Everyone wants to believe that they’re important enough to their employer that they will do their best to accommodate us in our time of need.
I imagine that would go double for people that work for employers that claim to have religious and family values.
OP works for one of those companies, and she warned them that she was going to be taking some time off when her grandmother’s end of life arrived.
Religious workplace wouldn’t give me time off for my grandma’s death
I was doing out of school care with kids. I also knew my grandma’s health was going downhill. I informed my work in a near future I would need to take some time off and drive the 12 hours to my hometown to see my family.
I got a call a few weeks later that the time was coming and I needed to go say my goodbyes. I told my work at first they were fine.
Then when I was in my hometown my grandmother passed away.
When that happened, though, OP found she was taking it harder than she expected and she would need some more time before coming back to work with the kids.
They told her she had 3 unpaid days and that was it.
I was very close with her and I took it very hard. My work told me I get my three unpaid days off and have to come back after that.
Now keep in mind, this is a childcare company that values religion and family, blah blah blah.
I told them I was not mentally ready to come back, I didn’t want to deal with all the kids questions, and even when you try to hide your sadness, they know. They are so smart.
So she went to the doctor and asked for a note for a week; and got one for two instead.
So I went to a walk in clinic explained my situation to my doctor, who was beyond angry that she even needed to write a note for me to take time off. I told her a week should be fine.
She said I’ll write two weeks just in case.
They didn’t like it, but what could they say? Nothing.
Emailed a copy of the doctors note to my work and took the full two weeks, they were so salty after I came back.
Don’t sit there and praise your amazing values when you don’t have basic human decency.
Is Reddit surprised? Let’s find out!
You definitely don’t want to challenge your employees like this.
It’s definitely not something people will forget.
Some people do realize that needing more time is not a crime.
There are some employers out there doing it right.
The good ones realize this is not the time to mess with people.
I’m happy to hear this isn’t across the board.
But really, it shouldn’t be a thing at all.