So, my grandmother died in late summer. My mom -who had been exclusively taking care of grams on her deathbead for years- planned months ahead that she wanted to move outta that house and state. I told her I would take off work and help her through that process. I requested PTO like 2 months in advance and it was denied. The wording of the email was ‘you don’t have enough PTO hours to cover the two weeks requested.’ My understanding was, ok, I’m just not gonna get paid for that time off. Sucks, but I’m not gonna not help my mom.
Fast forward two months, my manager and everyone in the office knows my story and I’ll be out for two weeks. I fly halfway across the country, pack up my mom, her stuff, and her cat, drive 12 hours straight and get her set up in her new place. I move and assemble furniture, do paperwork, set up technology, etc. A WEEK into this my regional manager calls, “I just found out you haven’t been at work for a week…”.
Turns out he and I have different understandings of what denied PTO means. ‘I won’t get paid for my time off’ VS ‘You don’t get to take time off’. I ask him how we can clear up this misunderstanding, because I’d like to (need to, financially) get back to work when I’m back in the state. A few days later, I got an email saying that I was fired for not attending an HR meeting. What meeting? The one they scheduled at 1:30pm to take place at 3pm that same day. Since I’m busy with moms, I’m not checking my email and I don’t find out about this meeting till 11pm. Looted and booted.
I’m pretty conflicted because this job was not what I wanna be doing with my life, but it does pay the bills and have fringe bennies. Whatever, it’s too late to fight it and fuck ‘em anyway. I come in late to the office the trailing Friday to turn in my badge and get the stuff from my desk. I find out that while I was gone a sizable chunk of the company was laid off and my office has to deal with an avalanche of abandoned WFH computers and extra work. Also, one of the computers was filled with cockroach eggs and the office is infested with them now. What a shame. Bye!
Thanks for reading! I know it’s not as dramatic as some people’s experiences, but I needed to rant.
Solidarity.