

Ask HN: What to do about mentally ill and potentially dangerous employee - ta1439747404

I currently work with someone that we suspect is mentally ill.  We hired him a few months ago, and at the time, he was a bit shy, introverted, but seemed to be good.<p>In the last few months, however, his behavior has turned very erratic and scary.  He mentioned taking medication, but he never explained what kind of medication, and he has stopped things like personal hygiene.  He comes in looking extremely disheveled.  He has had very big mood swings, and has gotten very angry over insignificant things.  He is very much into guns, and has said more than once &quot;Don&#x27;t piss off someone who has a gun.&quot;  He doesn&#x27;t do any work and is literally dead weight, but we are paralyzed as to what we can do.  We believe he must have been on medication but has stopped taking it, which is why he is behaving like he is.  But we don&#x27;t want to draw his ire in case something goes wrong.<p>We asked HR, and they said that we can only do things like put him on a performance plan, etc.  But it&#x27;s a hot issue because he is potentially mentally ill and they don&#x27;t want to subject themselves to a lawsuit.  But given the fact that most of the mass shootings have been from mentally ill people, I&#x27;m worried given his previous statements that something really bad could happen.<p>What options do we have in terms of dealing with a potentially violent, erratic co-worker who is seemingly mentally ill?
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DanBC
1: please stop linking mental illness to violence. The vast majority of people
with a mental illness pose no risk of harm to other people (and are much more
likely to be the victims of violence than the perpetrators of violence). Your
other colleages are just as likely to be the perpetrators of violence. (You're
also wrong about spree killers, many of them did not have a diagnosis or
symptoms of mental illness.) if we assume that one in one hundred people has a
psychotic style illness that means there are about 3 million people in the US
with that diagnosis. There are about 16,500 murders in the US each year. So
even if every single US murder was carried out by a person with a mental
illness (and a different person was responsible for each murder) we see 16,500
mentally ill murderers and 3 million mentally ill non-murderers.

But, if you really think this person poses a risk of harm to the public (or to
themselves) you probably want to contact the police. You might want to look up
police powers to detain people with mental health problems and use that
language when you report. It's probably useful to keep a diary of erratic
behaviour. If the employer knows the relevant doctor it's a good idea to let
her/him know.

2: when an employee has a disability (and mental illness counts as a
disability) the employer should make reasonable adjustments. So, for personal
hygiene it is unreasonable for an employee to turn up at work smelling. A
reasonable adjustment would be for the employer to have a meeting with the
employee, let the employee know their personal hygiene was not appropriate for
work; and find a trusted person who would have that conversation in future.
Depending where the business is the employee will get different protection if
they have declared their illness. (In some places undeclared illness means no
protection (but IANAL)). If they have declared it's possibly okay for the
employer to have a friendly meeting to ask if there are any reasonable
adjustments that need to be made; and to ask if medical treatment is going
well.

3: someone should be documenting all the inappropriate behaviour. At some
point the employer should have a meeting to discuss this. Make sure good notes
are kept during that meeting. (If it's legal where you are take a recording of
the meeting).

But really most of this is standard stuff about dealing with under performing
employees. Document the poor behaviour; have the conversation; warn; dismiss.

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DrScump
1) It does not seem credible that all this would go on before multiple
witnesses with no action whatsoever.

2) is there no dress code of ANY kind?

3) you keep speaking as "we", yet there is no indication that his supervision
is in that "we".

4) I find "we asked HR" to be both out of line, and suspect -- it's wholly
inappropriate for peers to contact HR in such a context.

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dang
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