We have a 500 page employee handbook (it is given to us every year and we must read and sign it) that specifies that we are hired 'at will' and can be terminated 'at will' without cause. Surprisingly they expect a 3-4 week notice when an employee quits. Such a good feeling of security! :o) It also contains such statements as "You are expected to be at work on time and to be productive." I have also worked for someone in the past though that made my day absolutely miserable. The majority that I worked with quit and some were given stress leave to handle it. Eventually they let the disaster (manager) go after 2 years but it was 2 years of misery! When someone took family bereavement leave when their parent died they had to travel to another state. The return flights were unexpectadly delayed coming back due to bad weather so they called to arrange to take a vacation day (which they had plenty of) to cover their return. They were told to get back ontime or to not bother coming in at all. The employee came back the next day (the earliest flight due to bad weather) and they were told they no worked there. Another time an employee came in and gave their 2 week notice. They were told to just go home. They did not give out any reference whatsoever and any employee caught giving out any reference or saying anything other than dates of employment would be fired. In another instance an employee left and they had another inhouse employee perform the job termporarily (for 2 years). For 2 years he did the job without a pay raise or new job title even though it was a senior position. They constantly verbally praised him but when he finally stated that he would need the new title to continue they hired someone from the outside, gave the new position a 30% pay increase and put the other guy back to his old position. He left after 3 months after that. I had a boss once that didn't know what I did all day and she didn't understand my job so she always thought I was goofing off. She thought the same of everyone else because she didn't have a background or any experience in IT. She would stand behind me chewing noisely for long periods of time until I couldn't stand it. I finally just started turning around and staring at her, waiting for her to say something and I wouldn't turn back around and continue working until she left. I had to go in for emergency network work one weekend and she wanted to make sure I wasn't wasting the government's money so she went in as well and stayed with me the whole time. She made me explain everything I was doing to repair the network so it took twice as long as normal. She finally didn't question my actions anymore. I had another manager that used to throw things when angry and one day he threw a pencil while arguing with an employee and the pencil go stuck in the employee's arm. That manager is now a Senior VP.


>I'm going to be the fly in ointment here for a minute. I realize all you were going through, but isn't there an expectation that an employee will fit within certain guidelines as well? Though they were heavy, just how responsible does the company need to be in regards to your personal issues? They hire someone to do something. It's not a big family. I've never worked anywhere that the company ultimately wasn't looking out for the company. And isn't that the deal we strike when they hire us? They agree to pay us a specific amount to do a job. We will do the job because they will pay us. If they don't pay us, we would not come in. If you do not, or are unable to, come in to work according to their guidelines, they should stop paying us. I feel for you John - lots of life came at you big time - but why was the company at fault for not holding your hand and catering to you? Ok, that was a pretty big fly, but I was thinking about it and wanted to say it.
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>>I never wanted to be evaluated on the basis of my personal challenges; I simply wanted to be treated fairly and to be judged in terms of how the product was doing. In my, possibly simplistic, worldview if we were hitting milestones and product failures were minimal, I was doing my job.