I have worked for a very popular coffee company for almost 7 years. I have always been a great employee overall. I have always busted my ass every shift, picked up others’ slack, and put 110% into everything I do there. I have dealt with severe understaffing, crazy busy days where I didn’t even get breaks.. and I have always been treated fairly well until recently.
I started to have a lot of physical health problems in December 2021. These rolled over into 2022, and caused me to miss some shifts here and there. This is when I started to have issues with my job. In February, I was given a verbal warning after one of my supervisors lied and said I no call/no showed (I checked the caller ID on the work phone which proved I called multiple times). Then, In March, I got covid and missed an entire week of work. I was so sick I was in the hospital, and multiple managers gave me shit for calling out even though I was hospitalized. When I came back, I was suffering from a lot of post covid symptoms like pain and numbness in my legs and arms, which led to several more call outs (can’t stand and work a busy shift for 6 hours if I can’t even walk).
I told my store manager I wished to take an LOA (leave of absence) to be treated for my health problems, so they would not continue to negatively affect my work performance. She proceeded to avoid me at work for over a month, so I was unable to get my leave processed (she needed to sign off on it). When I finally was able to track her down, she announced she would be taking a leave and leaving the company, and told me I had 3 days to submit my paperwork. On her last day, she sat down and told me she would not approve my leave because of my prior attendance issues, and asked what I planned to do. I told her if I could not get time off to take care of myself, I was putting in my notice.
This is my last week with the company, and my store has now lost about 8 workers in the span of 4-5 weeks, which is most of their employees. I have had my new store manager as well as several supervisors ask what they can do to get me to stay, all but begging me to not leave them, saying I am one of the best workers there. Funny how I was all but disposable until they realized they needed me around.