We all work in the distribution warehouse where we work alongside conveyor belts and heavy equipment. Our job is simple… we take boxes off the conveyor belts, audit the items inside the boxes, and then break it down for distribution to multiple locations.

Anyway

I’ve known this person, let’s call her Judy, for about a year now. She’s well into her advanced years and only got this job to help pay her bills and take advantage of the medical benefits here. It’s only recently that I noticed something was up with her. Whenever we return to our workstations from break I would see her wandering the floor because she couldn’t find her station or forgot where she was. She also started to rely on me and my other coworkers for technical assistance because she couldn’t figure out how to open the program on the computer, which was only two clicks away. She had no problem with this when she started. Then she was misplacing boxes and tools, which ended up being on the main walkway between our workstations and several coworkers had already tripped on it. And she started to forget everyone’s name.

My coworkers connected the dots and recognized the signs of dementia. They felt that it was wrong to report her because it would be considered ageism. I agreed with them and I was going to ignore it all until I saw Judy leaned into the conveyance system and nearly got crushed by heavy boxes. She could’ve been seriously injured if she hadn’t pulled out in time.

I made the call to report her and now she’s being investigated by both Safety and HR for safety violations. I do hope they make accommodations for her but I doubt they will because of the work environment. She’s likely to get terminated with multiple safety violations on her record and our warehouse is pretty strict on safety.

Do I regret this? No. Do I feel guilty? Yes… she needed this job.