Again, I will reiterate from my last post four months ago that I don't speak on behalf of my employer. I will not be naming my employer as well.
Over the course of the summer, I have found my attendance improved from the last year. My absenteeism rate was cut by half. No meetings had been scheduled with me to discuss my issues. I also got married in the summer and also put in lots of overtime at work before my wedding, and some more hours after my wedding. However, some things I have noticed, or never thought about before have come to my attention. First of all, this could be simple paranoia as well. After all, i am a diagnosed Aspie and I have had bouts of anxiety in the past that lead to some pretty severe meltdowns. I don't feel anxious about anything at all currently. I just feel that from my experience that I have seen my employer try and come at me and my fellow employees too many times. It seems as if the employer wants to see what he can get away with, and which employees are the easy targets.
1. Social media policy- This one is a new one and cannot be proven. It might be my imagination running around a little. I happened to notice that someone at work has harmlessly posted a sheet for fellow coworkers to post their PS4 or Xbox login ids for clan games on the new Call of Duty game coming out in a couple weeks. It looks like it could be a lot of fun. But I will choose not to participate because I can kind of see where this can go. For me personally, I choose not to appear online when I happen to be at home sick, or off that day due to an injury and have to miss work. I also choose to not play a video game during work hours as well.
I have learned from the PS4 features that just because you appear offline doesn't mean that your friends can't see you online if they are playing the same game as them. The game servers don't have an "appear offline" option. So with that being said, playing a game online is done at your own risk. But where does the social media policy come from? Well, if my fellow employees decide to identify where they work and they behave badly on a video game server, what is to stop them from being reported to my employer? I mean, could we rule out being fired for saying something stupid/racist/homophobic on a video game chat? I have no doubt in my mind that this could happen. Not saying anyone I work with will do it, but I certainly don't want to be involved if this somehow ever happens.
2. Outside of work activities-
a. I know I loosely covered this on my last entry. But something actually did happen to me at the gym that forced me to miss three days of work. I dropped 45 lbs of weight on my foot and had to miss work because of it. I couldn't walk properly for a few days and this happened around a holiday weekend to boot. I didn't return to work until the second day after the holiday and I was on 6 hour days for that week rather than 8 hours. I also chose not to go to the gym after the 6 hours since my doctor had given documentation saying I couldn't work beyond 6 hours. That implied that I could only be on my feet for 6 hours. So why go to the gym? I figure it would have been a one in one million chance of being caught, but I have a saying as well: Don't be that one in a million that gets caught doing something they shouldn't be doing.
Anyway, it turns out my employer hasn't approached me on this issue yet. But there was something I had said to one employee right before leaving work the day I got injured. About 45 minutes later, I get hurt. Another employee happened to be at the gym watching me report the injury. This meant that I would have to be honest with my employer. However, I came back to work to hear that my coworkers were accusing me (behind my back) that I was faking the injury and wanted an extra long weekend. Could my employer take stock into what my employees say about me? Yes, he could, but it could be considered harassment too and I would have to prove it to be harassment. What would my employer say about this incident?
b. To follow this trend, our employers have also encouraged us to share our personal activities at work. Knowing that I have been picked on by some fellow employees and managers for outside activities due to some injuries in the past and also considering that attendance issues have been discussed before, I elected not to participate. I prefer to keep my personal outside of work activities private rather than divulge too much information at work. Sure, exercise actually helps balance my mood and strengthens my weak areas, but I don't expect my employer to care about that if he believes that it is impacting my ability to show up to work.
In conclusion, I have determined over the course of the summer that I have to be careful what kind of information I divulge with my employer at work. The reason why is because of some past injuries and missed time due to said injuries. The more he knows, the more he can use against me. Of course, the less your fellow employees know, the less they can go to your employer with as well. Ultimately, I have also learned that my fellow employees might even be worse than my employer because employees can never keep their mouth shut. So, it is clear to me that I must keep some secrets to myself.
