This isn't too serious, just a bit of a rant about how employers can completely change out of the blue one day.
I work part time at a clinic as a receptionist. My main passions are content writing and journalism which has been drying up lately so I've switched to professional computerized note taking at universities starting in Sept.
Today my boss (the wife in a husband / wife duo) at the clinic called asking if there was any way I can work tues/wed/thurs and not mon/tues/thurs which I do now. We currently need wednesday and the weekend covered as someone part time just left – but the new candidate she “really wants” can't do wednesday.
AKA she knows some rich person in the neighbourhood with a 19 year old kid who wants a part time job without going through the job hunting struggle. She always does this instead of posting a job ad (I got the job via an ad years ago when we had a semblance of work structure in place) and we get a bunch of entitled teens with rich parents doing a poor job because they don't have to worry about getting fired since the boss knows mommy. We have a lot of turnover with this too. Anyway, since this person can't do the actual shift we fucking need, they're trying to mess with my schedule instead of looking elsewhere for someone with better availability. I'm not in their friend / rich neighbourhood circle.
I told her it's unlikely I can change since I just took on this new role at the university and signed up for a bunch of wednesday hours.
She got huffy and said many things along the lines of “well I'm trying to make something work with her a new candidate and she can't do wednesdays so we'll have to see what happens.” She was acting like the world was coming to an end (fucking post an ad!) because she might have to actually do a small amount of work looking for someone else. They're essentially saying it might not be up to me and they are considering changing the schedule anyway.
This kind of bothered me for the whole day so I asked to speak with my other boss during my shift. I told him his wife made me feel a little pressured into accommodating and that I've been with them for 7 years and it's always been a pretty obvious set up where everyone has a part time schedule and most people don't have much flexibility. He said it might all be changing soon for the needs of the business. I said it would be very easy to post a job ad for the weekends and wednesday instead of trying to get me to move my day around and lose money from another job and that I didn't understand why their accommodation was focused on this new person who hasn't worked a day yet. He said that's not “up to me.”
I did kind of hint that the convo was reeking a little of constructive dismissal (since I cannot work wednesday so putting me on there isn't something I can agree with). Those definitely weren't my exact words, I was nicer. I regret this because I don't want it to get tense and weird but I felt very confused at his attitude and hers earlier in the day. He immediately backtracked then and said no no don't worry.
I get another call at the end of my shift from his wife. She starts by randomly being angry at me for dropping my wednesday shift over a year ago. (I used to work 4 days but barely made living wage and secured another full time from home journalism position while keeping 3 days – which I'm almost certain I communicated and was ignored – and gave the shift to a new girl they had working last summer. This girl has now left and my boss was MAD AT ME that I gave her wednesday OVER A YEAR AGO (wednesday worked better for her schedule too). She said that they've always been accommodating for me that they didn't think it would be so weird to accommodate them this time.
The convo then shifted towards her being nice and apologetic again after I explained how bizarre it is to be upset about that when it's been a very long time without me working that shift. But I'm feeling very angry at them for how they think my availability and other jobs are somehow an insult to them. I'm feeling bad about how they threatened the structure of the schedule and seemingly planned to go against how they've always been.
I know it's their right to do whatever they want within reason, but hinting that I might go down to two days or zero days by including an off limits day to my schedule felt immoral.
I'm someone who doesn't like to watch greedy employers act like irrational children so I'm just venting a little I guess. I'm lucky I have other skills and outlets going for me – fuck them.