Hi everyone! I’ve lurked on this subreddit for a while now, but never had a reason to make a post… until now.
I’m currently a junior in college. As I continue working towards my degree, my classes are becoming more advanced and require my presence in-person. I ended up stacking all of my classes onto Tuesdays and Thursdays so that I could still work the other 5 days of the week.
For a little context: I work for a company with HUNDREDS of employees at their disposal (corporate America mmm) BUT they also have a staggeringly high turnover rate, resulting in an apparent employee “shortage” (I call BS on this considering they never bother to hire new candidates—not even those who were referred to the company by current employees)
Each month so far this semester, I have asked for Tuesdays and Thursdays off as my highest priority; that’s it. I never ask for weekends or anything else, just those 2 days a week. My schedule for September came out on the 16th of this month and what do you know, they have me scheduled for 3 Tuesdays and Thursdays.
Like many college courses, all of my classes have strict attendance policies stating you can only miss 3-4 days of class a semester before penalty. With this newly assigned schedule, I would be missing 3 days of class in September alone.
So, I reached out to multiple of my superiors. I set up meetings asking for advice or potential solutions for this dilemma, but was either completely ignored or told there was nothing that could be done. As a last resort, I reached out to the highest of the high in my company and crafted a beautiful, extremely detailed explanation of my situation and pleaded for some sort of accommodation. After all, they have been adamant about bettering our work conditions in order to retain employees, surely they can figure out SOMETHING…
Their reply?
“I’m sorry to say, but it looks like you will need to make a choice between work and school.” Of course I’m going to prioritize my education! So I sent in my 2 week notice almost immediately.
I guess I’m writing all of this because I’m just fucking baffled that this company would rather completely lose an employee than work to accommodate a very reasonable request. I mean Jesus Christ dude, it’s not like I’m asking for this time off to sit around with my thumb up my ass… I’m trying to EDUCATE MYSELF?? Am I wrong for being so blown and upset by their lack of effort to work with me?
I don’t understand how they can sit there questioning why most employees at their company leave after less than a year when this is how they treat them? And don’t even get me started on the pay…
Business owners, if you are reading this, please remember your employees are actually people with personal lives. Acknowledge and value that. Take care of your people and they will take care of you. It’s simple but so true.
If anyone has been in a similar situation, I would be interested in hearing about your experience and what got you through it because this really does suck. In the mean time, let the job hunt begin I guess.
TL;DR: My job made me choose between school or work instead of giving me the 2 days off a week that I needed for class, so I chose school.