Would you give your boss a kidney? According to CBS News, a woman in Long Island, NY did just that, and is now suing her employer after being fired for missing work.
In the court papers, the employee stated that when her boss needed a kidney, she offered to help. Although she wasn't a match for her boss, she donated her kidney to another person who had been waiting for a transplant, on behalf of her boss. This allowed her boss to receive a kidney that was a better match for her. It sounds complicated, but with organ transplants, you have to give one to get one or spend a long period of time on a waiting lists.
The surgery for donating a kidney is considerably more invasive than receiving one and the recovery time is longer. After donating the kidney, the woman was surprised that the only thanks she received was a one sentence long thank you in an email.
Just four weeks after the surgery, the woman returned to work. Three days later, she left work because she was not feeling well. As soon as she returned home, her boss called her and asked her why she wasn't at work. She explained that she wasn't feeling well and was still experiencing complications from the surgery. Her boss then told her that she couldn't expect to have additional sick days or special treatment.
When the employee explained that she was dealing with nerve damage in her leg and other complications from the surgery, her boss told her that it was a personal problem and that she wasn't interested in hearing it. It wasn't long after this incident that she was fired.
The employee has since hired a lawyer and plans to fight her termination in court. It will be interesting to see how this case turns out. Personally, I think that if I gave up a kidney for my boss, I would expect a little flexibility about the time off I needed to recover. What do you think?
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