Disclaimer— this happened early November, and while I’ve received no consequences yet, I’m worried that it’ll be brought up during my review.
For a bit of background, last year (my first year working) I (now 18f) found out that my job has blackout weeks during Thanksgiving and Christmas weeks. While it was frustrating at the time, we worked around it, and I kept it in mind for future reference, as scheduling any trips or plans around the blackout weeks wouldn’t be a problem as long as I knew about them.
Now, fast forward to this year, mom has health issues, and she needed to drive to Vegas so she could help out a friend who needed it. However, with my moms health issues, she couldn’t go alone, and my brother is still a minor and my dad needed to stay home. That left me to be the one to go, and I figured since it wasn’t Thanksgiving week, it would be fine. I requested the days off through the computer, and figured that was it.
Well, I was scheduled for the days that I requested off, which unfortunately isn’t that unusual with my work. I have to work to get days off, except for the rare occasion that my request actually goes through. This time, I figured I’d try and just get someone to cover my shifts so I didn’t have to call in (phone calls give me massive anxiety). I had picked up someone’s shift earlier in the week, and he was able to take my Friday shift (I only needed Friday and Sunday off), but I couldn’t get anyone to pick up my Sunday shift. I texted a couple co-workers asking if they knew anyone who’d be able to, but nobody could. One co-worker was encouraging me to go, anyway, and just call in sick, though I figured since because I had already tried scheduling time off, that would be extremely suspicious.
My mom kept telling me to call and tell them that I wouldn’t be in, but I kept trying to find a way to get out of this without confrontation. Eventually my mom got fed up with it, and called my workplace herself (it’s just a store, so her calling wasn’t considered all that weird). She explained the situation, and that she needed me to go (we couldn’t find anyone else to go with my mom at this point). Apparently, she was told that the months of October through December were blackout months, and nobody could schedule time off during that period. This directly contradicts what I was told last year. My mom was pissed, and told me that I would have to call in and tell them I couldn’t make it, and my co-workers were also encouraging me to just go to Vegas and call out as well.
So that’s what I did. I called and told my team lead that I wouldn’t be able to make it in on Sunday. He sounded very annoyed, and was kind of interrogating me on why I couldn’t be there, but I didn’t want to reveal information that would invade on my mom’s friends privacy, as well as my own mothers. He sounded doubtful when he finally said, “We’re gonna have a sit-down and talk the next time you come in.” The idea of confrontation scared the absolute hell out of me; I was already on the verge of tears. The phone call itself made me shaky and anxious as it was. I dreaded the trip ending, and me having to go back home. Thankfully, one of my co-workers was super supportive and kind throughout this whole ordeal, and I can’t thank him enough for being there during my bad moments.
For a little bit of background about my job itself, I work as a cashier. It pays $18.50/hr ($3.50 above minimum wage here) and most of my coworkers are absolutely wonderful. The people I serve are also really great, even if the job itself is absolutely exhausting (and painful at times— I have a bad back, and my Tourette’s will sometimes get the best of me there). The management is the thing that makes me the most frustrated, as we’ll usually be told contradicting instructions half the time, or the worst decisions will be made (I mean seriously, who thought it was a good idea to take away the bags at self checkout and have the ONE person monitoring it hand out the bags??). I would also prefer a more calm environment, but that isn’t a poor reflection on the job itself, just a personal preference lol.
I’ve not received any sort of punishment for skipping out on my Sunday shift, and I’ve certainly not gotten that talking to (though the one co-worker I mentioned still checks in on me to make sure it’s not happened), but I’ve been chastised for calling out despite me putting in a request for the time off before. I’m worried it’ll come up eventually, and I won’t be ready when it does.