I know I’m lucky in a lot of regards and have a lot of privilege, so want to preface this post before I get into it…
I joined a large company back in January. Flew out to their HQ in March as it seemed covid cases were safer, especially given the high vaccine rate of that area. Despite being boosted, I got covid. Who knows if it’s from being in the office or from when I went out to dinner or on the plane despite being masked except when eating/drinking. But I probably wouldn’t have gotten it if I hadn’t gone on this business trip.
Flash forward to April, I’m sleeping during the afternoon (which never happens), feeling depressed, executive functioning went to 0, etc. Figured out it was long covid.
Had to take medical leave to deal with this since I literally couldn’t stay awake to work.
My boss, without notifying me, posted my job while I’m on leave. I had a weird gut feeling and searched my company’s careers page and found my job. Then I went to my boss’s LinkedIn page, and he had posted there too, saying the team is expanding.
Without getting too into details because not wanting expose personal stuff, there is no way it’s a duplicate of my job. I report to an executive, and no one else on my team who also reports to my boss has the same role as somebody else. We are all doing very different things, and if they were to expand the team, it wouldn’t be to be the same role, it would be either a more senior or more junior role than where I’m at. The job was not labeled as temporary or contract. The only difference was the location – putting HQ instead of remote. I had saved the original job description in a google doc from when I interviewed.
Immediately decided I couldn’t trust my boss so I asked the leave of absence person to look into it. She takes a week to get back to me. The job is taken down. My boss and his wife viewed my LinkedIn profile. I was told “it’s duplicate role as the team is expanding and changing. You’ll get updates when you return.”
No remorse, no apology, no acknowledgement of how stressful that situation is. Boss still didn’t reach out to explain.
The thing, I’ve managed teams for years. If I was in my boss’s situation, I would’ve immediately gotten a consultant to cover the leave and if I had posted a job, I would’ve told the employee or given them the option to hear it. It’s clear there’s no consideration. I basically had anxiety and panic attacks for a week thinking I’m going to be fired.
Sadly I can’t quit until a year’s tenure due to financial reasons with this company. So now I’m in a game of chicken of will they fire me when I return or not? If not, I have to ride this place out until January. If so, then I need to start job hunting so I can have a job when I return from leave. What would you do?
Unfortunately right now I’m not a position to not work without pay (I imagine I’d get severance with being let go right after medical leave, but it may not be enough).