I am really shocked to read some of these responses that seem more like things a NON- PWD would say. Are we really judging her for not making “smart” decisions/doing it the way we would have? I know that when I go low, clear thinking does not follow me. I have gone low while grocery shopping. I grabbed a juice, guzzled it, and then put the bottle in the cart to pay for at checkout. Was that theft? I don’t think so. I think if I (or she) LEFT the premises without paying, that would be theft.
Suggesting she shouldve been better prepared or grabbed glucose tabs or called a supervisor all sound like suggestions made from people NOT living with D. When I went low while volunteering at an event recently, I panicked because I had already gone low earlier that day and the night before (it was a bad stretch) and forgot to replenish my purse. I heard people without D say very ignorant things like “you really should carry something with you” as I was scrambling to put money in the vending machine. Really? Why didn’t I think of that?!
Have you ever started to go low and you feel like what you are doing at that moment you can’t stop, even though you know you should? I often feel COMPELLED to continue my current activity when I start going low. Of course this makes no sense. But it’s my experience. And I have read other Ds saying they have felt the same. Hmmm…could THIS have played into this situation? Maybe she had a long line, others were on breaks, she was hours from her own break, and she decided the best thing to do was grab chips while not leaving her station and KEEP WORKING? This makes perfect sense to me.
And I agree with those who suggest she may have not been low, but GOING low. Haven’t we ALL done this? Knowing we are headed there and have to get through the next hour or shift or class, so we eat something 15g, but not fast-acting? Isn’t that reasonable?
And yes, Diabetes IS a disability. Seems this offends some folks self-concept, but it is nonetheless reality. We are on LIFE SUPPORT! There is no way that can ever be seen as “able-bodied”, no matter how great control, no matter how many marathons we can run, no matter how much we are ABLE to use our bodies. We need medical assistance to survive. Aren’t we lucky to still have an agency protecting our civil rights?
Can anyone explain to me why such a lack of support for our diabetic sister?
The woman’s name is JOSEFINA HERNANDEZ. So to some people she MUST be a dishonest person just because she’s latino, hispanic, or the infashion denomination. Racism is the same if you have diabetes or not and has existed throughout human history.
I am trying to lay out some of the other side’s arguments as I am guessing they will lay them out in a trial? I work on the defense side of injury claims for an insurance company so I’m not entirely a stranger to that side of cases. One of my friends worked these sort of cases and left, explaining that even when he’d prepare a great case, the cases didn’t have a lot of value (he works for the SEC and finds that much more satisfying).
If the policy was on the books, I have to presume that a large company would have had the “rule” scrutinized by either their legal department or by an attorney they’d pay someone to review their policy and affirm whether the policy will stand up as legal. The fact that the story claims the policy was in place suggests to me that it probably is a legally reasonable policy. So, if the policy is in place, I will presume it must be reasonably reasonable. I can’t be out for a bike ride and run low and wander into a Walgreens or any other store and help myself to a drink and say “I’ll pay you later”. This is the same thing. If Walgreens can define eating stuff as theft, then the employee appears to have done that. It’s an unfortunate policy but it seems as if they are on reasonable ground with that.
I am outside of my experience knowing how much “free theft” a long-term employee is entitled to. It’s fairly obvious that someone like the Enron people or other “Wall Street” types can get away with a lot but this sort of case involves what amounts to theft and the defense will try to portray her as a theif and cultivate sympathy by arguing “hey, at least we didn’t press charges”. I’ve had diabetes for 27 years and have not had to steal anything but I’ve found myself in many odd situations and have managed to always have money or sugar (usually both, and some backup too…I had to get an oil change in MrsAcidRock’s car yesterday and ran a bit low and blam, there in the glovebox was a jug of glucose tablets…).
I would say it’s an interesting question as to whether or not Walgreens will be found to have an obligation to provide free snacks to their employees. My gut feeling is that the plaintiff will be unable to prove that they were in which case her firing would be justified, however sympathetic she will be. Walgreens will have to decide with their defense attorney what sort of case they have and whether they want to offer to settle it or take the case to trial. I would be pleased if she is afforded legal protection.to eat potato chips but I am not thinking that the court is going to be entirely on her side.
I am also surprised at the hard line taken here by many. Every low is different and every person is different. I knew a woman that had severe lows and once came to her senses sitting on the floor of a grocery store, surrounded by stuff that she had grabbed and opened and consumed in order to treat the low. Since she ran herself higher all of the time, it may not have even been a severe low if she had tested.
The woman in this case may have done all of the correct things if she had not had a fuzzy brain, but her brain went into survival mode. Having witnessed many severe lows with my son, I know that he should never be held responsible for things he did when he was in that condition. He was simply not himself. Would there be any other time that he would actually bite his father while we were trying to get a glucagon shot into him? Of course not. Would he ever run around the house like a maniac, throwing himself on the floor and then getting up again to continue, until he finally passed out? I’m sure this lady was not in that bad a state, but having a brain that is not functioning correctly can make you do things that you normally would never do.
