Boss to Worker: Thanks for Your Kidney. And, Oh, You’re Fired!

From today’s New York Post:

A “kind and generous” Long Island mom donated a kidney to save the life of her boss — who then turned around after she got what she wanted and helped fire the poor woman, according to an explosive new legal complaint.

Then, two months later, in January 2011, Stevens told The Post, Brucia “called me into her office and said, ‘My donor was denied. Were you serious when you said that?’ I said, ‘Sure, yeah.’ She was my boss, I respected her. It’s just who I am. I didn’t want her to die.’’

“I felt I was giving her life back,’’ Stevens told The Post. “My kidney ended up going to St. Louis, Missouri, and hers came from San Francisco.”

Stevens said she did not realize that she was in for serious pain, discomfort in her legs and digestive problems after the surgery on Aug. 10, 2011. She said she felt pressured to return to work Sept. 6, before she was ready — even while her boss was still recovering at home. When Stevens went home sick three days after her return, she said, Brucia actually called her from home to berate her.

“She . . . said, ‘What are you doing? Why aren’t you at work?’ I told her I didn’t feel good,’’ Stevens told The Post. “She said, ‘You can’t come and go as you please. People are going to think you’re getting special treatment.’ ”

After Brucia returned to work, she’d yell at Stevens in front of co-workers over alleged mistakes, Stevens said.

Stevens said that her office and overtime were eventually taken away and that she was demoted to a dealership 50 miles from her home in a high-crime neighborhood that co-workers jokingly called “Siberia.’’ Experiencing mental anguish, she consulted a psychiatrist. and her lawyers wrote a letter to the company — after which Stevens was quickly fired, the papers state.

h/t Bryan Becker

11 Comments

  1. Cade DeBois (@lifepostepic) April 23, 2012 at 7:07 pm | #

    OK, did not the doctors who removed her kidney explain to her the post-surgical complications? I don’t fault this woman for being generous, but surely the doctors who did this informed her.

    That said, this does seem pretty allegorical–if not symptomatic–of the current business culture we have and its aggressively parasitic relationship with employees.labor, doesn’t?

  2. Elyse April 23, 2012 at 7:15 pm | #

    Heartless.

Leave a Reply to Elyse Cancel reply