I worked fully from home for two years and as soon as I came back from maternity leave I found out my employer was making us return to office two days a week. Now it’s three days a week with absolutely no flexibility, even for appointments, and my family can’t make it work. I physically cannot come into the office at all for two months and after that I won’t be able to come in more than two days a week. I absolutely cannot afford it anymore.
I requested a temporary exception with HR and let my manager know, stating that my family needs more time to adjust and that I would need to be fully remote for two months. In the meantime he has been hounding me to let him know what my third day will be if I can’t get an approval. HR got back to me and said they need time to review all the exception requests and that it will take until the end of the year. They said that previous informal agreements with managers are approved and new requests are approved by them with manager approval. My manager emailed me two hours later and said that since HR is going to take until the end of the year and the mandate starts at the end of the month, I’m going to need to come in three days a week. A few minutes later he canceled my one on one for next week. A few minutes after that he scheduled a meeting with me for tomorrow, but his boss and HR are on the call as well.
From my understanding, HR on the call usually means you’re getting fired, right? They could just be putting me on a PIP or discussing the return to office mandate with HR present to cover their bases in case I don’t comply and they do have to fire me for it. My head is spinning honestly. I’m worried they will fire me with cause for insubordination or issues with my attendance.
Do I wait until tomorrow to find out what it’s about or should I just quit? I don’t want to have to tell future employers I’ve been fired on my applications. Can I lie about it? Will it come up on a background check? I will probably want unemployment but if they’re petty and fire me with cause will I even be able to get unemployment? Because if I won’t qualify for it anyway, I might as well send an email quitting tonight with no notice. Or do I risk letting them fire me and just wait until the meeting tomorrow morning? Even if they do give me a warning about RTO, there’s no way I can come in so I probably will just get fired soon anyway.
I’ve been miserable here, have had a target on my back since after maternity leave, have been severely underpaid and overworked, and have been wanting to quit anyway. I’ve been trying to get a job lined up first, but I have horrible luck and nothing has worked out (offers resigned, hiring freeze immediately after interviews, etc). I’ve tried to seek a therapist to try and get a medical exemption for anxiety and depression but that hasn’t gone anywhere either. At this point I kind of just want to go work at the grocery store down the street, do Uber and Instacart in my free time, and use the 40 hours a week to apply for more jobs.
I’m feeling scared, hopeless, and unsure of what to do. Any advice?
Tl;dr- I can’t comply with my company’s return to office mandate because my family can’t afford it. I put in an exemption and HR can’t respond until the end of the year. My manager scheduled a meeting with me, his boss and HR tomorrow. Am I getting fired? Should I just quit?