I agree with Mary. We are all conjecturing here on what happened and why it happened, but she may have hesitated to ask for her supervisor’s help for fear of reprisal. How sad that she ended up being fired. Did she make a habit of eating without paying first, or was this an unusual occurrence for her? I know that when I am low, I try my hardest to maintain a semblance of being “normal”, even though I know I am not. Although I rarely remember what happened when I am in a severe low, like Mary I have seen my son in many lows and know firsthand what he has gone through. We don’t know how low her blood sugar was, but she may have panicked and grabbed the chips and eaten them, trying to gain control and get back to normal, hoping no-one would notice, and then paid for the chips when she was back to normal. I know that’s what I would have done under the circumstances. How sad that a pharmacy of all places wouldn’t take her hypoglycemia into account before firing her!
Sue, I really felt like my son acted very much like an animal when he was low. He never remembered any of it. Once I watched as he insisted on getting dressed and I had to hide his insulin. He put on several shirts, one on top of the other and that was long before layering was the thing to do. When he finally came out of the low, I watched his reaction when he felt the weight of all of those shirts. Those were some scary days when he insisted his reflexes were fine and then almost fell down a flight of stairs. Thank goodness for the newer insulins and the CGM.
Actually, you make a very good point. That furthers my lack of support for Ms Hernandez - she is so low that she isn’t thinking clearly, yet she is continuing to work at a checkout counter in a pharmacy! She has no right to stay in a position where money and potentially drugs are involved. She has to be able to think clearly to keep someone from buying out the stores quantity of Pseudoephedrine, or just walking out with it.
I just want to add that my uncle was sued by the EEOC - and they were completely right to do so, so I’m not anti EEOC, I just think they are un-informed here.
The only thing Walgreens, or any other business, could be expected to do was give her a break when she needed it. Not let her steal, and put the store at risk, which is what she did.
I know what you are saying Mary. When Steve was six he went hypo overnight, my husband tried to open his mouth and Steve bit his dad’s fingers hard. We ended up taking him to the hospital and he spent the night in a coma, it was awful. He’s 40 now, but I have a lifetime of memories of his bad hypo’s. And I thank God every day for our pumps and CGM’s and the Apidra. I am amazed when I look at my old logs before the pump and see all the 300’s and 40’s readings, every day!
I have to agree with Mary and Sue here. It is really suprising to me that on this site of all sites, knowing that all the details of the case are unknown, we would not see more people at least giving the employee the benefit of the doubt.
I sure hope that when something like this happens to me I can find some compassionate people to support my cause. To me, the only way I could fault the employee is if she had a long track record of doing this type of thing when she was low and the company had already provided her every “reasonable” accomodation for this type of event.
I wonder how many people out there DO NOT ask for help in these situations simply because they are afraid the reaction from someone without DM may be less than favorable if on a site for PWD a large majority is faulting the employee- Again without all the details. She very well could have been playing the poor me card or finding an excuse to justify the behavior for which she was fired and if she is I hope that comes out in trial and she is humiliated by the experience, but without more details no one can say for sure what happened.
AR-
Just as the prosecutor could find a Doc to discredit her choice of chips for a low the Defense can just as easily find one that says “It is not protocol to eat chips but they WILL raise blood glucose and I counsel my patients to eat whatever they can find if and when needed to prevent a life threatining low especially since it is well documented some PWD are not thinking rationally when low.”
I do not know a whole lot about law but the not thinking rationally when low part seems to me to be just as credible as someone saying they weren’t responbsible for killing people because they are not in their right state of mind due to extreme pressure (e.g. insanity).Does this type of argument/Defense jive with what you know about court proceedings?
The defendant is Walgreens though, they have to be proven guilty of something. The quesition isn’t the propriety of her having eaten the chips, it’s if they are within their rights as an employer to have required her, as they require all of their other employees, to get a different employee to ring up their purchse. I am totally familiar with the animalistic urge to eat that comes with many hypoglycemic episodes. I am not 100% sure that any of the arguments here, which I agree with in many cases, prove that Walgreens has the obligation to keep an employee on who violated their procedural rule against ringing up her own purchase or not having bothered to ring it up. Perhaps to look at it differently, and taking it as “not a big deal” but if Walgreens had a different policy, that say allowed you to eat whatever you wanted but you have to pay 10 times the cost if you ring it up yourself, do you think she’d have paid $13 for the bag of chips or would fiscal prudence have overcome her animalistic urges to eat potato chips (again, potato chips are totally my go to “food crack” so i am very sympathetic to the desire to eat them…) and called the manager or a coworker to ring up her purchase?
