Terrminated - Medical Problem

[Taoron]

I started a new job last week, on the 1st, at let's say ABC Company. From day one, I did everything I could do to find stuff to do. I asked for stuff to do, was told to hold off on doing this and that. In a weeks time, all I did was provide suppot to 2 people, determine the status of services running on ~40 servers, and schedule the backup of one share on one server. You can see that this does not take 40 hours. Well, I looked for other things to do. They have no documentation on any projects. They have no documentation on the server configuration.

Anyhow, last night I was terminated because I fell asleep. We're not talking about a light doze here, but more seriously, they couldn't wake me up according to Rep B who came from another city to tell me to pack my things.

I have sleep apnea, currently untreated. There are reasons for this, such as no insurance / no money / etc.

If I had known I was asleep, I would have ceased it right then and there, but by the time I realized it (IE woke up) it was too late and it had already happened. I had no warning, no chance to discuss it with my manager.

Someone recommended I find out if this is being illegally terminated. I know that falling asleep is a bad thing, but I have medical problems that cause it. The fact I am up right now is one of them. I was asleep, and woke up at 2:30am.

Please help!

Taoron

 

[cbg]

No, it is not an illegal termination.

There is a persistant, but mistaken, belief among the general public that an employer CANNOT terminate an employee if the reason for the termination even touches medical. It is, however, not true.

In order for this to have been an illegal termination, you would have had to IN ADVANCE of your falling asleep at work, have:

1.) Notified the employer that you had this condition and asked for an accomodation
2.) Been part of an interactive process with the employer to determine what would be a reasonable accomodation
3.) Gotten your employer's agreement that your condition qualified under the ADA
4.) Gotten an agreement from your employer that allowing you to fall asleep on the job would be a reasonable accomodation (which almost certainly would never have happened).

It is NOT illegal to fire you for falling asleep on the job, even if you fell asleep because of a medical condition, particularly since it does not appear that your employer was aware of the condition beforehand and you had not requested an accomodation from the employer.