I saw a post about someone's boss telling them work was more important than their kid, and it reminded me of a conversation I had in my last month of employment at my old job.
Quick background:
Back in the fall our parent company decided to close our facility. Final shutdown was to be completed by spring. Come February there was maybe 30 people left from 200. I was the only sanitation specialist left on site by then (boss got covid and had some nasty complications that kept him working from home) and we had two months at most till we closed for good.
So I'm at work doing my job when I'm suddenly told by management that I need to deep clean two of our machines to ship internationally, and that it needs to be done today.
Now I can get one machine to in-house clean in about 3-4 hours solo. But this machine processes the devil's lettuce, Snoop Dogg's favourite plant, so nothing less than completely immaculate is gonna get this thing past the border and even that is questionable. And I've got two of these to clean.
So I told them I needed at least a week or it wasn't gonna happen, and they didn't like that. Suddenly I've got the general manager (GM) demanding to know why I couldn't get it done that day.
Me: it's gonna take me at least 15-20 hours to rip these things apart and get them even halfway clean enough to ship, and that's going at max speed. I've got classes during the day, so I'm only here for about 4 hours a day. I need at least a week to get this done, possibly even two.
GM: what do you mean you're only here for 4 hours? We hired you for full time, and I expect you to fulfill that.
Me: That was four years ago, before we started shutting down, and before I started school. I told my boss about this months ago, and he had no issues with it.
GM: Well why wasn't I told? I never would okayed that!
Me: I dunno, you'll have to ask my boss that. He's the one who approved my schedule. Anything past that is out of my hands.
GM: Well we need you here eight hours a day. I think you should really think about where your priorities should be.
Me: Between the place that's gonna lay me off in the next month, and the place that's gonna get me a better paying job after you lay me off, I'm gonna have to go with the one that's gonna pay my bills long-term. I arranged my classes to fit my schedule from the last four years. I would still be working full-time, but you changed everyone to day shift with less than a week notice.
The GM just kind of deflated after that. He wouldn't make eye contact, told me he'd find me some helpers and that whatever we could get done today would be more than enough. It was like it had never occurred to him that I wouldn't put work first, and he couldn't handle it.
A week after that I got my notice, so I finished my last couple weeks by doing basically no work at all. The GM knew, but he didn't say a single word to me about it. It was probably the best way I could have finished off working there.