I don't know what is going to happen, but I messed up today recognizing a friend and co-worker's daughter. I work at a restaurant, and was seated with the most adorable little girl. I recognized her from photos from a co-worker, and confirmed it was the correct child.

Remembering the co-worker mentioned a certain manager thought the girl was cute, I went to the manager to give them a chance to see cute girl. The problem? My co-worker had called out earlier that day, to take the little girl to the hospital. But the little girl was at the restaurant, eating. The manager called my co-worker, who stated she was still at the hospital with her daughter, and she felt bad leaving us short handed.

Now I'm unsure how to feel. She was a hard worker, but her daughter has caused her to miss work before. Now, every one of those incidents are being re-evaluated, and she lost 2 weeks of work, while management debates if they will terminate her.

Most of the mothers on the floor really are upset only because this co-worker used her daughter as an excuse. Something about bad karma or putting bad Juju in the universe. Have you ever been in a similar situation?

Not been in a similar situation but it's strange the daughter was there at the restaurant when the mother very obviously lied about taking her to the hospital?
I would have thought that the mother would have at least told her daughter to stay at home, or go somewhere else where this kind of thing wouldn't have happened.

Are you good friends with the mother? If so I'd ask her privately why she lied - personally I don't really care that people occasionally skive off work, but it might offer her an olive branch if she's going through something and needs a friend.

You didn't get her fired, her actions did if she gets fired.

Also, using her daughter, saying she's at the hospital...might make it happen in the future and management won't believe her then if she isn't fired.

What bothers me is that she could've called in saying she didn't feel well (which can include mental health) and it would've been about the same right?

For an update- The server was written up, and then the next day had a corporate complaint that she yelled at a guest. She already burned the trust, so they just fired her.

I kinda miss her, but I need trust in the workplace, and if she was lying to get a day off, I wonder what she could have lied about elsewhere.

If you lie, you have to be smart about it.

I don't know how your work enviroment is but sometimes people use excuses or lie to get a day off because they know they won't get one if they just ask the employer. In many jobs you even get bullied/treated badly if you call in sick and superiors try to guilt trip you into getting back before you're healthy again. I've been there before.
So I can, to a certain degree, understand if people use excuses/lies like that to get a sick day or a day off in general, if they need it.

Yeah, sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do to take care of yourself. A lot of companies, especially in the US, don't really care about their employees' well-being the way they should, unfortunately.

Yeah, I think here in Germany it most often is okayish. But even here the "you have to work under any condition"-mentality becomes more popular. Especially in some certain sectors...
It's so sad because I think everyone would work better if you have a caring and safe work environment.

The silly thing is that it's been proven time and again that productivity actually goes up when employees aren't pushed to their limits every work week...

Yeah, that's absolutely true!
I think it's Sweden, that has 35 working hours per week and productivity went up a loooot! It would be so much healthier for everyone to work one hour less but therefore had more freetime!

This is a restaurant, but unlike most, our founder commited suicide a few years back now, so mental health is very important. But even then, most servers only get part time hours- I'm married to a manager, and struggle to get 30 hours a week. She had requested a week off starting the day after she called out. It is widely assumed she left early for her vacation. Reason her mother already had the kid.

On the flipside, again, my restaurant have 7 managers, and they have 5 days on, 4 days on work schedule. My SO actually gets in a lot of trouble for staying longer. It's a lot healthier than the work situations we have been in before.