I am going to try to keep a long story short here.
I work in purchasing for a large national company; we went WFH in March 2019 when Covid hit, we have been at home since then, and we went back to the office 3 days a week on April 4. We are home on Wednesdays and Fridays. This job has and can be done fully remote.
My wife has been sick and in declining health for a long time, and finally we have had to make the difficult decision to do hospice (keep her comfortable until she passes).
My wife has always been adamant that she does not want to go to any kind of nursing home or facility- she wants to be at home.
I can't afford to pay someone to sit with her on “in-office” days. When we are in the office, everyone sits and work on their computers with their earpods in- there is no collaboration needed, and any questions are just emailed or instant messages.
I called my manager (an excellent guy, and would have us all permanent remote if he could) on Friday and explained the situation, and he is trying to get me an extension to work full remote until this situation is over.
We do not have any family or friends that would be able to spend 11+ hours with her 3x a week.
His only update so far is that he is working on it, but HR has already suggested FMLA, which is unpaid leave. I can't afford to stop working and have no money coming in, because even with insurance, my wife's health care is extremely expensive. I might as well just quit at that point.
IDK what to do. My 3 thoughts at this point are:
1) Quit 2) Just keep working from home, and don't go in. My hours are 7:30am-4:30pm, and I am an early-morning person, and usually start around 5am and am done the main work by noon, just monitoring emails, etc.
I am considering just starting at 5am tomorrow, and when I get the phone call asking if I am coming in today, maybe just saying I can't get there, but most of my work for the day is done.
Let them fire me, for not coming into an office, but still getting my work done? I WANT to work, but I need to be here for my wife. She's never turned her back on me, and I can't just leave her to go sit in an office when I can do my work just as effectively and still be here to help her.
Does anyone have any suggestion or has anyone been in this kind of situation before?