Would you fire someone if you caught them taking a nap during worktime?

[Hottage]

Not like they're at the helm of a nuclear reactor or something.

Most modern nuclear reactors can actually function safely completely unattended for weeks before they automatically start the SCRAM safety procedure.

On topic: it would depend entirely on the circumstances as well as if there are repeat offenses.
For the first offense? I'd be more concerned about employees home situation than the lost productivity.

[Allatar]

I'll contribute an anecdote that happened to me:

Years ago, I started feeling tired all the time. I could sleep eight hours and still wake up feeling groggy; but coffee let me power through most of it.

Then odd things started happening. I'd be stopped at a red light and suddenly I'd hear honking and would see the light was now green. I wasn't aware of any passage of time; the traffic from the opposite direction just suddenly went from moving to completely stopped.

My best friend, who often hung out at my house, would sometimes give me odd looks during our conversations (I later learned that I'd fall asleep mid-sentence for a few minutes then resume as if nothing had happened). Sometimes he disappeared; I'd be talking and suddenly he was gone and it was three hours later. Sometimes I'd see shadows moving in my peripheral field of vision (but of course nothing was there).

Then it started happening at work; I'd be on task and the next thing I knew a co-worker would be gently shaking my arm. My boss woke me during one of these episodes and was talking with me and the next thing I knew I was at the hospital with no sense of time in between.

After various tests, including a sleep study that was done while I was there, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea. During the eight hour sleep study, they recorded over eight hundred times that I would experience apneas of varying severity; but each one of them was sufficient to disrupt and collectively inhibit REM sleep. I had essentially been experiencing sleep-deprivation for a period of almost six weeks until my system said "fuck this" and flipped the switch. I was put on a CPAP and within the week I was feeling much better and rested; I was back at work within that period as well. During my hospital stay, my boss came to visit me a few times to see how I was doing and to reassure me that my job was waiting for me when I recovered.

The point of all of this is to say that while I am all for enforcing productivity among employees, it isn't always necessary to use termination of employment as the go-to response.

We had a member of our team here who fell asleep at regular intervals during the day claiming he had the same issue as you.

He had declined to mention it at interview when asked if there was anything that would affect his ability to do his job as a telesales agent. He told us he had the issue two days after starting work and claimed it made him 'disabled'.

He would be asleep by 0915 every morning and would then regularly wake himself up with the noise of his own snoring, then claim he hadn't actually been sleeping at all but 'reading'. It was comedy gold for the rest of us at first: he once got woken up with such a start his arms went into the air and to try and persuade us he hadn't actually been asleep, he pretended to air-conduct an imaginary orchestra.

This all ceased being funny when his sales performance was so bad that a member of the service delivery team was made redundant as there wasn't enough work for him and it was directly due to this guy not selling enough in his area. During all this time, senior management were ignoring advice to demand to see a medical report from this guy's GP. Every time he was questioned on it, there was a new medical reason. He claimed his CPAP was broken and couldn't afford to have it fixed, he claimed he was taking high strength pain killers as he suddenly had a bad back.

When the company FINALLY asked for a medical report from his doctor it took him nearly 2 months to produce this and when we saw it, we could see why: it was quite clear from the report that his doctor had no idea, prior to this request, that there was anything wrong with him.

It took us 9 months to get rid of this joker due to failures in enforcing company policy by senior management, when imo he should have been fired the day he told us he had neglected to mention it in his interview.

[Deleted]

Right. We'll replace the humans with machines then!

And then when all people are replaced by machines we'll act entirely surprised about why nobody buys our products

[Azmaria]

I would, can't be a direct care staff at a mental institution and be asleep on the job especially at night in the house with residents that are known to severe elope and that's exactly what happened to one of my coworkers. Wasn't even a 24 hour investigation just a look at some of the cameras and a very pissed off CEO.

[Moralgy]

No unless the job required 100% attention, like lives depend on it. As long as they aren't actively trying to sleep and doing it often, a random nap isn't the end of the world and would just warrant a "sleeping on the job" joke at worst. If your body forces you to sleep it means you need some rest and your mind really can't help it at times.

[XangXu]

It all depends on the person.

Most people, most good workers, would not give in to sleep, even if it was a detriment to their health.

Knowing this, ask the following question, "Are they a drinker? Do they party harty? Have they called in sick before when you know they just have a hangover?"

Almost 100% of the time I find that it's because they were out drinking the night before, or some crap like that. Irresponsibility being turned into consequence. For everyone.

[Tyrianth]

In my field of work? I would just ask them if they wanted the day off to rest.

[Ripster42]

There's a difference between "at work" and "on call." Being on call is not at work.

And those emergency responders aren't on call. They're at work. Sleeping in the beds provided for them at work. It just sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. BTW, hospitals often have beds for interns too. So they can sleep on the job.

[Baine]

Got curious around this question the other day. Personally, I'd like to know what happened in the last nights before taking any actions.

And you?

Without more context, I would not. Depending of the answer he/she would give explaining the nap, I would not go "higher" than a warning.

[analmoose]

ITT: Poor work ethic. While I wouldn't fire any of my employees over it there would be warnings and consequences. Some jobs may be different, but for the most part you are supposed to be at work for an allotted time per day and perform your duties. Your personal life is just that, personal, whether it may be affecting you and causing you to need to nap is your problem and you need to take control of it. It's unacceptable unless you are working around the clock / on call etc, and not a shift.

