Absence because of pet death

ILW

marybelle01 wrote: »

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The gender of the employee is not relevant, and as one other poster here had observed, she has personal experience of her husband having been hit hard by the death of a pet. Your comment is offensive and sexist. Neither mental illness nor intelligence are predicated on gender. You having ably demonstrated the point.

i would still put money on it being a woman.

ILW

lori64 wrote: »

Are you for real? You can keep your job, as long as you never have another pet, ever!!

What difference does it make whether the employee is a Man/woman with either a dog/cat or any other pet?

Just logical, if it takes someone months to get over the death of a pet (which is a natural regular occurrence), it is better for all for the individual not to have pets.

duchy

ILW wrote: »

Just logical, if it takes someone months to get over the death of a pet (which is a natural regular occurrence), it is better for all for the individual not to have pets.

In that case -using your logic -if a man or woman loses a child an employer should tell them unless they agree never to have another child they will be sacked.......................

Do you see the fatal flaw in your plan ?

Basically you can't dictate to people what they do outside of work . You can't even tell an alcoholic that unless they never have another drink they are fired or tell a smoker that if they continue to smoke away from work they will be sacked as smokers are more prone to chest infections..........or perhaps you prefer the employer who tells a cancer surviver that they are sacked because the risk of the cancer returning means they might need time off in the future.

Good thing ILW isn't an employer -they'd never get all their work done and fit in all the visits to employment tribunals !

I wonder if the employee said either to her doctor or to someone else that she felt so devastated that she couldn't imagine been ready to go back to work in a fortnight and (knowing or thinking she'd be feeling a lot stronger by then ) they said something like -"Well if you don't feel ready by then you could consider a phased return" Not thinking for a moment that she'd actually need it ?

ILW

duchy wrote: »

In that case -using your logic -if a man or woman loses a child an employer should tell them unless they agree never to have another child they will be sacked.......................

Do you see the fatal flaw in your plan ?

Not true.
The likelyhood is that a child will outlive it's parents.
It is a virtual certainty that a dog or cat will die before it's owner.

lori64

ILW wrote: »

Just logical, if it takes someone months to get over the death of a pet (which is a natural regular occurrence), it is better for all for the individual not to have pets.

Sadly, humans dying is also a (natural regular occurence) but nobody would dare suggest they get over it, or you lose your job.

The employee mentioned by the op maybe has no other family and their pet was the only thing they were close to.

WantToBeSE

You know what, OP? After reading your other post about your employee having been a pretty much model employee up until now, i am wondering if there is actually something more going on.
Maybe s/he has a mental health condition such as depression or anxiety and the death of her pet really was just the last straw.

If you care about your employee, as it sounds like you do, maybe call them and ask if they are OK? Maybe thats too personal, i dont know, but either way it may answer your question and also make your employee feel a valued part of your company

Wyndham

So glad to have this thread. One of my empolyees had a cat die a couple of weeks ago, and I really wasn't sure how to handle it. I kept telling myself 'if it were a child, I'd have no doubt what to do, but it's a cat'. But, I also knew that for this person the cat was, well, maybe a surrogate child.

They asked for a days holiday and were back the next day. But it's interesting to hear the views on here in case it happens again (they have another cat you see...)

pickpocketlocket

ILW wrote: »

Tell them you may consider on condition that they do not get another pet.

Bet the employee is a woman.

I assumed the employee was a woman because the OP referred to a cat. Had they said it was a dog, I would have assumed the employee was a man. Stereotyping, but not on the grounds of their vulnerability.

The suicide rate is significantly higher for men than it is for women, and much of that is because of attitudes like yours - men are scared to speak up and get help because they are frightened of being judged and emasculated. After all, according to you only a woman would react so badly to a trauma.

dacouch

Is her name Mrs Slocombe?

Mista_C

Two weeks seems excessive. My OH was devastated when our cat had to be put to sleep and it took her a while to get over it. She'd had the cat for many years and it was a part of the family but you can't put your life on pause.

I suppose different people are affected differently but even compassionate leave for the loss of a family member is only to provide "breathing space" for making funeral arrangements and so on.

I suspect there's more to this than the death of her pet but what that could be is anyone's guess.
When the last of my Mom's brothers died some 10 years ago she went to pieces. I explained to my boss that I wasn't close to him myself, and I rarely saw him, but I was worried over the state of my Mom. He was good enough to allow me 3 days compassionate leave and to bring forward 5 days of my next years annual leave to help my Mom come to terms with it all. I really only needed a day for the funeral but couldn't have gone back to work leaving my Mom to it. Could there be something like this at play here?

Some things are more important than the job but not all employers can see beyond their profit margin. Could you maybe have an informal chat and a coffee with the employee and see if there's anything you can help with? It might be a friendly ear is what they need most right now and who knows what might come to light.