My sister (23F) just graduated last year with a degree in Finance from a decent school in SoCal. She had previously interned at a commercial real estate firm, and also a residential real estate broker. She finally got a job at a small commercial real estate firm in Santa Monica as an independent contractor, which I found strange, but apparently that is how it is in todays clown world. Being small, they were a bit slow in how they onboarded her, but she picked up everything rather quickly to the point that clients were asking for her specifically.
Anyways, come the holidays, she asked her boss to take a day off on Friday, and made the newbie mistake of saying it was to go skiing with some friends, not that it should matter really. Her manager accepted. The day of her PTO, a Friday, she slept in and missed a few calls from her boss. Apparently, she was supposed to be in a meeting that morning that she knew nothing of. She apologized but said its her day off and had slept in to prep for the long drive.
On Sunday, as she was driving back from the slopes, her manager calls her and tells her that she is fired. When asked why, he says its because she was late to a meeting. He also said it would be a good lesson, and that at a large corporation, they would fire you on the spot if you were late to a meeting.
She was obviously a bit bummed as this was her first job and she really did try her best. I told her it was obviously cause their business was probably going down the drain (commercial real estate? in 2023?), and told her next time, whenever you take time off, lie. Lie and lie some more. Always make it seem like its due to being sick, etc. Never tell them your taking time off to have fun. I know that sounds strange, but from my experience, it always seemed like the older generations really looked down on young people taking time off work for fun.