Today my car started dying while I was driving, I could barely pull it over into a nearby parking lot. I had to have it towed into a shop. This happened at 10AM and I was scheduled in at 3PM. By 12PM the shop hadn’t even been able to look at my car yet so I knew there was no way I was going to be able to make it into work in a reasonable amount of time. I called my job to say I can’t make it in and stated the reason and my manager said “you can Uber or find a ride. You’re not sick you’re just having car trouble. Car trouble is not a reason not to come into work.”
I was startled at the callousness of his response. By all accounts I’m a good employee. I work hard, I’ve covered for others, and in my 1.5 years of employment there I have only called out twice (once due to illness and once due to emergency). I checked and taking an Uber to work one way would’ve cost me more than I make in an hour. I did not have any friends available to give me a ride to work today. My coworker ended up covering the shift but I am still super hurt by my manager’s response, and after finding out my car will cost $850 (that I don’t have) to fix I ended up crying.