I'm a Gardner at a retirement community, I asked my manager a few months ago if I could take two months off to go to Europe. (My wife is a ICU nurse who has developed severe depression and even had to have emergency heart surgery over the course of the pandemic, the trip was really for her and her mental health). I was shocked when my manager, who confirmed with HR that I would be allowed to take this much time off. They said they would just make me an employee with 0 hours until I come back, manager said it's ok. My department got a new manager, so I confirmed with him, he also said we should be ok. I found out last week, they just hired my replacement…I scheduled a meeting and confronted the new manager about it….These people weren't even going to tell me until I left for the trip….manger simply said he thought I knew I could lose my job (which makes no sense, why make me an employee of 0 hours during the period I'm gone, why tell me I can take the trip)…I found out through gossip I was being let go, as in other people knew for months before I did….This is a place, that I still managed to come to work a few days while my wife was recovering from heart surgery….Now I'm paranoid and anxious at work because I don't trust any of my coworkers or management…I love the residence and their pets and love the conversations I have while working in their yards…now for over a week I simply hide in there yards and cry…I have two kids and while we did save for years this trip, they really didn't care if my family had any hardship from this….all I get from the manager “oh I'm sorry this has been handled unprofessionally, if we get an increase in budget you will be the first on my list.” He even tried saying the old manager recommended they hire someone to replace me because of how busy summer is (which is completely out of character of the old manager, the old manager literally kept a employee who no called no showed for almost 2 months because they were a addict and old manager wanted to help them)….anyways I scheduled a meeting with the director of HR to make a ethics complaint or to simply complain as they were the ones who said it should be ok, I will be the second person to do so since the new manager took over….maybe it's pointless, I mean I don't want anyone to get fired, though I feel like the unprofessionally nature should be brought to light….since the old manager left its like a negative wave hit our department, severally of my coworkers gossip about other saying stuff like “I bet they called in because they got their welfare check.” seems like old manager was a buffer that never really was appreciated enough…I have 1 coworker who is a personally friend, she said “nobody has complained about my work performance but people were agitated when you took off for your wife's heart surgery”………. me: dafuq???
anyways wish me luck, most of this is a rant because I loved going to work, it was a dream job with amazing people the residents were always appreciative and would send me emails thanking me for my work all the time…I have accepted I will have to move on, I just want someone to know the direction of the department and my situation…if you read all this, thanks!