That's exactly what I'm saying split, that legally once they know they can't say a word even if they wanted to. Once they are put on notice they continue this jr high behavior at their own peril.

As I mentioned in my example, our co-worker was missing nearly every Friday. Friday's were critical nights we had to run short staffed if someone called in. It created a lot of extra work for the rest of us. Normally if you missed work any Friday you'd better have a doctor's excuse or the discipline proceedures would be started.

One Friday night I had a nasty case of the flu, I was throwing up in the garbage can and trying to stay as long as I could. My boss told me to hang on until 7, someone would be able to relieve me at 7. At 4 this other employee came over and said "have a nice weekend I'm not feeling very well. I've been watching you and that garbage can and I want to get home before I get that bad. He got to leave! I was FIT TO BE TIED! I rarely called in, I worked a lot of overtime (which he got out of) that day I was forced to come in at 10 that morning, I'd never missed a Friday, I had more senority than he did, I had never asked to leave early before... there were a million reasons legitimate differences that I should have been able to leave before he. I was so angry I just told my boss that I was sick and punched out and left.

It was this situation that caused my co-worker to confide in me. He came over Monday evening and said he was sorry, he didn't mean for it to sound like he was rubbing it in. He was going through a medication adjustment and was having trouble staying awake (which woul have been very dangerous in our line of work). I never told anyone what he said. But from then on I was much more sypathetic. I went out of my way to make sure that he wasn't stressed. Another informed co-worker and I went out of our way to cover his butt.

We're all human and when we see someone else getting what we view as special treatment it annoys us.