rumiNATION

Just wanted to weigh in on this news story that we saw on Fox 29 last night and has now apparently gotten national airplay.

This woman had been having a pretty rough year to begin with - both her mother and an uncle passed away and her father had been diagnosed with leukemia. All of these things caused her to use up all of her vacation time. Then her son goes into kidney failure and so the mom donates a kidney to him. But, in order to do so, she has to take a leave of absence from work. Since the company has under 50 employees, they don't have to abide by FMLA - so before she takes this leave the company has her sign a document saying that she understands that they may have to hire someone else to do her job.

Now here it is, 9 weeks later or whatever, and the woman is preparing to go back to work. But when she contacts her employer they inform her that they did, in fact, hire someone else for her position while she was out. This prompts the news story claiming, "Mother fired for donating kidney to her son." Point of fact - she was not fired. She LEFT her job in order to take the leave, knowing (and reading) full well that her job may not be there when she returned.

Does this situation stink for this woman? Sure. Is it unfair? Depends. I mean, in this economy, where so many are out of work, would it have been more noble for the company to fire the employee who's been filling this woman's position for the past several weeks? I'm sure he or she would find that pretty unfair. (Though I'm equally sure their story wouldn't have gotten national airtime.)

I mean, I don't mean to sound cold and callous. I'm glad this lady's son is doing well after his transplant. I'm glad this mother was able to give the gift of life to her son a second time. I'm sorry she is going to have to find a new job now. But come on, with wars and slavery and starvation going on around the world - let's be a little more cautious of how we assign the tag of "injustice" to news stories, people. Really.