About two years ago I was on my weekend. I woke up on my Saturday to my landlord’s ex pounding on my door to tell me that my town was burning, and that I was responsible for the house and animals (their two cats, my cat, and their 6 chickens) because they were evacuating with their kid. They told me to save the cats if possible and let the chickens run free if I had to evacuate. I was dating a wildland firefighter at the time so I was kinda scared, but mostly just stressed because he drilled preparedness into me lol. I got all of our stuff together just in case, though the fire had moved pretty far away from the house. Our area was still on “be ready to leave” evacuation notice for the entire two days because the fire was volatile and moving weirdly, and given what it did do to the areas it makes sense. I was genuinely scared for my safety.
The next day, still my weekend, a town and a half burned to the ground later; my boss asked me to open the store. I don’t drive and the buses weren’t running when I had checked last, so I said “no, I’m on evacuation notice and can’t get there because the buses aren’t running, I’m also very stressed and it’s my day off so I can’t.”
I came into work the next day to my boss being extremely cold to me in front of customers, and when we finally got a moment alone she said this; and this isn’t paraphrased, this is word-for-word because I literally can’t forget it. “I don’t know how I trusted you before. I don’t trust you. You’re an untrustworthy person and you’re not the person I thought you were.”
She made me sound like a bad person for not being willing to walk 25 minutes in the worst smoke pollution we’ve ever had, while my hometown was burning to the fucking ground, at a job that doesn’t give me health insurance. ALL of my family and friends had to evacuate and I was spending my time ensuring they knew where to go and how to find resources. I didn’t know where half of my family was for over a day, and I didn’t know if they had made it out or not. It was fucking terrifying. I spent hours walking donations from my neighbors down to local charity and relief sites.
The buses were apparently running intermittently but there was a notice on the website saying they weren’t running, and I don’t live within viewing distance of a bus stop, and I wasn’t about to endanger myself to try without health insurance to find out.
My boss verbally abused me while my friends and family lost their homes because I wasn’t willing to keep her store open on my god damn day off. My efforts to help my neighbors and townspeople meant nothing if I couldn’t peddle her bullshit wares on a day that NOBODY was considering buying things, and only considering if they would have a home tomorrow or not.
I’m genuinely angry that anyone has to put up with this. I was in danger, less so than others, but STILL in danger and was asked to sell shit to people, AND on my day off. It’s so disgusting.