This month last year, I was working at a huge distribution center for a national company. 12 hour shifts using forklifts to unload freight, mandatory overtime days, by the end of the shift I'd feel like I was going to fall right out of the forklift (they didn't have seats). I once told a manager that and he said he'd “never thought about” how dangerous it was having several hundred physically and mentally exhausted people driving forklifts around each other. I told him it was probably why we had multiple OSHA reported injuries every month. It wasn't unusual for someone to get an arm or leg crushed.
Anyway, this company has a very strict attendance policy. You have 10 strikes. You get a strike if you clock in one minute late at the start of your day or from your lunchbreak. You get a strike if you need to leave early. You get a strike if you call out. You get a strike if you're reprimanded. I worked 5am shifts and I lived over 30 minutes away from the facility – unfortunately I'm just not good with time management (ADHD) and I was often a minute or two late. Nothing infuriated me more than swiping in for a full 12 hour shift but being marked up for it because it was 5:02am.
I was determined to get there on time after racking up strikes – I was doing good until one day I had a flat tire on my way to work. Pulled over, fixed the tire, made it to work a few minutes late and immediately went to my direct supervisor to see if they would not write me up. I still got a strike. They said the point of their system is “the excuse doesn't matter.” Well personally I think there's a big freaking difference between being late because of a reason outside of your control and being late because you went to grab Starbucks and took your sweet time, but whatever.
A few months into this position I began having a hard time with my health. I was a fit, healthy person in my early twenties and this concerned me. I called out a few times, and knew I was at my last strike. I asked if I could unload trailers by hand because I was dizzy and nauseated and concerned about driving a forklift and they said no. Then one morning I woke up in severe pain and couldn't move. My phone was in the other room, so I couldn't even call out. Not that I could even speak. I missed the start of my shift which made me a “no call no show” which is a huge no-no for their company (zero tolerance if you didn't call BEFORE the start of your shift).
Hours later, when I could finally get to my phone, I called my husband to come home and take me to the ER. I called out from the ER waiting room. We spent the whole day there. It's a long story but I eventually was diagnosed with a couple of chronic illnesses following that ER trip. My supervisor called me later that day to inform me I was being terminated. I was absolutely baffled. They wouldn't even make an exception to their strike rule when I was immobilized in the hospital. Fortunately she hated the company too and told me if I quit before she did the termination paperwork I would technically leave before being fired, so we did it that way. I never went back. I hear she was fired some months later for making an employee do something incorrectly and he got his hand crushed.
Today I am technically disabled because of my illnesses. It never fails to astonish me that companies can have the kinds of policies they do in the USA. Fired because I went to the ER. Absolutely insane.