Piece of Advice

[sheldonp22]

One of my greatest regrets in regards to work is not telling my employer from the very beginning. For 5 years I struggled working in the morning and then rushing in my car to the dialysis center. This left me stressed out, tired and just rundown. Until one day after a 2 week stint in the hospital I told my boss I just could not do it anymore. He asked me what accomidations could the company do for me. I told him that if I could do my work from home on dialysis days it would mean all the difference. He said "no problem" and I started the next day. The whole time I was always hiding dialysis and my sickness I could have had things accomidated for me. I learned now after 16 years on hemodialysis that you do have to speak up and tell people about your disablity to get accomidations to be productive member of your company. P.S. Just celebrated my 11  year aniversary at my Job.

[RichardMEL]

I am a pretty open person and I was open about my situation from the start and my managers have always been very supportive. I think they appreciated, even before I had to start D, that they were in the loop, so there wasn't a nasty surprise when oh, I suddenly am not able to be at work for 3 afternoons a week - I'd told them for a couple of years beforehand that it would be coming up. And when I was on D, because they knew the deal they would do things like not schedule meetings or things when I would be at D, and be considerate that some mornings I was just not very good (never been a morning person! lol) - and when I started talking about the potential of transplpant, and that I'd be out for a few months recovering and whatever else.. the comment was basically "don't you worry about work. You just get yourself right and take what you need."

now don't get me wrong. I know I am VERY fortunate to have such understanding managers (and this is over a few jobs over the years) and that, sadly, many people do not have it that good and - specially in places like the US - have to worry about issues involving being employed for medical insurance, discrimination, and so on. It's not easy.

I guess I've never been one to hide things. Indeed I sit here in shirt sleeves with my fistula bumps out in the open - I don't care what people think (well except one time this idiot thought they were boils like I was a leper or something! Who knew he was one of my ex-girlfriends? :p ). And while I was pretty stable on dialysis and able to work pretty much normally, and put the extra hours in where I could and when it was needed, I was always up front that some days were not so good and so on. I guess it also helped me that I had been working in my job for a few years already and they knew I could do the work pretty well and that I was not the sort to slack off or use health as an excuse for anything so I think there was some trust built up.

I've always been one to follow a "honesty is the best policy" approach with most things in life. Sometimes it can bite you in the backside, but in general I like people to know where I'm coming from and all that sort of thing. I do understand everyone is in different situations and has different issues to confront and not so supportive co-workers and managers like I have had but in general I do agree to be honest about such things.

[rsudock]

 It has been my experience that if you get employers to see you as an asset to the team first, when they discover the ESRD they are more likely to not discriminate against you...plus when you have employer insurance where the cost of premiums is based on how sick the members are in the pool; not everyone is thrilled to know you are chronically ill...they feel like "she is raising our rates."  Most teachers I know usually do not disclose they have ESRD, and when they do start to run into problems with the school district trying to make their life difficult, so they will retire...

[RichardMEL]

A very good point.

Luckily down here we don't have the whole medical insurance issues you guys have so it really comes down to the impression others (specially managers) would have as to how "useful" you are - that sounds terrible, but I mean it in a more gentle way. For example, I worked in my job for over 2.5 years before I started D - and, without trying to sound conceited, I think I proved in that time that I worked hard, knew (most) of my stuff, and *was* an asset to the organisation (the director wanted to up my hours during that time, which was definitely a positive sign that they valued my input) - so when it came time for D to get in the way I think there was definitely more leeway given, or support and understanding, given that clearly if I wasn't well or too titred or whatever they knew I wasn't being lazy or slacking off, and also that I'd shown I always tried to do what needed to be done to fix problems or whatever. Of course I'd like to think I had very little "downtime" from work during my years on  D - apart from the afternoons I was actually off being hooked up of course - and since that was set that I was not at work those times everyone worked around that pretty easily.

I'd like to think that my fellow employees were also understanding of when I wasn't in due to being on the machine or whatever and didn't think the worse of me for it - plus luckily because D supported me well I could make up time the other days and if I needed to work late on a Friday to support stuff then I could.

[tbarrett2533]

I too have an AMAZING employer!!

I even took 7 months off so that I could get my SSD and the company held my job for me eventough they did not have too

I went back to work one day a week and still can pick and choose when I work (my job is very flexble) part of the reason why I liked it so much!!!

I always joke that I will retire from the company and in fact I am the longest standing employee at my branch, they call me the "ten year emplyee")   HAHA!!

[sullidog]

I agree, I have no trouble (also have FMLA), when I do work, I do my job very well and that helps.

[Rerun]

I really couldn't do the job I was hired for, and I didn't want to be demoted and I could have hung on forever but it wasn't fair to the other employees for me not to do my fair share so I took a medical disability and they helped me push it through. 

So, I'm on disability and social security.  I just got a part-time job from home and I'm at peace with that.  But, I do have to have fistula surgery and I'm hesitant to tell my new boss.  Vicious Circle I guess.


                                       

[Willis]

I worked with my boss at another company for over 6 years and when he started his own company he hired me at a very good salary. So we had become good friends both at work and outside of work. My boss grew up without a father and I'm about the same age as his father would have been. He has told me in the past that he considered me to be like a step-father and mentor to him and the feelings were mutual. He was aware of my failing kidney condition for many years and couldn't have been more supportive during the early months leading up to and after starting dialysis when I missed a lot of work and certainly found it hard to maintain productivity. Fortunately, within about 3 months I was able to keep a normal schedule and was able to get back to my previous level of productivity.

None of that stopped him from cutting my salary in half and blaming it "on the economy" though...