Tl:dr My boss sabotaged me, told me to take an excused leave of absence covered by PTO, then did a 180 and set me up for termination supported by information he failed to relay to me.
I have close family member in the hospital on life support. I called off work on January 3rd due to this, and the mental impact it's having as well as having to be the main decision maker for this family member. I'm spending all my time at the hospital and up all night with anxiety, grieving etc. Basically I'm in no shape to go to work. I sent an email to my main manager and supervisor letting them know my situation and that I won't be coming in. The main manager texted me right after, telling me not to even worry about work right now, to take time for my family and that if I need longer term family leave financial coverage I can set up a claim with a company called Aflac, but didn't say it was a requirement.
I set up the claim just in case, kept them all posted on the situation, etc. My supervisor contacted me just about daily asking for a specific updates, to the point of following up on previous updates that were extremely personal. Intrusively obtaining information about my sister's personal medical condition and progress, all of which is none of his business and not my information to give but I felt obligated to in a way, So in spirit of cooperation I generally filled him in on what was going on. I eventually became vague and stopped give me him anything specific because it didn't feel right.
Meanwhile, I've seen the doctor for my own health. Not a primary, but I went to urgent Care for severe anxiety as I was grieving. I had a phone appointment with another doctor the following week for the same thing. I haven't seen my primary doctor because there is a couple weeks waiting period before I can get an appointment. The Aflac company pretty much said if I want to get paid I need to contact the state and apply for short-term disability, which would be a ton of paperwork and I would need to see my primary and all that. I don't expect to be out that long, plus the doctor can't backdate it so I just opted out of trying to get paid via that route. They said I can still qualify for unpaid family leave, which was confusing to me because according to my manager the point of this optional claim was to get financial coverage for this leave of absence. I figured it wouldn't hurt to have documentation from this company in case it can help protect my job so I left it open and they said they will send information to my healthcare provider, though I doubt the healthcare provider will even respond to some random packets of FMLA paperwork without seeing my primary and letting them know it's coming. I did talk to the second doctor (phone appointment) who confirmed I would need my primary to be involved to get anything like that handled, so that seemed out of the question and I'm assuming the Aflac company will be denying my claim any day now. Aflac did specify that if I want to get paid for this unpaid (unpaid by Aflac) FMLA case, basically get paid in general for this leave, my only option is to submit PTO if the company allows.
I relayed this information to my supervisor, who I've been in touch with every day now. He had stated multiple times that I can submit PTO to cover the days I'm absent. I ended up submitting the PTO and he approved it. He even asked if I'm cancelling the Aflac claim, since it's purpose seems to only be for getting paid. I received my check this week and realized I only got paid for one week, not two. I went on to the payroll app and noticed that they revoked my time last week 2 hours after approving, so I only got PTO for one week instead of two. This is where it gets rocky. The company attendance policy lets you get four occurrences, which is pretty much four unexcused days off not covered by PTO per year. Coincidentally, the days revoked for last week were for four total. My manager sends me emails this week, complete 180° since he has at this point consulted with HR and is given scripted messages. He mentioned to make sure that I communicate further case updates and days off granted by Aflac, to make sure that I'm covered and not held against the attendance policy for no call no shows and unexcused absences. Basically indicating that this leave is solely managed by Aflac (the once optional claim that was only supposed to be if I wanted to seek payment NOT from PTO) and what they grant me. The main message was a definite scripted message from HR (I used to be a supervisor). In one email he plays dumb like he doesn't know anything about this leave that I'm on, after he and the supervisor are the only direct contacts at the company I discussed this with and was literally told by them to take a leave, instructed what to do and to communicate with them about it. I've been cooperating far more than I should by providing the supervisor with personal medical information of my family member when repeatedly asked.
So they had approved the PTO, and I confirmed that the state nor Aflac would be covering my leave financially, they are aware I was instructed to submit the PTO per Aflac and it was approved by the supervisor/company! And after approving the PTO, they revoked it without telling me in order to set me up with four points, giving them grounds to terminate me per policy. They know my Aflac claim will be denied any day now because I told my supervisor the situation and how I can't get an appointment for a couple of weeks, by which date the claim will have been denied. Though it wasn't a problem because with that feeling I was at least compensating and covered by PTO, and the leave was excused from the get-go.
Tl;Dr 🤷 so in summary, after giving me an excused leave of absence and approved PTO to cover it, my manager went back on it and left It all hanging on the balance of Aflac approving or denying my case, knowing it will be denied. He told me Aflac was optional and described it as financial coverage for family leave, said nothing about me having to get a disability claim or doctor documentation, and didn't tell me that my leave of absence will be managed and validated by this claim. I could have seen the doctor right away and got all the necessary documentation taken care of if I knew. What would have happened if I didn't take the initiative to start a claim with Aflac? I almost didn't bother because I wasn't worried about getting paid, then figured I might as well give it a shot so I don't burn up all my PTO. Crazy how it was vaguely mentioned as an option and now it's a necessity. And all of this is weighing on me as I'm dealing with the loss of my closest family member, dealing with severe anxiety and grieving.
On a side note, I have some serious dirt on my boss embezzling money from the company. I've kept it in my back pocket as I discovered additional information on it and investigated on my spare time. He doesn't know that I know everything, but I know that he knows I might be on to it. I doubt it's retaliation or a matter of him trying to fire me In case I keep digging, but that may always be an option.
Sorry for the super long post, this has really shut me down today and I felt the need to unload it somewhere. Can they do this? Has this ever happened to someone?