Walgreens is the defendant here. The insanity defense doesn’t go for plaintiffs, I don’t think , or we could all go out, run down into the 40s and head for the ice cream aisle, Five Guys or Whole Foods or anywhere else and demand free snacks or just sit on the floor and eat them. Walgreens policy seems a bit pedantic but, in their marketing strategy, they sell lots of little goodies that you can pick up when you go get your drugs. It would make sense that they’d have to be pretty strict with their inventory control. They can defend themselves by trying to make the plaintiff’s story look less than credible. I totally believe the plaintiff but I don’t believe that Walgreens owes her anything other than whatever wages she earned up until she was let go. Maybe compensation for the vacation time, if it were a paid vacation, as the origninal story mentions that she was set to go on vacation for two weeks.
Sorry for the confusion of plaintiff vs defendant.
Could not the argument be made that since she could have potentially “not been in a rational and reasonable mental state” that the particular policy of Walgreen’s would be null and void as when you sign the document (training) for their policy you were under the influence of a sound and reasonable mind? Is this not similar to “insanity”- not in a rational and reasonable state of mind?
I guess my question is if the plaintiff makes the argument above, how much is this will the court find to be the employees fault if it is well documented that people with low blood glucose “wake up” in the grocery store with a bunch of food around them and don’t remember the event (obviously you can’t know the answer for sure but from what you DO know take a guess at the answer)? Is there precendent to use such an angle for the plaintiff? How much “proof” would the court need to buy such and angle?
I am not a person who steals but if/when a sever hypo happens at work I certainly would hate to find myself without a job, basically in the situation this lady is in today without any sort way to clear my name, as it were.
I think the issues involves the Americans with Disabilities Act. This law makes it illegal for employers to discriminate by “not making reasonable accomodations to the known physical or mental limitations of disabled employees”. I have heard reasonable accomodations being short breaks for testing, injecting, snacking. Providing a sharps container or provding an area where the employee can keep supplies and use them.
The question I think the courts will have to decide is if it is a reasonable accomodation that Josefina ate the potato chips and then later paid for them. If this is a reasonable accomodation, then her employer broke the law when they reprimanded her.
Your observation that you often feel compelled to keep following your current activity and not immediately treat a low. I’ve certainly done that, sometimes a rational decision but sometimes it’s simply low-addled thinking.
It feeds into a personality trait that doesn’t want any accommodation for being diabetic. It’s as if we need to continually prove to the world that diabetes will not hold us back from doing anything. That belief is not rational. From time to time we need to take a break, treat our imbalanced metabolism, and then keep on keepin’ on.
The brain goes through some strange thought patterns when its deprived of glucose, its essential fuel. This is part of the condition labeled “hypoglycemia unawareness.”
I need to modify my sentiments just a bit to what I posted above. If the legal process concludes that the employee’s description of events is true then Walgreens should suffer the full financial legal consequence.
If she asked them for 5-10-15 minutes to get her wits about her/ treat her medical condition, or even to leave and go home (although diabetically speaking, that would not necessarily be a good idea…) and they told her “no, you are on duty and have to stay there”, then I think she’d have a very good case under the ADA.
I’m not sure about this one because the dialogue is, in fact, one sided? Then again, Walgreen’s story may not be very sympathetic either? I’m thinkiing the manager who “caught” her and then turned her in to the loss control manager who went after her is probably going to end up being a guy who is sitting in back looking for thieves on the video monitors. To me, that automatically puts a big sign on him that says “freaking wierdo” which I would presume at least some of the jurors would think too?
You bring up a valid point. An immigrant without the full use of the language to defend herself represents a vulnerable target in the workplace. This vulnerability could have played into the thinking of management when they first considered how they should proceed. If they thought that this person would put up a vigorous fight they may have given her the benefit of doubt and not fired her.
Racism is a strong word. Being a white man has shielded me from its ugly face. I think its easy for people like me to be blind to its reality.
“I have gone low while grocery shopping. I grabbed a juice, guzzled it, and then put the bottle in the cart to pay for at checkout. Was that theft? I don’t think so.”
to take (the property of another or others) without permission or right, especially secretly or by force: A pickpocket stole his watch.
Technically, if you took juice and drank it without paying for it, that is stealing. You call it what you want, but it is still stealing. If I were on the jury, I would vote guilty.
“Can anyone explain to me why such a lack of support for our diabetic sister:”
She broke the rules by taking chips and not paying for them first and now she is suing Walgreens and not taking responsibility for her actions.
I have done plenty of stupid things while low. I understand going low. I even understand not making the best decisions of what she should do while low. If I did something illegal while I was low, regardless of whether I was zonked out of my mind and did not know I was doing something wrong, then I need to take responsibility and accept what punishment was given for breaking the law.
If she plead guilty to taking the chips and eating them before paying for them, then asked a jury to take her diabetes into account for sentencing, I would want to give her a break and let her off the hook. If she came in and said she was innocent because she is diabetic and low (which is what she is basically doing), I would throw the book at her because she is not accepting responsibility for her actions.
