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Comment by patates | Hacker News Reader

> My employer terminated my employment two weeks after that. In retrospect, I should have pursued legal action.

I assume you're from the USA?

I really hear the high-life stories with some envy and respect but oh boy is there another side of the coin...

In any case, I'm sorry to hear that, and hope that it becomes an insignificant unfortunate moment not even worth mentioning in your otherwise happy life story.

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I mean, even here in Germany you would probably get fired for being ill for so long unless you had already passed your 1 year probation. My wife had a boss who used to fire people for absolutely anything

It's true that you can be fired during the probationary period, for any reason including "excessive" sick leave. But the probationary period is limited to six months, by law.

The probationary period at my wife's job here in Hamburg was a year

Ah. Then she was probably in a civil service position (teacher, police, etc) for which for some reason there are entirely different rules. For employees in the private sector, the limit is 6 months: https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/bgb/__622.html

But IANAL.

No, she is at a private engineering startup. Her old boss was fond of breaking the law though

Yeah I’m an Aussie and we have fairly robust workplace laws here. For a long time I thought of life as “before chicken pox” and “after chicken pox”. Pretty huge effect on my life particularly the CFS.

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