Employee realizes 'HR isn't a friend' after being poorly treated following a near-death experience

In a capitalist setup, the tides will always be in the favor of employers. u/Rhunt2021 got the firsthand experience of this when he suffered a near-death experience. Despite being at his lowest, the worker is being forced to return to work by his company. Even though this could prove to be fatal for the employee, they are adamant about their call. While looking for ways to find an optimal solution, the employee found that all the rules and regulations were in the favor of their bosses. There is no way for them to force their employers without getting financially distressed. He shared the entire story on Reddit to make others understand that many times, employers simply do not care.

The employee starts the post by sharing how he was given a second chance at life recently. He had a heart attack and had to be resuscitated back after losing his heartbeat. Though he came out of the ordeal alive, his heart is still functioning at a lower capacity. His life quality has severely dampened. Both of his medical caretakers have instructed him to go on a three-month rest. Despite knowing all of this, the HR wants him back in the office immediately.

The company is backing up its demand on the basis of what happened with another one of its employees. "The company nurse had a stint installed on a Wednesday and was back to work on Monday," the employee elucidated in the post. He then says that the company just thinks that "he didn't die or suffer heart damage; he just had the stint installed." The scenarios were vastly different from each other. This pushed the employee to look up laws that could help him in getting the break they required to recuperate.

To his surprise, he realized that as per the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), he could get 12 weeks of unpaid leave from the company. The company, if they want, can pay the employee. As per u/Rhunt2021's company's paperwork, they could but wouldn't pay him. This made him fume and write, "Companies say they care about you but the moment you're broken they are ready to ignore/dump you."

At present, the employee's paperwork states that he cannot "push, pull, lift or carry" and he is waiting to get it changed to "No work or stress of any sort." He hopes that this can at least get them work from home facility from their company. Though they applied for disability, it was rejected by their company. In response to it, the company did not have the courtesy to send any legal paperwork, he only received a call from the company nurse. This ordeal has made one thing crystal clear to him, that companies have no goodwill towards their employees.

The comment section sympathized with them and shared their own experiences. u/Deep-War-1588 wrote how they were also thrown out of their company when they fell into hard times, "I had almost the same experience with just a bit more a***ole attitude from HR. They actually sent me flowers while I was in intensive care and phoned me to tell me I could either voluntarily quit or they would have to lay me off because I was going to miss too much work."

u/Nelyahin commented about the treatment they got from their HR after getting sick, "Companies and especially HR don’t give one sh*t about their employees. Once you are really sick they look for reasons to get rid of you. I was really sick back in 2009. I was a top performer before I got sick. Once I got sick, had surgeries, recovered and adjusted to the new normal, I found they fought every single thing my doctors had said, changed it all, then once things started to adjust I found myself being written up for absolutely made-up things. They were offering severance packages and I took it. I saw the writing on the wall. Here is my real advice. You matter more than any company. Please take care of yourself and when you get a hang of your new normal you will find a job that will balance with you. I’m there now."