A fellow employee is chronically late, phones in sick on Mondays and avoids contact with others until around noon. I am concerned that she may be hung over and wonder about offering help before she loses her job.
I worry she may be insulted if there is no problem with alcohol and wonder if my view is tainted because I have seen others with alcohol abuse show the same symptoms and behaviours. Do you think she abuses alcohol? What should I do?
refer her to an EAP program if your company has one…or help her to see what others might infer from their observations of her behavior….just ask if she is all right because you are worried about her, letting her know what you see…letting her know that if you can see it so can the bosses.
December 28th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Whether or not she abuses alcohol there is nothing you can really do unless you want to talk to your supervisor about your feelings. You CANNOT help an alcoholic unless they want to be helped. Since she has not reached out for help there is not much you can do.
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December 28th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
Hmmm…. this is a hard situation. You don’t want to be wrong.
How well do you know this employee?
Personally, I think if it is not a friend than you are best to mind your own business. Because if you accuse this employee of having problems with alcohol and she doesn’t, rumors about you being a noseybody will surface and you will look bad.
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December 28th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
You should probably not try to "help", as she will only see it as interference, and it won’t do any good. Her job is probably in jeopardy due to her habitual absences on Mondays—her supervisor should be dealing with that regardless of the reason for it.
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December 28th, 2009 at 4:24 pm
Personally, I beleive she’s smoking crack cocaine!!!!!
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December 28th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
I can see why you might think she abuses alcohol.
It might not be alcohol.
It could even be sugar.
Check out Radiant Recovery dot com
http://www.radiantrecovery.com
and see if she fits the profile of a Sugar Sensitive person.
Notice that it’s not always sugar (and sugar includes alcohol)–it could be any refined carb, like pasta, bread, snack foods–and, if you read quite a bit at radiantrecovery, you’ll see that anything that spikes beta-endorphins can do it, even exercise or any kind of abusive relationship.
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http://www.radiantrecovery.com
December 28th, 2009 at 5:34 pm
If she’s a friend of yours then I say go for it, intervene. But if she’s just a co-worker, things could get ugly. And you could lose YOUR job over it.
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December 28th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
I would talk about my concerns with the office supervisor or boss and have him or her see how many sick days she has had in the past 6 months to a year and if it is excessive, then maybe the boss should approach her with the "I see you have been sick alot in the last 6 months, more than normal. Are you having any problem that I need to know about." You as a co-worker cannot approach this person because if you are wrong, it could ruin any work relationship that you may have.
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December 28th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
refer her to an EAP program if your company has one…or help her to see what others might infer from their observations of her behavior….just ask if she is all right because you are worried about her, letting her know what you see…letting her know that if you can see it so can the bosses.
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December 28th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
you’re right, this is a very tricky situation. first i would try talking to your co-workers to see if they notice the same thing. if you or someone you know is very close to her, have him/her talk to this person. don’t directly say "do you abuse alcohol?", just say something like "hey, i’ve noticed you’ve been calling in sick a lot and you seem to be in a bad mood, is there anything going on that you want to talk about?" if they don’t open up, just try giving them numbers they can call for help or even just leave the numbers on her desk or something without saying anything. if they don’t want to be helped, there’s only so much you can do but at least you have noticed & are concerned about her. good luck!
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