This is the 4th or 5th time I've called myself in sick for the 3 years I've worked there, so not an abnormally large number if you ask me, in the past there have been multiple times where I still clocked in while feeling like shit, but this time I just couldn't, energy has been zapping out of my body and it's been a while since I've felt this miserable.
Since it was an early shift I tried calling them asap this morning so they can perhaps still find replacement to cover me, the shift starts at 07:00 AM, so I called at 06:35 – 06:50 – and 06:55, 3 times they didn't answer the phone even though I know most people are inside already by the time 06:30 has passed, so after the the 3rd ring I left a voice message saying I couldn't come in today cause I was sick and I would keep them updated later.
5 minutes later at 07:05 I get a text from my boss:
Boss:”Hey (name), where are you?”
My response: “I'm sick, I tried calling the main phone of the workplace a couple times but no one answered, I left a voicemail.”
Boss:
??
What do you have?
Am I in the wrong here thinking the way she responded was unprofessional? the question marks she said first gave the impression she didn't believe what I was saying, also as the manager all she needs to know is that I'm sick and further details shouldn't be required.. yet half an hour later she sends another text with a question mark, waiting for my reply, what should I say if anything at all? The way I respond will probably decide how our relationship goes in the future as well.
So while I could respond with a simple “I have X this and I've been feeling miserable because of Y there's a bit more backstory to this as to why I'm not, if you care to read the rest you might get a better understanding.
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– So as said before I've been working there for 3 years now, once I started my position the team I was in was/is honestly just a great bunch of people, if I had an issue, I could lay it out on the table and you would be heard, my boss at the time who was still relatively new towards her higher position did great, she helped in the store, gave silent feedback whenever something went wrong instead of shouting it everywhere and she would often joke around with her staff, at that time she was definitely on of the better bosses I've worked with already and it's one of the reasons why I stuck around as well.
– Fast forward a year later a new person joins the team, she got transfered from another department, later I figured out she got transfered because she was causing “issues” with other staff from that section, already quite quickly it became clear as to why, she was as 2 side faced as you could get, one moment she would lick the asses of the managers, while towards the regular working folks she would non-directly imply at the end of the day we did nothing and she did everything herself, but when some people confronted her about it she would always say that was not what she meant.
– Eventually another one of the lower managers I was great friends with decided to ask for a transfer towards another department, also because she was moving but mainly to get away from that one person, and I honestly still don't blame her till this very day even though I miss her a lot, she got snitched on because she was smoking for 5 minutes in the back room of the store, yeah she wasn't clocked out but she was working in the meantime, and her workpace was like 5 times higher then said person who was doing everything by herself anyway, this is just one example, there have been numerous things like this where apparantly she told the higher ups X and Y are too close friends in the store – they're poison together so they should be put into different shifts.
– Once my friend was gone she obviously made her move towards a management position as well, which unfortunately she got to my own surprise a couple months later, with her newly raised pay the power trip raised inside that head of hers as well.. she would constantly keep pushing us to work faster and faster, just to promote her own agenda she could show towards the head manager at the end of the day of all 'she' had done.. and when work wasn't done at the end of the day she acted mad, when we asked her why she was she would just say; “I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.”
– Still comfortable in her new and high position she went for me as well, in the past she would give remarks towards me but they seemed to be getting more severe by the day, one day during work hours I went to the toilet cause I simply couldn't hold it up any longer, there was still 2 hours to go or something until the shift ended, so I quickly waddled upstairs cause that's where the toilet is right next to the break room, as I closed the door I could see in the corner of my eye miss pleasant walk back into the door she came out of, I didn't think much of it at the time but it was weird, not even 2 minutes later she comes standing next to me to the door (closed) asking; “Have you clocked out yet?” At that time I was honestly just baffled and simply replied with a no, thinking it wouldn't be necessary in the first place nor did it cross my mind since I just had to go so urgently. Now looking back on it the only way she could've known I wasn't clocked out was by manually checking it in the PC, hence why she probably took a sudden turn as soon as she saw me enter the toilet..
– You'd think that be the worst of it, but she has done spontaneous tests on me just to make me look bad, the worst one that sticks out is where she would say outloud an object, and I would have to associate that same object with a number, now I don't like to brag but I'm pretty great when it comes to this kind of stuff, cause whenever someone asks for a certain number of an object I almost always know the answer, I just taught it myself that way to speed up the work process, but then she started listing objects I haven't heard of in such a long time, obviously the first one she asked was nearly impossible to solve just to make me lose confidence, I still managed to get 60/70% right though, again later on I figured out the objects she was listing she wasn't allowed to ask because we hadn't sold them for more then half a year, so I basically signed a test that was inaccurate that will have an impact later on in my evaluation performance..
– So a couple months ago I decicded to come clean against another manager, listing the problems multiple people were having with this person while also giving examples; she said she would let the head manager know and also have a talk with her, since then, a couple things have changed; 2 more colleagues left cause they didn't think the situation was no longer fixable, whenever I start my shift now they nearly always place me in the same position, forcing me to no longer interact with any of the staff since the task just doesn't allow it, while in the past this would happen like once a week perhaps. They also said we'd have a sit down together with all the people so we could list what the problems were and maybe work it out, it's been over 4 months now..
– So while that may already seem sceptical my suspisions were confirmed when I heard a manager talking with miss pleasant while she was defending herself how it wasn't her fault 2 other colleagues left because she was just trying to get results, and by the tone they were talking with each other you could tell she agreed with her.. after that they seemed to get even closer with each other and they turned into that cliche group which contained 2 managers and the boss, and if anyone would dare to speak up against one of them the other one would stand up for who ever may need it.
– While I am still on somewhat relatively good terms with the boss I can't help but feel it slipping as well, certainly the private whatsapp group they have between each other isn't doing wonders for me, I'd be surprised if they had anything good to say at all. For this reason I'm scared to openly say anything against them anymore, out of fear it will get used against me in the future because I opened up about those other things in the past, right now I'm just unclear of what to respond so an outsider view would be appreciated here.