Can I quit and collect unemployment in New York because I work for a CRAZY PERSON?

by Kathy
(New YORK)

It's a rather long story but to make it as brief as possible-I have worked for this employer on /off for 30 years and he has been diagnosed medically with a severe personality disorder which constitutes him as crazy, even to be committed, which he has voluntarily done in the past ( committed himself to a mental ward due to his behavior). He is verbally abusive and has thrown furniture at me in the work place. He tried to kill his wife by strangling her and re-enacts the event to me. He moved into the basement at work and would come upstairs in his underwear and pajamas, which threatened me.

He has threatened different organizations that he will come to them with a bomb or gun. ( Cable company).

He plays head games with me to the point that I feel almost suicidal as I am a single parent and cannot afford to lose this job, but fear for my health.

I am today, going to make an appointment with a medical person to speak to because I am so very, very distraught & depressed.

He knows my financial situation and plays on it. I work a 34 hour week in 4 days and he constantly punishes me verbally for not working full time, but then he claims due to the economy, I can't work full time and has now taken all my sick days and vacation days away.

I don't care about the vacation days ( which we agreed on when he employed me) but if I miss a day due to illness, it will put me in a financial spin downward.

He is a (religious affiliation deleted) and constantly preaches the bible to me at my desk and because I don't conform, I am not his equal because they are better people, I can go on & on.


I am just beside myself. Please respond.


Hi Kathy,

Write your resignation letter to him detailing all the reasons you can no longer continue your employment with him, i.e., he's a nut who is a danger to your physical and mental well being.

He's harassing you. He presented himself to you in his underwear for goodness sake!!!!

There is nothing, in any state's statute that says we have to act or be treated like indentured servants to retain employment.

I want to know how you have worked for this guy on and off for thirty years...in fact it is sometimes our acquiescence to intolerable working conditions that we are forced to defend when we have finally become fed up and sometimes that acquiescence is the reason a state denies unemployment depending on their statutes.

I assume the mental illness has become worse of late? I doubt you will need medical documentation for this type of quit, unless it is your health that now makes you want to quit, versus the unbearable working conditions. This would be a quit attributable to the work.

Knowing when you should quit is a personal decision. We all have different tolerance for this type of thing, but most states use an objective question of whether a "reasonable person" would continue in the employment.

Kathy, I think you've gone well beyond what a "reasonable person" would tolerate. I might even go so far as to say, you're in an abusive relationship, albeit employer/employee.

Chris