I read this post when it first came up and smiled ruefully - now it’s had 2 ‘manager’ type comments I can’t resist joining in / hijacking.
I too suffer from clinincal depression and have for years. Generally pretty well controlled but my husband had a heart attack in 06 and while I coped for 3 months til I knew he was Ok, after that I lost it and broke down big style. After about 15 months I wanted to try work again, at this time it had been identified I had a lot of problems in an office environment and the psychiatrist recommended I work from home - I’m a programmer, I work for the lady in a blackcloak, and a lot of our work is outsourced to India anyway, so I and my union rep (a great friend fortunately already) thought this shuoldn’t present too much problem. How wrong could we be!
Having been signed back in the August, they finally agreed working from home in the December and I started in the february. It was tough at first but I got there and got up to my 35 hours a week. In fact I was more productive than people in the office cos once I started I was ‘at it’ non stop without distractions - other than the cats who might disrupt this typing!! I wasn’t supported by management however - they said I wasn’t doing work according to my grade and wanted to demote me, which we resisted, and were doing so when I was dx’ed in Mar 09. I wanted to work as long as I could before things got hard, both for financial reasons and cos it kept me distracted by working so didn’t get signed off (other than for 2 weeks while in hospital for WLE and node clearance). Things came to a head when the HR partner of all people wanted to call me into the office for a meeting about my grade - the week I was due to start chemo!! At this point I gave up and was signed off.
No further contact from employer after my GP gave me a sick line UFN last September. I had a few complications, septicemia, gall bladder emergency removal, 10 days hospitalisation for unknown infection, out of control diabetes (sugar 35+) - plus of course the delights of chemo, and so didn’t finish active treatment til end Jan this year and I was pretty frail - stuck in a wheelchair as I had no strength. About this time, I got a request to allow OHS to contact my medics for a report. Didn’t have a problem with this - until I saw the request! They only asked about my depression - they knew of my cancer but it wasn’t mentioned in their request for info, just a status update on my depression!! The GP answered mainly about that (as it was what he was asked about) but did ‘mention!’ my cancer and other problems too.
Roll on end August - financially and health wise it was right to try and go back - from home. The union guys had been in negotiations regarding my likely RTW so it was no surprise - but when my fit line said RTW from home as reasonable adjustment, the black cloak lady she say no can do!!
Now in limbo land, regarding pay, return to work, everything. You can imagine the effect it’s having on my depression - I was very proud to have held together as I did during the last year or so, but now am reduced to days in bed unable to do anything - no fun. I wouldn’t have the strength to deal with this myself - I’d just resign and probably slit my wrists or something - but fortunately the union are handling things for me, which helps some, but being a control freak, I get frustrated by not knowing everything that goes on as it happens. One of the interesting but depressing things raised yesterday is there is little if any ‘case law’ on the new fit lines which means we may end up being trail blazers - to help others in future maybe but not much immediate help to me!
I spose the point of this essay is to get it off my chest a bit. Also to point out that unfortunately even in big organisations HR OHS and line management don’t always do as they should.
My sincere sympathy to Emily - I understand exactly where you’re at and all I can do is say hang on in there, and take the good advice given by the manager ladies above.
Nina