Yesterday I was supposed to go in for a surgery to repair a deformed chest wall (Modified Ravitch for Pectus Excavatum for anyone familiar). It's something that has been impacting me severely, worsening cardiac issues, and is a problem that's normally fixed in children but my case is severe enough that they're performing a risky, modified version of an older surgery on an older patient. Of course, my boss doesn't know the names or details of my surgeries, he just knows this is a vital and life-sustaining surgery, and that I have another stuck in insurance hell that will happen at the same time.
The medical center offered to also perform a transgender top surgery, which would save me time off from work. The caveat here is that insurance needs some extra legwork to approve my top surgery. I knew this, but I was under the impression I would get the surgery consultation to go over the process and then be instructed what additional paperwork I needed. Two weeks after my Ravitch consultation, I heard nothing, so I ended up calling to find out why my top surgery consultation was stuck in “Pending”, and apparently I need the paperwork before I can even get that.
For some additional context: when I got my current hotel job, it was under a general manager who was empathetic and understanding. The hotel I work at is an old building, my GM could never get timely approvals or enough funding to do what needed to be done (like, an SUV rammed into a support pillar and it took almost 2 months for upper management to approve and fund the repair and only because inspection was coming up). Since we were racking up negative reviews, they fired/demoted my GM as a scapegoat and the current area manager (I'll call him AM) stepped in. More than half the veteran employees quit because they KNEW what kind of a shithead this guy was.
So onto the present mess:
I ended up having to temporarily postpone my Ravitch due to the top surgery delays, but have kept AM up to date on everything. I told him I would need to delay my time off request, however, this original request was from Dec 5-29 so he KNEW full well I would be out most of December including over the holidays. This is important for later. I've told him multiple times that since the first surgery is vital, it needs to be done ASAP so if I cant get the second surgery through before the middle of the month, I'm proceeding with the first one only which will mean I will be back to work earlier as it has a shorter recovery time.
I've heard multiple complaints about AM. Apparently before I started working there, we had a housekeeper who went out on leave after a miscarriage. When she requested an extra week off, he told her to her face “Yes of course whatever you need, take care of yourself,” and after she left, turned to our current breakfast attendant to throw a whole tantrum about how he wishes she would quit. More recently, after taking over, he said to the breakfast attendant, “The only good thing [ex GM] did was hiring [me].” Like okay, cool, but I don't see that as a compliment when you're putting someone else down behind their back in the process…
When our head housekeeper quit after the GM's demotion, he called her “ungrateful”. She had been our ONLY housekeeper for several months and repeatedly asked for a raise, only to find out the new HK's they hired right before the GM demotion were being paid 2$ more per hour.
One of the new housekeepers was switched to covering breakfast on weekends. He took to the job quickly, so when it came time for him to do the breakfast supply order, the main breakfast attendant trusted he could do it himself. He made a couple mistakes, most of which weren't his fault (AM is wishy-washy and kept going back and forth on whether we would continue to carry bananas or not). AM came down on the breakfast attendant for not checking the order before it was submitted and said to her, straight up, “Use your common sense.” This guy acts professional most of the time, but will belittle employees to their face and more commonly, be a complete passive-aggressive diva and berate and shit-talk employees behind their back.
This morning, he asks me if I know my surgery date yet, to which I tell him no, but I have two appointments this week to finalize the letters insurance needs. I also tell him that since it needs to be done ASAP and since State Disability insurance doesn't cover the first week of time off, I would need to have it done before the end of December and ideally before the holidays because I need to use my PTO and that expires on Jan 1.
He then says to me, with full confidence and seemingly zero self awareness whatsoever, “It would be better for me if you could push it back to next year.”
Excuse me?
“Me and [his assistant] are going to be out at the end of the month so it would be better if you could push it to January or February.” I then remind him, with emphasis on the word- that this is a CRITICAL surgery, and that if I don't start it this year, I lose the PTO that I absolutely need in order to minimize loss of income while I'm out. Also remember what I said earlier about how my original PTO request was through the 29th? So he also knew since the end of OCTOBER I wouldn't be around most of the month and he's only now using this as an opportunity to try and get me to change my PTO (I took photos of the paperwork).
This absolute waste of oxygen then goes on for a good FIVE MINUTES (as I stare at my phone waiting for Lyft) trying to coerce me to delay my surgery for his own personal vacation time.
I'm disabled, and ideally I shouldn't be working, or only working part time. My physical condition has been deteriorating more rapidly since I started this job, and ever since AM stepped in, my mental health has been tanking rapidly as well. I had an injury a couple weeks back and it kickstarted my desire to get on state disability insurance and pursue SSA programs, but I figured that I could just switch to part time and see how it goes.
Nope, not anymore. I'm getting my surgery finalized per its own urgency and once I have the date, I'm telling him I quit.
I'm his favourite employee according to the quoted statement he made to the breakfast attendant I mentioned above, but he can't even treat me with human fucking decency, so fuck it.
The lion, the witch, and the audacity of this bitch.