Before you even bring it up, I work 13+ hours a day, with 4 days a month off (and some extended holidays for a week or two per year). I have never napped at work.

[LoLcano]

depend on the job..i mean if they are school buss driver ......

[xindralol]

depends what kind of job ...

if you're on a 16h shift as a resident you're kinda supposed to take a nap at night if there's no pts for example. here the shifts are 10pm - 2pm and it's around 50k pts/year w/o in house cards hence at night there are usually a couple hours without any new pts so you can nap for a while.

so yeah

[Jonnusthegreat]

And those emergency responders aren't on call. They're at work. Sleeping in the beds provided for them at work. It just sounds like you don't know what you're talking about. BTW, hospitals often have beds for interns too. So they can sleep on the job.

If they are sleeping at work, they should be fired after 1 warning. Period.

They are not at work, they are on call. My friend is an EMT that "works" 48 hour shifts. He does not get 38 hours of "time and a half" because he isn't working. He's on call, in a professional vehicle. Just because you are the the workplace doesn't mean you are "working." You can be on call at a workplace.

It's clearly you that doesn't know what you're talking about.

[StayTuned]

staying awake is not hard unless you have a medical condition. if it's a job were they are aren't allowed to be sleeping and if they can't handle not doing it they obviously can't handle doing the actual job no matter what it is and if something bad happened because or even during someone sleeping the legal fees and insurance would greatly outweigh the cost of hiring someone else. I'd much rather hire someone else then risk losing the entire business cause some idiot fell asleep.

So you wouldn't even bother figuring out why he fell asleep? People are tired for a reason, namely because they don't get enough sleep otherwise. What if there is an underlying condition? What if he simply couldn't sleep for two days very well because of... whatever reason, like noise?

What might sound like an excuse to you, might actually be a legit reason and would go away sooner rather than later.

Especially jobs where you mainly sit around in front of a desk and you have to think to work, you can get easily dozy.

Seriously, again, falling asleep isn't such a horrible thing as long as your job isn't high profile, like being an atomic power plant operator or a fucking cab driver.


And also, I shouldn't forget to mention that company culture IS a thing. People will much rather work for you if they see that you actually do everything you can to help your employees out in every situation. People who actually like working for their employer are naturally more productive. You will also attract more applicants that way, if you are even open about it and use employee discourses as, for example, a CSR measure.

[MatadorMedia]

I've definitely taken a nap for my lunch break. Deal with it. People are human beings.

[Fang7986]

So you wouldn't even bother figuring out why he fell asleep? People are tired for a reason, namely because they don't get enough sleep otherwise. What if there is an underlying condition? What if he simply couldn't sleep for two days very well because of... whatever reason, like noise?

What might sound like an excuse to you, might actually be a legit reason and would go away sooner rather than later.

Especially jobs where you mainly sit around in front of a desk and you have to think to work, you can get easily dozy.

Seriously, again, falling asleep isn't such a horrible thing as long as your job isn't high profile, like being an atomic power plant operator or a fucking cab driver.


And also, I shouldn't forget to mention that company culture IS a thing. People will much rather work for you if they see that you actually do everything you can to help your employees out in every situation. People who actually like working for their employer are naturally more productive. You will also attract more applicants that way, if you are even open about it and use employee discourses as, for example, a CSR measure.

and more people might start sleeping just because they feel they can get away with it if one person caught doing it isn't punished. unless there is a medical reason or the job description specifically allows it there is no way in f-ing hell anyone should be sleeping while they are suppose to be working.

[StayTuned]

and more people might start sleeping just because they feel they can get away with it if one person caught doing it isn't punished. unless there is a medical reason or the job description specifically allows it there is no way in f-ing hell anyone should be sleeping during work.

Hell no they wouldn't.

We had two people who completely unperformed in the last two months. Did we fire them? Obviously not, we discussed what things can be changed and as of right now, they're back on track for this month. While they didn't sleep, other people did not suddenly started to get worse just because we didn't fire the other two employees.

All you need to do as a company is to set goals for people and reward them for reaching those goals. Motivate them, and maybe they won't get bored and sleep because they've got nothing else to do.

[DrMcNinja]

There is always a reason why someone takes a nap. A good boss will try to find out why he took the nap and work with them to fix it.

[Fang7986]

Hell no they wouldn't.

We had two people who completely unperformed in the last two months. Did we fire them? Obviously not, we discussed what things can be changed and as of right now, they're back on track for this month. While they didn't sleep, other people did not suddenly started to get worse just because we didn't fire the other two employees.

All you need to do as a company is to set goals for people and reward them for reaching those goals. Motivate them, and maybe they won't get bored and sleep because they've got nothing else to do.

if they have nothing to do you're doing something wrong as an employer and are basically paying people to do nothing which hey more power to the people working there if the people running the place are dumb enough to pay em for doing nothing

[draganid]

if it was an office job, id say go for the nap! most jobs are pretty fucking stupid anyways. lol @ all the people i this thread acting like work is this giant highly important undertaking. 50+ hours of my week including travel time id rather be doing other things.

unfortunately for me i work as a glazier so i dont get any opportunities to sleep at work, so you bet i envy pencil pushers with a nice desk to catch some Zs at lol. if im tired at home after work in front of the computer i fall asleep, easy to see how office people would do it at work, sitting and staring at a screen the whole time.