0t-emplyee with cancer going through chemo...
a lady that works for me is currently going through chemo for ovarian cancer. she was diagnosed and operated on 2 years ago. this is her 3rd or 4th type of chemo treatment. she is 66, and has worked here for i think 12 years.
our business is in a very successful area. this lady was at one point married to a famous brain surgeon and is friends with all the affluent people here in town. she has opened many doors, and got her friends and their kids to come in. She has also done shady things, and files and arranges things so that really only she knows whats going on...i think its her idea of job security. anyways, she has always been pretty argumentative, and is NEVER wrong about anything. Sometimes she treats clients rudely if she thinks they are not rich enough. When i first started working here, my dad and i would go out to lunch and she would say nasty things about me, try to get me in trouble for things with my dad, and bullied my with another girl that was working here at the time. This was just before she found out about the cancer...i seriously HATED her for the hell she was putting me through..she also did the same thin to my aunt when she worked here....soooooooo, she found out about the cancer and two days later was gone and out for surgery and first round of chemo, in the middle of our busiest time...i was working 7 days a week 14 hours a day to figure out her mess and stay on top of running our business, and doing my already insane amount of work.
she is now back 2 times a week, but she is driving me nuts! I dont know what to do. she is rude to clients, she is making horrible mistakes, and when its brought up she refuses to accept any responsibility. I know its the chemo effecting her brain, but i dont know how to handle this. we cant let her go because she knows so many people in the community and i think they refuse to see how she has been acting and would think horribly of us for letting her go, and i think working keeps her mind off things....soon i think she will go to one day a week but ugh for now, im so stressed out and it makes me angry at times because she blames me for things and argues with me that i did something wrong...but in my mind i know she is not all there. 
also, she gets so many thousands in alimony, she doesnt need to work, so its not like if she didnt work here she would have no money.
i have debated talking to one of her daughters (36) about this, and how they handle things, but i am afraid they might be in denial and hurt if i were to bring it up that mentally she is not all there. any ideas or thoughts?
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i wish the were possible,
i wish the were possible, but its not. people arent spending the money they use to. also, money is of no concern to her, she rapes her ex in alimony..he is a brain surgeon.
mainly im just trying to cope with how she is acting. also, im debating going to her daughter for advice, but my concern is that they are in denial about all of this and wont like me bringing up the fact that her mom is not functioning 100%
This may be unpopular, but I
This may be unpopular, but I would separate your business relationship with her from the fact that she has cancer. If she is going through chemo, it is fair to say that she should be given quite a bit of leeway for sick time and emotional support. The last thing she needs is someone coming down harshly on her when she's going through something so difficult. That being said, at work, I would treat her exactly the way you would if she didn't have cancer. If she is rude to clients and/or unethical at work, you should deal with that just like you would normally. In work situations, it is not professional or fair to act as judge and decide whether you are going to hold someone accountable for their actions based on how much you think they are going through in their personal life. If you start doing that you slide down a slippery slope and things can get complicated. You could end up with a co-worker who complains all day about a personal problem and gets special treatment as a result, while another co-worker could be silently suffering through some agonizing situation and not get any special treatment. This kind of thing is really common and I think it's best to stay away from special treatment altogether. By all means, be compassionate and understanding in regards to time off for treatment and give extra leeway for memory loss and other side effects of chemo, but to be professional, she should be evaluated by her work performance, not because she has cancer. I've said this before and been misunderstood, but I had ovarian cancer and it bugged the hell out of me when people treated me differently, one way or the other, because I had cancer. I was a dancer and if someone had accepted me into a company or promoted me to soloist or something because I had cancer I would be pissed! I appreciated all the love, support and good wishes from people who cared, but I still held myself up to professional standards when it came to my dancing. When I was really sick because of it, I appreciated extra understanding when it came to needing time to rest and recuperate, but I would have been insulted if someone let me off the hook for being rude or lying just because of my health crisis. This is my opinion as someone who had ovarian cancer and i'm sure there are as many opinions on this as there are people suffering from cancer. I feel pretty strongly about this because whenever people find out I had cancer it changes the way they treat me and I hate that. I don't make excuses for myself and I don't want other people to make them for me either! In a business setting, I think a good guideline is to hold people to the same standard regardless of their personal situations. Compassionate understanding is important and necessary, but loosening standards and allowing someone to be rude to clients is not okay, in my opinion, and really doesn't help them at all anyway. I've never worked in an office where this would be allowed and I've worked with quite a few people who have had cancer and have been in chemo.
Just to be clear, I think it's important to be understanding and supportive when someone is going through cancer, but at the same time, it doesn't help anyone and is unprofessional to let someone be rude or unethical because they have cancer. If this woman is struggling with memory loss and not functioning 100%, I think it is appropriate to give some leeway there and maybe work out a way to give her extra support or a team approach to tasks until she is back to 100%. It's a fine line and tact and consideration are really important, but letting an unprofessional situation get out of control isn't good either.
Anyway, that's my (probably offensive) opinion. I hope everything works out for her and that you're able to find a good solution to this! Good luck!
"If you want to tell people the truth, make them laugh, otherwise they will kill you." ~Oscar Wilde
Maybe you should try sitting
Maybe you should try sitting down with her and speaking with her about it first, then the daughter and if push come to shove being shrewd may have to come to pass.
********She doesn't have to love me or even like me - it doesn't change a dang thing..... So get over it and move on BM!************
i wish i thought that would
i wish i thought that would work.
we have a very casual work environment. Sometimes people even ask if her and my dad are married because they fight like a married couple at times.
the main problem is that she thinks she is functioning A-ok! its every one elses problems, every one else is making mistakes or not putting things where they should be, etc. she refuses to see that in any way she might have made a mistake. any type of bringing it up to her results in an all out argument where she is talking in circles about how everybody else is wrong and all the while being very irrational about how she is the only one on the ball.
shes always been a bit of a nut, but there werent these types of mistakes happening