Hey everyone! So I’m in my 30s and have been back in school since last summer to finally move forward with a career instead of bouncing around shitty jobs. Upon being hired at my current job as an auxiliary worker, they fully knew I was in school. My old manager, who hired me, sat me down to talk availability and I told him I need one day off at the very least to do school work and catch up on general life. He was cool about it and also had been very accommodating to any sudden schedule changes that had come up due to school.
Now we have a new manager. My first issue with him was when he was scheduling me more than before. So I emailed him and was essentially like “hey just so you know, this availability was discussed beforehand, so I do need at least one day off”. He came up to me my next shift and said “he’d see what he could do” and that “everyone wants a work/life balance but he’s also trying to run such a busy store etc”. That rubbed me the wrong way, and he’s done and said somethings to others that have them side-eyeing him as well.
Now my current issue…. I got chosen for this pretty big deal portfolio builder for school (the teachers choose who gets to participate so just because you sign up doesn’t mean you get in) and we had a meeting about it last Wednesday. During this meeting I found out that we have a mandatory meeting on the Friday before the event. (The event is Sunday March 6th, so that means this Friday, the 4th). The work schedule comes out on Wednesdays so I wasn’t even out of the building before I emailed him “hey, I JUST found out about this, it’s mandatory for my participation in my school thing, I won’t be available to work this day” That was about 7pm. He emailed me back at 6:30 the next morning to tell me “unfortunately the schedule needs to be posted by 5pm on Wednesday, so you are scheduled for a shift”. This guy has absolutely posted the schedule a whole day late before, multiple times. I didn’t reply yet but he sent me another email today about how he’s scheduled me for something with some hire ups (long story, there’s an investigation for a separate issue and I submitted a statement) on Friday, the day I said I would not be available due to this mandatory meeting for school.
Am I out of it here? Any advice on how to handle this? I’m not risking something that will be HUGE for my portfolio and could be amazing for my career for this retail BS… I’ve paid to go to school for a reason. But maybe I’m just a little salty? TIA!