Troy Williamson is a wide receiver for the Minnesota Vikings. Recently, his grandmother (who raised him) died and he went home for just over a week to gather up his siblings as well as make arrangements and attend the funeral. During this time, he missed three practices as well as the Vikings' win over San Diego. Because of his absence, the Vikings docked him one game check, amounting to over $25,000. There was so much controversy regarding this decision that the Vikings ended up giving the check to Williamson after all, which he then donated to charity.
Now obviously, you feel bad for the guy. His grandmother died and he should absolutely have the opportunity to return home for the funeral and some family time. But I'm not sure about the outrage over the Vikings' actions. Football players are paid to perform 16 days per year. They are not exactly salaried workers with vacation days and flex time. Though he had a very good reason, Troy Williamson willingly missed one of these days and I'm not really sure why it's the Vikings' responsibility to absorb that. Obviously, the 'nice guy' thing to do is give him the check anyway (and I'm glad they did that) but I don't see why they should have to.
2 comments:
I think the initial handling of the situation is what created this "controversy" (quotes courtesy of this really being something that should be a non-issue).
You work to live, but you are really expected to work as if it is your life sometimes. And hey, if life happens to get in the way...well, I'm paying you to work, not to live!
I think if was approached differently, both sides would have come out OK. From the Vikings point of view, they didn't want to set a precedent of someone missing time at their discretion without some penalty. They should have just approached him and said, "It looks like a tough time for you. Why don't you take as much time as you need, and we'll call it (and treat it) an unpaid leave of absence."
The wording and almost the implied threat of a fine makes it seems like they were going to try to coerce him into playing over grieving in the way that he wanted to.
The example that Childress gave about other players like Reggie Wayne playing in games after close family funerals is pretty weak. They basically needed a better defined policy in HR, and a better way of stating that fact.
I think the whole thing could have been handled better by the Vikings, but for my money, the key fact is that Troy Williamson apparently didn't call in to let them know what was up. He just went AWOL. When you have a job and other people are relying on you to show up and do it, I don't think you get to disappear without notice. If he'd called and described the situation, it's hard to imagine any employer too hard-nosed to say anything other than "My condolences, and take all the time you need."
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