What person wouldn't love to leave work early every day because of a diagnosis of PTSD that isn't related to anything that most people would consider worthy of being qualified as being a stress disorder? I would have loved to have a free ticket to leave work at 3pm when I am supposed to leave at 5 like everyone else.
Well a woman in North Carolina for years was allowed to leave work early while everyone else who was paid the same as her had to stay a couple hours longer. She also received months of time off from work, paid. The reason? Well she got diagnosed with PSTD associated with being afraid of dolls.
The woman claims that she confided in a manager at a work party that she is really afraid of dolls and not long after the manager placed a Chucky doll in the office as a prank. Once she reacted the way that she did the doll was removed and an apology was made. To me this seems like friendly office fun and no actual harm was intended.
While it is not clear why she needed 2 months of medical leave, the woman claims that after she returned that she was treated differently. Also, while it is not clear in what I have read the manager that was responsible for the placement of the Chucky doll was let go and a new manager was in place.
Here's the thing: If you are an adult and are genuinely terrified of dolls to the point that you can't function in an office, what are you doing in the office? I'm not saying that there is no one out there that has a crippling disability that doesn't enable them to be in public but it does seem a little convenient that this disorder requires the place to hire her an then hold her to a different standard when all of her sick leave has to be approved and she has to be allowed leave work several hours earlier than the other people that work there and receive the same salary.
When she claims she was "treated differently" well of course you were! You are making all your coworkers work harder while you get to leave early and can call in sick because your feelings hurt anytime you feel like it.
I don't mean to be insensitive here but believe it or not there are people out there that are going to see a part of a system where they can get special treatment and then take advantage of it. This kind of reminds me about how airlines started letting people get on planes with "emotional support animals" for free and all of a sudden there were people bringing their pets with them everywhere that they went. Then the pets started being ridiculous like snakes, eagles and there was one story of an emotional support donkey. The airlines did away with this rule for everyone because there were a lot of people out there that were taking it too far.
I feel like there is a really good chance that this is also the case with this now ex-employee of the bank. She was let go because of obvious reasons such as her not being able to perform her tasks and taking a ton of time off work. So she sued them claiming that they violated her rights as a disabled person. What?
If you are a nutjob that can't function in society because of a crazy fear, then maybe you should seek out some sort of job that isn't so public and demanding as work in a bank would almost certainly be.
I can't imagine what it was like to be one of her coworkers that has to see her leave every day 2.5 hours earlier than you get to, all because she has a diagnosis of a disorder that is very dubious in origin.
Of course she is seeking monetary compensation and seeing as how the legal system in USA is so screwed, she will likely get it. Then this will encourage others to do the same thing unfortunately. At the very least I guess I am happy that she is suing a bank. Banks can kiss my butt.
I at any point in time employ 20-40 people on construction jobs and we have an easy solution to potential problems like this: Everyone is hourly aside from the architects and engineers - and I outsource almost all of that work anyway. If anyone on one of my job sites told me they needed to leave at 3pm every day I would try to accommodate them if they were skilled but if they were not, they'd be gone.
Thank goodness that my line of work doesn't really have room for emotional stuff like this and I sincerely hope that someone doesn't come my way with a lawyer, forcing me to employ them, then claim they have a debilitating fear of power tools.