Background info: I work at a community college in the Chicagoland area. I have a masters degree, ten years of experience in higher ed, and work in student services. My position is part-time, non-unionized, no benefits, no sick or personal time.
During the pandemic, we all worked from home and provided our services virtually. Last fall, admins had to decide how we would continue. My boss decided that all of us would have to go back to the office. Remote work is not an option, even though the majority of my appointments are still virtual. I commute 45 minutes to sit at a cubicle and talk to students virtually. Yesterday, I called out of work because it was snowing, and I did not want to drive in the bad weather. I offered to work from home but was told it wasn’t possible. When I get to work today, I notice my boss isn’t in her office but has scheduled a zoom call with me. On the call, she blurs her background but I hear her dogs barking and can tell she is at home. This also explains her conspicuous absences during other shifts of mine. So, she decides that she can work from home whenever she feels like it but we (the people who do the actual work) are not able to.
She proceeds to berate me for half an hour about not coming in. She says that the weather is not an acceptable reason for calling out and in five years of her being the director, that has never happened to her before ever. She says that I should be used to it because we live in the Midwest and that if I can’t drive in snow, then I need to make some “hard decisions” about working here. To her, the only acceptable reasons to call out are illness or emergency. She then compares us to Burger King workers and literally says, “this is a part time job like Burger King. You can’t just not show up to work. It impacts the whole team.” Mind you, I only had three students during my seven hour shift and all students were moved to other employees. I gave notice that I wouldn’t be in, this wasn’t a no call/ no show. This was my first time ever calling out that wasn’t due to illness and the only day I’ve taken off this semester. And in previous workplaces, bad weather was a perfectly acceptable reason.
I am baffled and angry. Why hire professionals when you treat them like children? Why go on and on about the importance of our team when the rules you set don’t even apply to you?
TL;DR: boss works remotely but forbids us from doing so, berates me for calling out due to bad weather; compares us to Burger King