Tldr;
Have job but not insurance, get hurt, need doctors note to miss work without being fired, can't get doctor's note without insurance.
Years ago I worked for Nike at an outlet store. There were 5 fulltime managers/shift managers the rest of the small army on staff was “part time”. We of course didn't get any benefits what so ever, health insurance namely.
Most of the staff had to work 2 jobs, both “part time”. These companies, while greedy af, are not stupid. They realize that the more you work the better you are at your job. Working at a corporate store at a mall is not high level work, but the efficiency of a seasonal employee compared to permanent staff is 3 or 4to1.As a result to hold a stable job you will be required to work the entire 32hours per week. 32 hours being the legal maximum to not qualify as full time. But, 32hours isn't enough so you need a second job, this job will also require you to put in 32hours. Mine was spritzing perfume on strips of paper for senior citizens two doors down at a perfume outlet. Now I'm working 64 hours a week at the same mall, 0 benefits, 0 overtime, and only getting an actual day off when neither store happen to schedule me. What I really wanted was a normal sized short stick, 40hours actually means 52, jacked co-pay at second rate hospitals, 2 sick days a year and, 4 weeks vacation a decade. You know, the standard Ben Dover. But what I, and practically everyone I knew my age, got was the two part-time jobs.
At risk of stating the obvious. The below is also in full swing.
-Rolling overtime hours from this paycheck to the next
-20 min performance reviews revealing you suck less than everyone else resulting in a $0.10 raise once a year
-Getting docked 15min pay for being 3min late, but not getting paid after you clock out at 9 but stand there for 12min while your manager looks for the keys to let you out.
-Paying for your uniform
-Working 6pm to 6am is two different shifts on two different days it's not 4 hours of overtime.
I, and my peers, took this as the way of the world. Never even heard of anyone getting a different deal. If you repeated that your boomers told you the laws were, management could cut you back to two 2hour shifts a week and it was not “retaliation” as that's all a company was required to give a part time employee.
…Begin the Evil…
Meanwhile I was an aspiring pro-skater. True to form I did something stupid that broke my foot, more or less in half. To this day the arch on that foot is 3/8″ higher than the other. The swelling on the arch was so severe that when standing barefoot neither my toes or heel touched the ground. I was a human Sketchers ShapeUp for over a week. Now that I'm older I'm of the opinion that surgery was not optional it was 100% needed. But, going to the hospital as an uninsured 19yo American was not something that crossed my mind. I do admit that Nike had nothing to do with it, I was not at work, I broke my foot all by my self. Lucky I broke my foot on an actual day off and was only scheduled at the Nike store to close the next day. I had ~24 hours to gather myself, acclimate to the pain and get in a few hours of the old “sleep of off son” before I had to report back to the mall. Having not visited the hospital to aquire a cast or crutches, I limped into the store 15min before my shift was to start and straight into the back room. My manager, who knew I skated and was pretty tough, saw me limping and winceing towards the back and followed me. I unveil my disfigured foot, and the price of 3/16″ Masonite cut to shape in the bottom of my shoe that was keeping my foot from bending, to the store manager and shift manager. I asked for a week to continue my milk and sleep recovery, unpaid of course. The store manager told me that without a doctor's note if I were to not come in two days in a row I would be fired, as a matter of company policy. The shift manager, who was nearly though with her nursing education, balked at the idea that a doctor or any medical training was needed to confirm my foot was broken. But, alas the rule are the rules so they gave me an hour off to go to ER for a doctor's note. This hour would not be counted at late for my shift because they were such good people. Luckily the ER was empty so I sat down in the chair right in front of the window took off my shoe and asked the lady how much it would cost to get a piece of paper that would confirm my foot was broken. A person in scrubs quickly comes out and says I need x-rays and likely a surgery. I explain that I don't have insurance and that this is way out of my price range and I just need the note. This is obviously not how it works, and admittance alone for an uninsured person is like $400. They bring out a wheel chair and a clipboard for my information explaining I'll be get getting an x-ray, morphine, and a cast if not a surgery. I repeat my wish to just get the note, and am told “I won't really know what's going on until I see the x-ray” B's.
So I leave, I go back to work and start my shift with no note. The store manager, like the doctor sticks to his guns. I was only ever afforded that one hour for the worst injury I have ever had. The guys who worked the back room with me wouldn't let me “climb the bins” so I was able to avoid the task that would have put me 6 feet in the air standing on two shelves 24 inches apart and jumping down every few minutes for a sales person to grab a pair of shoes out of a different bay in the sliding storage racks that held the shoes. I was still doing manual labor in the back room of a very busy stores with a broken foot. The perfume store stuck to the same “no note, no absence” but was more low key and allowed me to work behind the counter without a shoe on and unless directly dealing with a customer customer slide around in an office chair to do the rest of my tasks. My voiced frustration that without insurance a doctors note wasnt possible and that I was caught in a paradox fell on deaf ears.
This is my story about Nike being a shithole that's not covered by a different NDA. I worked for a different shoe store in a different mall for about a year after I eventually left Nike. This store also was abusive to the point of me singing an NDA there as well. From there I have not, and will not work a corporate job ever again. If I do not know the owners spouses name and their children do not recognize me you would have to pay me a ridiculous salary, of which I am not qualified for even in a world where employees were king.
I'd rather struggle for my self and get fat for someone else. The work normal people do for others is not valued, monetarily or otherwise. You can always do work that makes you value yourself. If you are not getting paid proper money at a proper job, what are you doing still working? Quit your job, start your own thing, suck at it, and continue to not get paid proper money. At least it's for you, doing what you want.