I feel like I’m trying to be accomodating enough to my employers. Last time I had covid with high fever (beginning of this year), I only took half a day leave to recover and immediately got back to work the next day. That was all the sick leave I took 7 months working at my job.
Just yesterday, I suddenly got a flu from my boyfriend. My nose was severely blocked, and I felt really weak. I thought about not coming to work, but I went anyways. However, when I got to work, I couldn’t concentrate as I felt seriously weak. So, I tried to ask my team lead for a half day leave again. For some reason, she asked me to have a meeting with her and she said ‘if you still manage to work, i recommend completing the day’s task’. She continued to say ‘i don’t want you to take half a day leave like this, it’s not a good look to your teammates. You’d influence others to do the same’.
I immediately got very and visibly upset and told her I don’t understand why I can’t take the leave. I asked her whether do I have to look like I’m actually dying for her to approve my leave? After she saw me upset, she said ‘i mean you can go for today, but I guess use it for future reference’.
Then all of the sudden, she was talking about my upcoming performance review. She asked me to write a report of what I’ve achieved when belittling me the whole time. she told me that I don’t meet her expectation and that my work is rough, and I well know that I wouldn’t get a raise anytime soon.
I wanted to defend myself because I have been helping out my claims officer as well as doing admin and customer service – all of which are outside of my role. Alas, I couldn’t get any words out and proceeded to leave the room with disappointment.
My big boss then saw me crying and then told me that I’m using sickness as an excuse and he pointed my emotional side and said that I’m always crying (mind you, I’ve cried twice because of this incident and another incident where a customer was being verbally abusive to me.)
I want to change my job so bad. I don’t think I’m “calm” enough to work in an office job.