Got a wife and kids in baltimore jack, I went out for a ride and I never went back

I had a brief sniplet of conversation with someone this morning that has been on my mind all day. It seems that at work we had a guy who left on a vacation about a month ago, and didn’t come back. He extended the vacation a few times with various excuses, and then called someone and told them he couldn’t come back to work, because (wait for it!), “his doctor told him the climate in Maryland was bad for him.”

I keep teetering back and forth between feeling gobsmacked and irritated by how stupid people are and feeling highly amused at the whole thing. Because, people, this is a stupid and patently false excuse that is completely unnecessary. Here in Maryland, a right to work state, an employer can lay you off if they don’t need you any more or think you aren’t doing a good job. As an employee, you also have the right to leave a job for any reason, including reasons like, “I don’t like this job,” or “I am offended by my supervisor’s halitosis.”

Yes, it is bad form to walk off the job and not come back, but so what? In today’s litigious society, all any employer will say about you is that you worked for them from this date to that. They won’t say anything like, “Well, he was kind of an asshole, and left for lunch one day and never came back,” even if that is the gospel truth. If you do walk off the job, there are no consequences.

And telling us the Maryland climate made him sick? Oh, come on! Admittedly, in the middle of August I’ve been known to whine about how awful things are, but this is Maryland. If you don’t like the weather, wait ten minutes and it will change. The summers are hot, but not Death Valley 120 degrees. Our winters are fairly mild. We have neither Texas-type droughts nor Seattle-style eternal rain. We are East Coast Average.

I figure that this guy got another job, but didn’t want to quit here until he knew if he’d like the new job better. Then he didn’t want to work out two weeks’ notice, so he made the Sick Climate call. None of which matters to the bottom line, which is “he is gone,” but it definitely makes him a putz.

And here, apropos of absolutely nothing, is a photo, taken by me:

Jake, wearing his belly band. He's so tiny and frail these days.