“He was coming so fast, there wasn’t any time to move all the way out the way”
Scott-Windham returned to Mobile Wednesday night with the bullet still in her foot, along with multiple fractures.
She’ll need to return to an orthopedist in two weeks to check on her foot. But the Amazon warehouse where she works denied her request for a leave of absence, and she worries she’ll have to find a new job once she’s recovered.
The denial of leave - after being shot in the foot by a mass shooter - was so inconsequential to the reporter that it barely warranted a mention in the second-to-last paragraph.
That was the main reason I wanted to post this with the title I used. I felt like the corporate mistreatment part of the story wasn’t being heard.
Oh, agreed and understood. I just was putting an exclamation point on it.
It isn’t corporate mistreatment of the story.
It’s manufacturing consent for the corporate ruled plutocracy.
But the story isn’t one of medical leave, as important as that is: it was about the incident and her experience, but not her recovery.
News articles follow a common format, and the detail about her shit boss isn’t one that fits the straight-line narrative of “survives horrible ordeal against madman killing with gun and truck but traumatized, child also safe”. With editing how it is, a ruthless editor even without an agenda may just as easily pruned that detail.
I’m sorry it wasn’t the thesis in this piece, but I’m glad it was kept in where it can be quoted later – like it is here, where we can add it to the buzz. This is really a best outcome for a piece based around a different narrative. I hope she gets a better job soon.
Maybe the author felt that it was what any reader would have expected in the US, so it wasn’t worth it to linger on the fact.
Which is so bizarre because when I worked for them, they would let me come in late as often as I wanted to, and take as much leave as I needed.
I went on so many mental health breaks when I worked for them. It was nice to have.