I have a friend who is a paralegal, and while her opinion does not constitute legal advice, she thinks I should talk to an employment lawyer as well… I’m seriously considering it, but at the moment I’m biding my time a little bit as I still have personal effects at the workplace that I would like to recover before pursuing any action that could sour the relationship between that employer and me (from their perspective) any more than it may already be soured.
I resisted the urge to make the comment “laying someone off after they recover from a disability? That’s awfully brave of you.”
I don’t think that would have gone over particularly well with them. Needless to say, my first priorities are to find reliable employment and recover my belongings. I’ll consider it further when that is accomplished. Lucky for me, I had previously been given the name of someone who is exactly this kind of lawyer by someone I worked with. Let me paraphrase them by saying, it’s not the first time, and probably won’t be the last.
I feel like it’s unfortunate since I actually liked the people I worked with. I didn’t care for management, but bluntly, most management rubs me the wrong way, so no love lost there… But they had some really great people working there that I genuinely enjoyed working with. Oh well. Life goes on.