Job seeking and your health

OK. And how is this related to someone either lying to a potential employer or leaving out a significant detail?

The sermons about the evils of cancer are interesting, but they don't add much. It's sort of like blaming automobiles for bad driving. The problem here isn't that people have cancer; it's that someone wants to know if he should conceal it from a potential employer.

Prediction: More of "No!!!!! He has to be hired! Hired NOW!" And that car analogy will sail over the top of some heads.

 

Well, if the brakes suck on the car, no matter how good a driver is at the wheel, there could be a crash. When you get behind the wheel, you want to trust that the brakes work. If you don't think they will work, you do the safe thing for your benefit and not get in the car.
To use that in the work/cancer context, you would want to trust that the employer would do the right thing and hire the guy/gal anyways. But employers haven't been very trustworthy lately. So, if you don't want to trust that the employer would do the right thing, you do the safe thing for your benefit and keep quiet.

 

I like how, in the same breath, you use the word trustworthy and then say the person should conceal details.

Equipment failure rarely causes an accident. But it was good of you to try to build on that point.

 

Um, you brought up the car analogy, not me. But I suppose Toyota recalled millions of cars in 2010 out of the goodness of their hearts.

And like I also said, employers in general haven't recently been looking out for the best interests of their employees at heart. So why should the employee?

 

Only took you two posts to lose the meaning of the car analogy. Don't worry; someone will beat your total.

Well, because there are other employees. You and the many others who try to spin this into some sort of Hero vs. The Evil Empire battle keep missing that point.

 

I'm going to stick up for Martin here, with the caveat that I don't believe the situation to which he's referring is very likely.

If someone was right in the thick of cancer treatment to the point that he could be pretty sure he'd need accommodations after starting a new job, he probably should disclose it.

However, how likely is that? Millions of people have cancer at all levels of remission and treatment and only a very small percentage are in the really ugly chemo/treatment/surgery part of it. And I doubt that anyone in that group is too worried about finding a new job.

The mere fact that you are applying for a job indicates that you feel pretty good about where your health is going.

Again, if someone is in the small group of seriously sick people and still applying for jobs, then, yes, I think he'd be wrong to hide it.

But I don't think that situation is one that would happen often enough to even debate.

The hypotethical were talking about here just involved rescheduling an interview or delaying a start date (which theoretically shouldn't bother an employer too much because they aren't paying you yet).

 

A very good point.

 

Update: Got a call from the ME at this paper and it turns out, if they are hiring anyone, it won't be for a while. He asked me about doing some freelance in the meantime, and I said I could do it, but I had another commitment for the first couple weeks of May. He said "OK, talk to you in late May." End of story.

 

Sounds good. Too bad the one-dimensional crowd had so much trouble with some of the concepts.

 

Shit, that's the current prevailing truth when everyone's healthy.

 

One other point to keep in mind in all this, employers, whether current or to-be, cannot by law ask you about your health. So if they cannot ask, it's probably better for someone who is ill to keep it to themselves.

But yes, there are always exceptions.

 

Speaking completely personally, not legally: If I had a condition that in my heart I knew would materially affect me in doing a job if I were hired, I simply couldn't keep it from the employer.

I understand the legal side of not having to provide health information. But I couldn't look that person in the eye and sell myself without mentioning it.

It would be as much for me as for the new employer. I think keeping that secret would be more stress than I'd want to deal with.

But if it was a case of treatment I was currently getting that could reasonably be expected to fix the problem, then I don't know that it has to be disclosed.

The word "cancer" is a powerful one, but obviously, not all cancer is equal.

But I couldn't take a job, sit down the first day and say, "I'm going to need 12 days off in the next two months for chemotherapy."