Background: I work in a school.
I've got some crazy medical issues that all cropped up when I returned to work from my FMLA maternity leave. The way my company starts your leave is they exhaust all of your PTO – Vacation, sick and personal. These conditions turned out to be emergent and I had to exhaust all of the PTO that I earned since returning to work. My bank is back at zero.
My son ended up catching the Flu. This year it's pretty bad and he was held up for a while with it, he ended up needing to miss 3 days of school, and he's too young to be home alone so I had to stay with him. I had to use unpaid leave days to cover his illness.
My boss asked me to call HR to review what needed to be done in the instance you have exhausted all of your PTO. The HR manager reprimanded me for using unpaid PTO and told me that if I used much more they'd have to knock me down to PT and take away my benefits. Or worse, I could lose my job. She then went on to lecture me that I needed to have a better support system and better friends. I have GREAT friends and a support system but I wouldn't expect them to sit around with my very sick and contagious son. At the time of this call, I had only used .5 unpaid leave days in 2 years of working there, and it was because my grandmother passed away shortly after being hired.
I woke up Thursday morning, the day my son was cleared to go back to school and it felt like I had been hit by a bus. My body hurt so bad that I couldn't get out of bed, I called a teledoc and had them prescribe me Tamiflu since my son tested positive for the flu. I remembered what the HR manager said and decided to just take Dayquil, get the kids to school, and force my way to work. I threw on a mask and by the time I got to my desk, I looked horrible, my skin was pale, I was sweating and just generally felt awful. My coworkers told me to go back to my car and they'd get my boss to call me and that I shouldn't be in. I agreed and went to my car, waiting for my boss to call. I never got a call so I called her cellphone and she answered. I explained to her that I felt horrible and had a teledoc prescribe me Tamiflu.
She then had me come into the building and led me to an unused studio to work and I quote “cough with my mask off as much as I pleased”. She asked me if I was good to work, and that we had a company to run still and I begrudgingly said yes. She slapped a sign on the outside of the door, in red printed ink that said “Room is occupied today 12/8/2022”. I got through the day miserably but was still able to do my job since it was done virtually. The issue is in order for me to use the facilities I had to leave the room and as you know with the flu, you might need to use the facilities frequently…
I felt dehumanized, separated from everyone, sick, and upset that I had to be there because I had no more PTO and there were threats to my job. I came in Friday, feeling similarly bad, and asked if I can go straight to my “fludio” as we so lovingly called it, my boss said yes and I started my day. I forgot to attach the doctor's notes to my email to the HR manager so I gathered those up and sent them to her. The next thing I know, I get a message from my boss telling me to go home and that because I had a doctor's note that said 12/11/2022 I couldn't be there.
The next day, I get an email from my boss basically accusing me of coming in sick and exposing everyone and that we need to talk next week.
Please advise me of my next steps. I am nervous and scared. Has anyone ever had a good outcome from something like this?