In honor of her book Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! being published, Rosalind Joffe, of the blog Working with Chronic Illness, is on a virtual book tour. She’s stopping by here today to answer a reader’s question about work and illness.
How to Cope with Pain: Welcome, Rosalind. And congratulations on your new book! A while ago, a reader asked this question:
How do I explain my apparent lack of ambition to my employer when it’s because of chronic illness? How do I explain changes in my resume to employers, such as I’ve dramatically downgraded my job to lesser duties? How do I explain my lack of enthusiasm for my job and poor performance? Should I do this without actually telling them I’m sick – because I know that they won’t get it anyway, and I’m already on probation?
Rosalind Joffe: This is a tough situation, and one which is unfortunately fairly common. It’s easy to imagine that chronic illness symptoms could have a significant effect on a person’s enthusiasm or ambition at work. It’s also easy to see that this could slide into poor performance.
But that’s a slippery slope that you want to avoid. Regardless of the type of job you do or whom you work for, your work is judged by what you deliver. If you can no longer do your job in a competent manner, it doesn’t matter what the reason is.
Of course it’s your right to choose to be “underemployed,” and have little enthusiasm or ambition. An employer might view you less positively, however, unless you explain why this is so. If you’re not going to explain why, then don’t show it. If your attitude is hurting your performance, then you either need to adjust your attitude or leave the job. In the final analysis, it’s still about what you deliver.
And here’s where not disclosing an illness or condition that’s getting in the way of doing your job creates problems. You write that you’re on probation, which means that your work has been suffering for some time. And you imply that your supervisor doesn’t know that it’s because of chronic pain symptoms. So now you’re seen as a problem employee, and your supervisor has likely made several assumptions about you – and they might even be more negative than that you live with chronic pain.
I suggest that you focus on figuring out IF you can do this job adequately. If you can but you need some accommodations, meaning that you need some type of assistance that will enable you to do the job, then figure out what you need and how to ask for it. Unless you talk about what’s hurting your performance and what you need to improve this, your only option is to look for a new job that will allow you to be more successful.
I appreciate Rosalind’s insights so much. Readers, what are your thoughts about this reader’s question?
Rosalind also offers coaching on life-work-illness issues at CICoach. And here’s my review of her book Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! Thanks to Steve Lyon for the photo at Flickr.
6 responses so far ↓
Maureen // Nov 7, 2008 at 12:36 pm
I appreciated Rosalind’s insight and her candor. What is unfortunate, but true of many with chronic illness, is that we do wait to long to disclose and by then the situation may not be able to be fixed. The reader who asked the question is frustrated, I am sure, by her employers reaction of putting her on probation, but since they don’t know what is wrong, they probably are assuming she is a problem employee (as Rosalind stated). If the employee had been more pro-active, maybe she could have gotten some accomodation from the employer, or at least bought herself some time to assess whether she will be able to continue at this job or have to find another.
I am not blaming the employee. It is VERY hard to admit, even to ourselves, how much having an illness affects us and what we can do. Also, there is usually some anger at not being able to do what we once did, through no fault of our own. And there is usually fear that our employer won’t understand (which I think your reader stated as well).
There may be no way to salvage this situation, but perhaps the reader can look at what choices she made in this job, and moving forward be more proactive in what she does for herself, both in choosing work she can do and in disclosing sooner if it will help her to keep her job.
Thanks to you for having Rosalind address this and for Rosalind for wisdom.
I will be having a guest post from Rosalind on Nov. 20th at my blog. She will be addressing the need to develop a specific talent both for the workplace and for out personal lives. I hope your readers will continue to follow her through this virtual book tour and learn more about her and her book.
Maureen
http://beingchronicallyillisapill.blogspot.com
How to Cope with Pain // Nov 7, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Maureen -
Good insights. Thanks.
Christina // Nov 10, 2008 at 1:55 pm
I can share what happened when I didn’t disclose, and when I did:
The first time I was ill, I had a very complicated, high profile and socially-oriented job as media relations manager for a household name Wall Street company. After I was hit with Epstein-Barr and then Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (undiagnosed, and I had no idea it would last more than a few months) I was basically fired for my inability to do all I’d done before — at that point, I had a lot of cognitive disabilities, as well as physical ones. This was back in 1991, when there was much less awareness about managing people with chronic illnesses, and no awareness at all about CFS. At the time, I wanted to stay with the company, and sought a job more suited to my reduced abilities, also something I was interested in — editing analytical research reports, a nice quiet back-office job.
Unfortunately, I was not operating in an environment that was able to see the value of retaining a seasoned and historically high-producing employee who was simply in the wrong job, but still had much to offer the company. The firm was in the middle of huge upheavals, the stock market had been in the toilet for years — there was a regime change going on, out with the old and in with the new, and I was tainted as much by my association with my bosses who were also being fired for reorganizational reasons, as for the fact that I’d gone out sick for three weeks and came back a lesser person. Fortunately, I got a nice exit package, so it wasn’t a terrible outcome, but a welcome escape from a too-tough work environment.
I would advise this person on probation to disclose, disclose, disclose. Document with doctors notes. Submit articles on chronic pain to HR to bolster your case. You may not be able to stay at your job, but you may force them to at least look at an alternative spot for you. Failing that, they may have to acknoledge that you have a disability and if you are really too sick to fulfill your duties, that may have to be your exit route.
But there is so much more awareness now, and knowledge of ADA (which I don’t think existed when I first got sick) that you ought to be protected from the harshest outcome.
The second time I was on staff I did disclose, and they tried to accommodate, but in the end, decided it was too much trouble, and pensioned me off. None of this was fun, but the moral of the story is — disclose, try to see if you can find and do a different job in the company. And take care of yourself.
How to Cope with Pain // Nov 10, 2008 at 4:15 pm
Christina,
Thanks for your story and suggestions.
HtCwP
Jennifer // Nov 12, 2008 at 8:55 pm
How do you deal with chronic illnesses that require long term use of narcotics? My employer has let me go because of my need for fentynal and I have no idea how to approach looking for a new job. How do I explain my needs with a pre-employment drug screen?
How to Cope with Pain // Nov 12, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Unless you were having noticeable side effects, for example, sedation, it’s not clear why you’re employer let you go. Did a drug screen come up positive? If so, I would think a note from your doctor would clarify that the medication was prescribed. Otherwise, it seems it’s discrimination because of a medical problem – a legal no-no.
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