) and the other is autistic. But when she uses FMLA, it's not to take care of the kids, it's to go out and party. She has 24 hour home health aides to take care of her disabled daughter, but the aides end up having to babysit the other kid because the mother is never home. And this piece of trash wants another kid! I really can't stand these drains on society

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"Children are the future...today belongs to ME!" Lindsay Naegle ('The Simpsons')

I also brought this subject up in a discussion and my friend told me that most of her friends get knocked up in order not to lose their jobs. Here the law protects them and the employer can't do anything against that, maybe find a replacement for a year while they are on maternity leave. But this is wrong because then other women have to suffer. I mean, i don't think that women of childbearing age will have so high chances on the market. I am exactly in this category, add to that married. If a potential employer had negative experience with these kind of women in the past, i'm sure i won't even get past the interview...if i get called to the interview at all.

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"i never change my mind, only my underwear"

I worked with a woman who has two kids in primary school. She only worked 3 days a week, but then asked to leave one hour early each Wednesday so she could take her daughter to little athletics. Her request was turned down, so she just takes a sick day each Wednesday.

She admitted this to me herself, she seemed pretty happy with her decision. She even said "don't mess with my kids. when you do that, I retaliate." I felt like pointing out to her that no one was messing with her kids. We had a business to run, and her request just wasn't possible! Surely her kids could find an activity on Thursday or Friday, when she doesn't work?

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I can say whatever I want. So do not bring the kids - Kathy Griffin

I like to retaliate too - by cataloging every violation of company policy, every second of web-surfing, every second late to work or back from lunch, every time someone is away from her desk or making personal phone calls from the company phone, etc. Then I'd present her with all the violations and ask her to "retaliate to that". Since I'd fire her for insubordination and failure to satisfactorily perform job duties, she'd get no unemployment from my business. My company has successfully fired women for letting their personal lives get in the way of their jobs. Sure, it's a pain in the ass to record every transgression, but it can be done. And when the employer has a logbook of your failures, it's very hard to allege "discrimination".

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"Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself." - George Carlin

Don't burn your tongue on another man's soup - Old Italian saying

Well, Stuck, if all her poor work and abuse of company time occurred before she got pregnant, she hasn't got a case. I hope someone has been documenting everything.

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"A woman has to live her life, or live to repent not having lived it." -- D. H. Lawrence