I’m going to visit my family for a few days over the holidays, and this year I’m even more worried than usual about it, because my brother is completely unwilling and/or unable to consider anybody else’s feelings, ever. He wasn’t always like this. I can’t picture visiting for a few days without him marring it by, at best, starting arguments and running off. I don’t even want to think about any of the worst-case scenarios. Maybe I’ll be lucky and nothing too bad will happen, just the normal petty squabbles that everybody’s family has. You never know. It could happen.

Via Liz Spikol, I came across this article: Lawyer defends firm’s decision to dismiss worker with bipolar disorder.

Stephen Bird, who represents ADGA Group Consulting Inc., said the company discussed employee Paul Lane’s condition with him after he revealed that he had bipolar disorder and researched the condition on the internet before making the decision to dismiss him.

According to the written human rights tribunal ruling, what managers learned convinced them that Lane, who was hired to test artillery software for a Department of National Defence contract, would not be able to meet the rigours of a stressful job with tight deadlines.

Ooh, tight deadlines! Sooo scary! Look, some people can handle tight deadlines and some people can’t. Having bipolar disorder does not necessarily mean that you can’t.

Liz says, “are you kidding?” re: the company researching bipolar disorder on the Internet and whatever they learned there apparently being a deciding factor in the decision to fire Lane. Which I totally have to agree with when you consider these paragraphs from the article:

Not only does the company believe the tribunal erred in its decision, but Bird alleges that it also over-stepped its jurisdiction in the way it handled evidence in the case.

For example, the tribunal heard from experts on bipolar disorder who didn’t even know Lane, he argued during the case.

“The evidence should either not have been accepted at all, or should have been accepted for very limited purposes,” he said.

Okay, so ADGA looking up stuff on the Internet about bipolar disorder in general, presumably all written by people who didn’t know Lane, and not liking what they found is an okay reason to fire the guy, but when subject experts who also don’t know Lane have their say about bipolar disorder, that shouldn’t be allowed?

On the basis of that article and a previous article about Lane, it would seem that he hadn’t actually had any problems at that particular job; the company just assumed he couldn’t handle it based on what he told them about his illness and whatever the hell they read on the Web about it.

According to the facts presented in the ruling, Lane was dismissed in October 2001, eight days after he started work as a senior test analyst as ADGA. He had told his supervisor that he had bipolar disorder and his behaviour should be monitored.

I am lucky that I’ve always been able to do my work without any special accommodations whatsoever. It wasn’t the case with schoolwork, but it’s been the case with work-work. (Wow, what a mature phrase… “work-work”… clearly someone of my maturity level should have no problem handling a career!) Thus, there’s never been any reason for me to disclose my manic depression to any employers I have had.

The company denied that it discriminated against Lane on the basis of his disability. It alleged he was dismissed because he was not capable of performing the essential functions of the job for which he had been hired. It also said he had lied about the amount of sick time he had taken during a previous job that would have alerted the company to his illness.

However, tribunal adjudicator David J. Mullan found the company did not, as required, make a significant effort to accommodate Lane or properly assess the situation to determine whether it could accommodate Lane’s disability without “undue hardship.”

Lane was hospitalized almost immediately after being fired. I know being fired due to discrimination is a lot more stressful than merely having tight deadlines, but I’ve got to say that I’m pretty sure that if I were fired tomorrow, I couldn’t see myself winding up being hospitalized because of it. It’s really easy to say what you’d do in a given situation when you’re not actually in that situation, so maybe I’m being way too harsh here. Or maybe he actually isn’t a guy who can handle a lot of stress, but still: you should actually give someone a chance to see what they can do before you fire them, and if they have a disability, you do have to take appropriate steps to see if it can be accommodated without undue hardship. Lane didn’t think he’d need much in the way of accommodations.

I know I’m getting just south of coherence here, but mainly I’m frustrated at not knowing nearly enough of the particulars of this case and realizing that it’s my own damn fault that I don’t know. I’ll read the actual tribunal report after the holidays. I don’t have time now.

This entry was posted on Saturday, December 22nd, 2007 at 11:38 pm and is filed under Media, BPD, Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.