I posted this in another thread and decided to make it a fanpost to see if I could get some feedback on this parallel situation.  Does this change your view about what happened?  Do you think this is a good comparison? 

I was a restaurant manager and would run into servers calling in and saying they were “throwing up all morning/stomach hurt/sick”.

Now, as a food service manager, you know having a sick employee not only endangers your patrons, but also yourself and the staff. Now you’d think the answer is easy: Tell the employee to stay home, see a doctor, and let you know when he/she is feeling better.

Now let’s say this employee is very well known for going to the bar after his shifts, blowing all of their tips/check on alcohol and constantly shows up to their early afternoon shifts hungover, looking like poo, and smelling of booze.

Now lets say this employee makes this call to you on New Years Day. Or after another member of the staff had a widely known house party the night before. Now let's say you already have 4 servers who aren’t party animals call in as well.  They have doctors notes and have no record of calling in for their shifts. What do you feel the need to do? Do you want to tell this servers hungover/dumbass self to take a cold shower, sober up, and get into work?  Or do you continue to treat them like everyone else and tell them to stay home, see a doctor, and get to feeling better (all while you wait tables/dishwash/cook in your already understaffed restaurant)?

I think this could be similar scenario. James is known for being a lazy, whining, little effort brat. He come to practice one day not in gear, wearing shades, complaing of his concussion, all while the rest of your team is trying to prepare for a bowl game/run.

Leach (manager) reacts to James (server) in a way everyone would like to do. He thinks this is just another time this kid is not wanting to practice and is lieing/showing you up in front of your team.  He certainly feel justified in trying to teach James a lesson because of past behaviors.. But it only takes that one time for that heavy drinking server to actually be sick to get the manager in trouble/fired.