So… never thought I’d be posting here but here we are. I work graveyards for a non-profit. I love what I do, it has a lot of meaning and gives me purpose. It doesn’t pay great, but I can make the bills with it.
Well, my boss doesn’t know how to write a schedule. Since I work graveyards and he has never worked a graveyard in his life, he often gets confused as to how clocks work.
He scheduled me for Monday and Tuesday (note I never work Mondays so I had to pull a 24+ hour day to make it to work Monday) 1 am to 8 am and didn’t schedule me for Wednesday. I thought this was intentional, since I was supposed to be moving job positions within the company and it required me to go back to a daytime schedule and I would need a day to get reacclimatized. So imagine my surprise when during closing this morning, he texts me and tells me I work tomorrow. I had screenshotted my schedule and sent it to him, clearly showing that I was not scheduled for Wednesday. He texts me back and tells me I’m reading it wrong.
After a heated conversation with my coworker who had offered to cover for me Wednesday so I could keep my plans, he called me to discuss the schedule. He insisted that because he scheduled me at 1 am Tuesday, it meant I needed to start Tuesday EVENING, by which he meant Wednesday morning at 1 am. I explained this to him very clearly, and he dug his heels in further. First, he told me that my coworker (the same one that offered to cover me) explained it to me wrong. I told him she hadn’t told me anything wrong. Then he told me that somewhere along the line, I started reading it wrong (I did not, I was scheduled Tues-Sat 1-8 am, and that is exactly what I worked). Then he told me that regardless of who was right, I needed to come in because that’s what I was scheduled for (I wasn’t, regardless of his intent). I told him I already have plans because I was not scheduled, so I would not be coming in. At this point he raised his voice at me, and started demanding why I didn’t tell him I had plans so he could schedule me off. I told him I WAS off and I didn’t think I needed to tell him my personal plans on days I was very clearly marked down as not being scheduled for. He kept beating the same dead horse and condensplaining how the schedule works in his mind despite the fact that he was objectively wrong and even though I understood what he was saying, I did not agree with his logic. He seemed to be unable to process that I could understand and not agree with him, like the two were mutually exclusive concepts.
After he yelled at me for a few minutes I told him “Okay. I quit. I quit. Bye.” And hung up on him. I have not looked back. There are lots of job positions in my area that are the same work but I will be paid more for. I don’t hope my (ex) boss’ company fails. But I DO hope he learns to appreciate his employees more for the work we do for him, instead of punishing us for his mistakes. He’s been losing a lot of people lately for his treatment of them, and no wonder.
My coworker is considering quitting because he has blamed his mistakes on her in the past. I hope she does for the sake of her mental health, but regardless of what she chooses of course I’ll support her.
TL;DR: Boss scheduled me for 1 am Tuesday, demanded I cancel my plans because he meant he wanted me to start 1 am Wednesday even though he scheduled me to be off.