Some background:
I slipped and fell in early 2021 on unsalted ice on the work site and tore my ACL completely. I underwent surgery in December 2021. Since my injury I have been on “Light Duty” and 100% Work from Home.
During my first six months on Light Duty I found out that I wasn't being paid for approximately 90% of my submitted work. When I point this out on multiple occasions my direct manager told me that if I felt I wasn't making enough, I should try working more hours. Or I could continue to “be lazy and choose not to work.”
After investigating, I provided proof of the missing wages, which they accepted. However, they pivoted and claimed that the missing wages were due to their system not being set up to accommodate Light Duty employees and log their hours appropriately. They then explained they would not be paying out the missing wages because they were not willing to “guess” how many hours they had missed, and unless I could provide a minute by minute log of my time, I should just chalk it up to a learning experience for all of us.
This amounted to approximately $9,000 before taxes.
I filed a suit with the state Department of Labor and was advised the soonest I can get a hearing is 2025. That's a long time to wait for half a year of missing wages, but whatever, red tape.
Even better, since during those six months the hours they WERE paying didn't meet the minimum requirement for Work Comp, they lied to their insurance provider and told them that I was receiving enough hours in order to deny me Temporary Limited Disability to supplement what little pay I was receiving.
I retained a Work Comp Lawyer, and he provided my proof, the judge suggested some alternative resolutions, however the insurance company is dragging their feet and no financial restitution has been made nearly eight months later.
Since I began Light Duty, they have sent me in for not one, but TWO “random” drug tests.
They then didn't schedule me for any hours for an entire month while they “worked the kinks out of their Light Duty” system. This resulted in me being transferred to a different department, where they then immediately tried to reduce my wages by $5. When I pointed out they could not legally reduce my wages while I was on Work Comp just for having me fill a different role, they took an additional two months to resolve it.
Now the kicker.
June 1st I got Covid, a few days after my state raised it's threat level to Red. I emailed them immediately upon testing positive, no response. Two days later my manager emails me to ask if I still have Covid, and ask me why I haven't logged any hours so far that week and if I wished to remain employed.
Then my wife got Covid. And I got pneumonia as a result of Covid. 10 days after my email to my company explaining I was ill with Covid, still testing positive, I emailed that I was feeling well enough to continue working again. They welcomed me back. The next day I received an email from my manager saying that I could not continue working without a Doctor's Note explaining my missed time, per HR. The email arrived at noon. They gave me a firm deadline of 3 PM the following day.
At this point I was done being bullied. I told him I did not feel comfortable putting medical staff and at-risk patients at further risk by being around them while I was still testing positive for Covid for what amounted to a permission slip from a Doctor for the privilege to continue working. And as there was absolutely no way I could get an appointment with my PCP in the time they had allotted, I would have to go to Urgent Care and pay a couple hundred dollars out of pocket for the copay for the note. Were they going to cover those costs?
Radio silence, zero response for four days. Then yesterday I received a terse email telling me that I had been terminated and best of luck.
Now the constant stress of that shit job and shit company is starting to subside, and I'm left with the new stress of being unemployed.
(Edit: spelling errors)