A Strong Tech Keeps Calling in on Mondays

Why this matters

Monday is the heaviest dispatch day in most residential shops: weekend no-heat and no-water calls stacked up, plus the week's booked work. A tech who misses it costs more than one day, because his calls get pushed onto Tuesday and the whole week runs a day behind. When the tech is your best one, two bad instincts kick in at once: let it slide because you cannot afford to lose him, or come down hard because it feels like disrespect. Both skip the question that decides what to do, which is why he is out. The four usual answers lead to four different responses that do not converge, so guessing wrong does real damage.

First, prove it is a pattern

Before anyone talks to anyone, pull the record. Memory exaggerates Monday absences because they hurt the most, and a conversation built on "you're always out on Mondays" collapses the moment he points to a Monday he worked.

Pull at least 12 weeks of attendance from the schedule or timesheets. Count unplanned absences (called in the same day, not booked vacation) and note the weekday of each. Then compare:

• Against the calendar. Monday is 1 of 5 working days, 20 percent. If his unplanned absences land on Monday far more than 20 percent of the time, the weekday is part of the story.
• Against the crew. Count the same 12 weeks for everyone else. A tech with 7 absences against a crew averaging 2 has an attendance problem whatever the weekday.
• Against holidays and paydays. Note whether absences also follow a Monday holiday (landing on Tuesday) or the day after payday. Write it down; it matters later, but it is not evidence of anything by itself.

If the numbers do not show a pattern, stop here. You have a feeling, not a problem, and a conversation about a feeling reads as an accusation.

Check what the absences may already be protected by. Many states and cities require paid sick leave and some cap when you may ask for a doctor's note for a short absence, so demanding documentation for a single Monday can itself break a state rule; check yours before you ask. At the federal level, the FMLA (the Department of Labor's rules at 29 CFR Part 825) applies to employers with 50 or more employees within 75 miles and can cover intermittent leave, including one day at a time. If any of this may apply, your attendance policy has to bend around it, not the other way round.

The conversation

You are not opening an investigation into his weekends. You are telling him what you see, what it costs, and asking what is going on. Private, early in the week, not on a Monday he showed up hungover or exhausted, and not in front of the crew.

OWNER: Got a minute? I pulled attendance for the
  last twelve weeks. Seven call-ins, six on Mondays.
TECH:  Yeah. I know.
OWNER: You're the guy I send to the jobs nobody
  else can figure out. Mondays are when I need
  that most. So I'm not here to write you up. I
  want to know what's going on with Mondays.
TECH:  It's just been a rough stretch.
OWNER: Rough how? I'm not asking for details you
  don't want to give. I'm asking if there's
  something I could change that would help.
TECH:  ...My ex moved. I get my kids Sunday night
  now and there's no one to take them to school
  till Tuesday.
OWNER: Okay. That's fixable. Let's figure it out.

Three things that conversation does on purpose. It opens with the record, so there is nothing to argue about. It names his value before the problem, which is true and also keeps him from hearing a firing. And it asks what would help rather than what is wrong with him, which is the question that gets an answer from someone who is ashamed of it.

What it does not do: ask whether he is drinking, ask about his health, or guess. Under the ADA, which covers employers with 15 or more employees (some state laws reach smaller ones), questions likely to reveal a disability have to be job-related and consistent with business necessity, and "are you an alcoholic?" fails that test where "what is going on with Mondays?" does not. See related: Fit for Duty: When and How to Ask.

If he says "nothing, it won't happen again," accept it, state the standard plainly ("I need you here Mondays; if that's going to be a problem, tell me before Monday, not at 6:40 that morning"), set a review date four weeks out, and write it down. Some people need the conversation more than the fix.

Branch: substance use

Criteria. Absences follow weekends, holiday Mondays, and paydays rather than Mondays alone; when he does come in after a weekend he is late, shaky, or slow; crewmates have mentioned smelling alcohol; his account of the absences shifts. None of these is proof, and you do not need proof, because you are not acting on a diagnosis.

Response. Hold him to the same attendance standard everyone has, in writing. Offer whatever help exists: an employee assistance program if you have one (see related: What an Employee Assistance Program Is and How a Small Shop Gets One), a local treatment referral, time off to get help. The ADA, where it applies, can protect a person with alcoholism or a person in recovery from illegal drug use who is not currently using, but it does not require you to tolerate absences or impairment that other employees would be disciplined for, and current illegal drug use is excluded outright (42 USC 12114).

The line that is not this article's. Impairment on the job, a tech who arrives unfit to drive the van or work a panel, is a safety event, not an attendance one. See related: Substance Use and the Safety Line: A Decision Tree, which owns that decision.

