Lawsuit Alleges Reddit Fired Employee for Taking Medical Leave, ‘Toxic’ Culture
Lawsuit Alleges Reddit Fired Employee for Taking Medical Leave, ‘Toxic’ Culture
Jamie Lee returned from medical leave on November 18, 2022 and was allegedly terminated the same day.
A lawsuit was filed against Reddit alleging that the company fired an employee with anxiety for taking medical leave. The employee, Jamie Lee, had worked at Reddit as an accountant for over 4 years with positive reviews. In July 2022, Lee requested 3 days off for her health but was denied. She was later placed on medical leave after fainting, but was fired upon returning and accused of poor performance. However, the lawsuit claims others made similar mistakes. It also alleges Reddit's new leadership under the CFO has created a "toxic, political, and not inclusive" culture, which two other employees also left over. This highlights challenges employees faced with the changing culture at Reddit.
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On July 25, 2022 the lawsuit alleges, Lee asked her supervisor for three days off using her floating holidays to attend to her health. Her supervisor allegedly rejected the request saying it “would be a burden to the rest of the team” and that “there is a lot of work to be done.”
What the fuck? It's 3 days; fix your staffing!
"Sorry, I'm too incompetent to account for any minor disruption, no matter how common, unavoidable, or legally mandated it may be. Please suffer quietly."
It’s reddit, what in the hell do they have going on at the end of July that couldn’t accounting couldn’t wait a few days for? Did they have to count up all the gains from the fake gold they’ve stopped selling people? Tax season is over, the new fiscal year is already started, seems like bullshit paper pushing to me.
Their software was open source. Their content is free. Their moderation is free. All they had to do was sell some ads and host the servers. And they fucked that up.
Yep this is pretty much what I came into the thread to read about. I'm sure the claims have merit and I don't doubt that Reddit could have a toxic work culture (just look at the decision making over the years, clearly people aren't comfortable pushing back against bad ideas)
Just usually when I hear about toxic grind culture, the company is producing something, be it content or some competitive product.
Reddit is doing what other open source devs are doing for free, and somehow doing that badly. The app is bad, the front end for new Reddit is constantly buggy, and it takes a very long time for things to get fixed.
What are they doing to the workers...
You have to understand that most accounting departments treat month-end with the same gravity as year-end. My job's accounts payable department starts sending month end deadline reminders on the 15th. It's absurd how much they focus on it.
(This is not an excuse for their abhorrent treatment of an employee, mind you, but it might help explain the twisted logic behind "end of July" possibly working against her.)
Point aside, what’s reddit doing that taking three days off for health makes it impossible to meet deadlines? What exactly are they juggling in that accounting department that demands so much from a single employee? Sounds like she was overworked and overwhelmed from the start.
It's insane, isn't it? Why do so many companies act like employees are their indentured servants and not professionals who provide their services to them in exchange for money?
If anything, the boss should have said "Are you sure just 3 days are enough? How about you take the whole week off instead and come back fully refreshed?". I do hope the court throws the book at them - time off should be a goddamned sacred right if every employee.