Jo quit his job today. I will try to make this “story” as short and sweet as possible but if it turns into a really long rant, consider this your warning!

As you may recall from many of my recent entries, Jo has been attending 3-4 sessions of physiotherapy each week due to an injury he sustained at work. The injury happened back in June. Between then and now, he has missed approximately 5 weeks of work. Two weeks were paid through his personal and vacation time, which he had acquired since he started working for the company. They then suggested he take another 2 weeks off to recuperate but he would still be required to attend the physiotherapy. They filed all kinds of paperwork for worker’s compensation and such, and while filling out some of it he was asked to see a Human Resources rep. They (the rep) said he should have never been asked to use personal or vacation time for this because workers compensation is supposed to cover this kind of stuff, as would his short term disability if it rolled over to that. They basically said he would be reimbursed for time loss. Sounded great but I guess we should have known it was too good to be true, right? I agree.

So fast forward to yesterday. Jo went back to work, for the first time in several weeks and went to speak with one of the guys in LP (loss prevention) about the position he applied for before missing time. He was a shoe-in and was told he had the job but they would wait to transfer him to it till he got back to work. This position would benefit Jo because there is no lifting, pulling or pushing involved. It is basically like security but he would be making more per hour. It would also benefit the company because he would no longer pose a threat. By that I mean a safety threat or possibly loss if he were to injure himself any further. So, anyway. The guy tells him to get with DM from HR (I will not post her name, I am well aware that some of his co-workers read my blog.. which is fine, I do not mind but I will not involve people from his work). Well, DM says she heard through the grapevine that they were firing Jo, so they filled the position he applied for. Now, if anyone had “heard” this, surely they would have verified it.. especially someone with HR (human resources). She also said it had not showed up in the system yet, that he was fired but that the head guy out there would likely be doing the firing on Monday (when Jo would not even be there).

Jo and I talked about it and I told him that he should NOT let them fire him. So he quit today, before they had a chance. It was not just about this recent thing, he actually found out a lot of stuff (negative) about the company. When someone is injured, it is considered a bad mark against the company. So instead of doing the proper paperwork, they send the employees to “their” physicians. See, this tells me those physicians are on the companies payroll. The reason we think this (as well as other employees) is because no one is ever allowed to really miss work after an injury. They are required to attend therapy by their physicians but still have to return to work. This way the company does not have to do certain paperwork, the workers do not miss time which would put the company into a bind with overtime from other workers and guess what? Those physicians have a steady income.

It is all way too fishy, so I think Jo is going to “talk” to someone about this. It just really stinks because he really loved his job. It had great hours, benefits (so we thought) and paid well. He would get paid for 40 hours, even if he only worked 30 for the week.

I was telling Crissy about it last night and she asked if I was freaking out about it. I told her I actually wasn’t because I was thinking of using this as an excuse to bring up “Newfoundland”. Haha! Seriously though. It would be perfect timing, not that I would have wanted this to happen but think about it - Jo is not employed right now, our lease is up in 2 weeks and his friends are moving to Winnipeg. Perfect timing, I think.

Anyway. I am a little grumpy about the way they treated my husband. I really hope his talking to someone is going to lead to some kind of investigation with this company because it is wrong that they are doing this to so many people. Jo has never in his life suffered an injury at work like this. He was pinned between a pallet jack and a wall at work once, but he missed half a day and it was only because of having to go to the ER about the huge gash in his leg. He has worked with similar companies his entire life and has never suffered like this and has never been treated so poorly by his employer. It sort of reminds me of the way I was treated at the hospital I worked for, as well as the bank. Though my cases were far different - I never suffered an injury and the departments I was in, consisted of all females (not always a good idea, by the way).

But I guess it is like I said to Jo - all things happen for a reason.