Branch: burnout

Criteria. He has been running long weeks for months, 50 hours or more, carries a heavy share of on-call, gets the hardest jobs because he is the best, and the Mondays started after a stretch of that. Fridays and late starts may be creeping in too. When asked, he says he is tired, not that something happened.

Response. This branch is a load problem and the fix is to the load: cap his hours for a month, take him off the next on-call rotation or two, spread the hard jobs. A strong tech burning out is frequently the shop's own doing, because "send it to him" is the easiest dispatch decision. Discipline here makes it worse. See related: Spotting and Stopping Crew Burnout, and Designing an On-Call Rotation Around Sleep.

Branch: family

Criteria. Something changed at home and the timing lines up: a custody schedule, a sick parent, a partner's new shift, childcare that falls through on Mondays. He usually tells you once asked, often with relief. The absences are regular rather than erratic.

Response. Change the schedule if the business can carry it: a 10 a.m. Monday start, a Tuesday to Saturday week, a Monday route that ends by school pickup. Check whether federal FMLA, state family leave, or state paid sick leave (some state laws cover a child's care or school closures) applies, because if it does, the absences may be protected and the schedule change becomes the cheaper way to meet an obligation you already have. See related: Managing a Tech Going Through a Hard Time at Home.

Branch: another job

Criteria. Weekend side work: he is exhausted Monday from a weekend install, or he takes Monday to finish one. Tells are a customer mentioning they used him privately, materials or tools leaving with him, or Monday absences that track big weekends rather than every weekend. A version of this branch is not side work but an exit: he is interviewing or building his own shop.

Response. Side work by itself is often legal and is protected in some states: California, Colorado and New York, among others, restrict discipline for lawful off-duty conduct, so a flat "no side jobs" rule may not survive there. What you can generally hold him to is attendance, your own customers, your materials, and your tools. If it is an exit, the conversation turns to whether there is a version of the job he would stay for, a lead role, a pay change, a different week, and if there is not, a planned departure beats a slow fade.

What to write down

Whatever branch, the record holds: the 12-week count with dates and weekdays, the crew comparison, the date of the conversation and who was in it, what he said in his own words, what was offered, what was agreed, and the review date. Anything medical or about substance use goes in a separate confidential file, not the personnel file; under the ADA that separation is required for medical information, and it is the right practice in a three-person shop too.

This is not legal advice. The point at which you stop acting on an article is the moment you are considering termination, refusing a leave request, or disciplining someone who has mentioned a health condition, a family care need, or treatment. Walk into an employment attorney or your payroll provider's HR service with the attendance record, your written policy, and the conversation notes.

The case: nine years in, six Mondays out of seven

Theo is a nine-year plumber, the tech who gets the slab leaks and the jobs two others gave up on. The owner pulled 12 weeks, 60 scheduled days including 12 Mondays. Theo had 7 unplanned absences: 6 on Mondays and 1 on a Friday. Six of seven is 86 percent on a day that is 20 percent of the calendar. The other eight techs averaged 2 unplanned absences each over the same 12 weeks, scattered across weekdays. No absence followed a holiday, and none followed a payday that was not also a weekend.

In the conversation above, Theo named the custody change. The owner checked the other branches against what was known rather than taking the first answer on faith:

• Substance: no lateness or impairment on the Mondays he worked, no crew reports, no holiday or payday pattern. Not ruled out forever, but nothing pointed there.
• Burnout: Theo was averaging 46 hours a week and was on call one week in five, same as the crew. Not the driver.
• Another job: no signs, and the Friday absence was a stomach bug two other techs also had that week.

The fix: Theo's Monday starts at 10 a.m. with a route that ends by 4:30, and he works a half Saturday to make up the hours. The shop has 11 employees, so the federal FMLA did not apply; its state's paid sick leave law did, which meant the six Mondays already taken had to be paid out of his sick bank, not docked.

At the four-week review, Theo had worked every Monday. At twelve weeks, still none missed.

What would have sent this down another branch. If the absences had also landed on two Tuesdays after holiday Mondays, and a crewmate had mentioned alcohol, the owner would still have offered the schedule change, but held the attendance standard in writing and offered help, because a schedule cannot fix a drinking problem and a substance-use problem can borrow a family story. If Theo had been averaging 58 hours, the first fix would have been his hours, not his start time.

References

• U.S. Department of Labor, Family and Medical Leave Act (29 CFR Part 825), coverage and intermittent leave
• EEOC, Enforcement Guidance on Disability-Related Inquiries and Medical Examinations of Employees under the ADA; 42 USC 12112(d) and 12114
• Your state labor department's paid sick leave and lawful off-duty conduct rules
• See related: Substance Use and the Safety Line: A Decision Tree
• See related: Spotting and Stopping Crew Burnout