To start off, I am in borderline mental health crisis. I see two therapists a week (one specialist and one LCSW) and another trauma support mentor as needed. I need a high amount of support to stay functional, but have never let that affect my work until two weeks ago when I went into crisis. Some things in my personal life blew up two weeks ago, along with a generally hard past year, which triggered an episode for me. My work (retail that I started in May) until two weeks ago, did not know anything about my mental health. This was until it started to affect my work and I could not for the life of me keep my composure. I ended up either calling out or getting sent home with fake empathy after they witnessed me crying and having panic attacks. They asked me if I was okay, and I assured them I get professional help and have it under control to the best of my abilities.
I ended up messaging my manager earlier this week saying I could not make it in this coming Thursday and Friday, as I had necessary health appointments that I cannot miss. One was my therapy appointment, which I was unable to schedule around work hours like I usually do, and the other was a specialist for my PCOS that I was finally able to get into see. My managers response was “I need you to reschedule your appointments. As I informed you I will be out of town and we cannot have any call outs.” I was never informed of his leave, told him that, and told him I’m unable to reschedule and won’t come in next Thursday and Friday. He immediately started gaslighting me, telling me “I did indeed verbally tell everyone about me being gone,” and told me if I don’t show up next week, it will be considered job abandonment. So I responded once again saying, I was never told about your leave, if I was, I would have made sure to schedule appointments around that. I told him that when I was hired I requested Fridays off for “necessary medical appointments” and after getting continuously scheduled on Fridays, I assumed they were not willing to work around that, and I made sure to make the appointments as early as possible so I could still go to therapy while following my work schedule. I followed that up with telling him that I am quitting and would return the keys when I pick up my check on the first. If you threaten to wrongfully terminate me, I’ll quit. What the fuck else did he expect?
Later that evening I got a text from the owner of the company, apologizing for my managers behavior and asking me to reconsider. She said if I reconsidered, my scheduling needs would be accommodated. I met up with her in person and let her know that I am prioritizing my health right now because my PCOS causes chronic pain and I need to see the specialist for the sake of my comfortability. And asked for Fridays off because going to work in retail hell isn’t ideal after having to process your trauma for an hour and a half straight. I also got confirmation from her that I was never told about my manager’s vacation, she checked the schedule and saw that it was my day off on the day he announced it to everyone. He has only 4 employees, so it shouldn’t have been hard to keep track of who knew and who didn’t. I was going to get denied time off for necessary medical treatment due to his inability to communicate efficiently.
So I’m writing this while back at this job I was just almost fired from, and I fucking hate it here, but I don’t think it gets better than this. I am starting my first year of college in September, and I’m signed up for federal student employment. So I hope I get contacted about that soon so I can get the fuck out of this place.