I can't believe I'm posting this, but here it goes.
In an extremely stressful situation at a Fortune 100 company in a techie role from workplace bullying from my manager and his manager. Long story, but its politics involved to demean an employee and push them out. Lot of passive aggressiveness. I've even brought in HR as a desperate attempt and have some recordings from team meetings, but I don't think it'll lead anywhere. I know their role is to protect the company over all else.
I don't want to quit. I would love to hop teams within the company, but there's a hiring freeze and a friendly hiring manager can't help me right now. I'm seeing a therapist and hope to be able to file for short term disability to buy myself some time for reqs to open up. Have sent my resume to some other spots as a back up, but it'll take a while for a response.
If I just stop showing up to work and force them to fire me, am I guaranteed the ability to file for unemployment? Or is it not guaranteed since employer can say “this guy just flat out did not show up to his job”? I do worry about prospective employers doing a background check and my current employer may be telling them that I would be “not eligible for rehire”, but it's a risk I'm willing to take.