For context, this was 2 years ago and 2 jobs ago in October 2020 (height of the pandemic). I have Crohn's disease and am on biologics that make me more susceptible to infections and was at the time also living with someone with MS and another with cervical cancer in remission, so needless to say I was pretty paranoid about getting covid.
This job was a customer service job for a polymer flooring distributor in palm desert. My job mainly consisted of answering phones and helping out contractors check out their materials. Fast forward two months after starting my job, my coworker comes in visibly sick and was told to continue to work for the day. After finding out about this I asked if I was able to take 2 days off while waiting for my covid test bc I started to experience cold-like symptoms (Wednesday-Friday before we had rapid tests). I explained my home situation and that I wanted to protect the people living with me and they agreed to allow me to take time off until I got my negative covid test(mind you 3 other of my coworkers were able to take time off as well but they got their tests back a day earlier than mine). Saturday rolls around and I text my manager my negative results (turns out there was just a cold going around our company) and said I am good to come back on Monday! Sunday I got a call from my manager saying that I am fired and that I could pick up my paycheck the following day.
I thought about pursuing legal action but I was 19 and didn't want to go through the hassle on top of my dumbass not getting anything in writing.
Ultimately it was the best thing to happen to me because it pushed me to drop out of college and go to a coding BootCamp and turned my $16 / hr with shitty management into $93k doing what I love at 21. But fuck those guys lol.
EDIT: I COMPLETELY FORGOT THE ACTUAL QUOTE THEY SAID WAS
“We cant risk something like this happening again and we are doing this for your own safety”