When you work part-time at multiple companies, it’s important to make sure the schedules don’t conflict.

In today’s story, one part-time employee worked for a scatterbrained boss who couldn’t seem to keep the schedule straight, and it ended up costing her a lot of money.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

Don’t threaten my part-time job if I’m doing it as a favour.

During my time in a retail store (I’ve written about that before), I started to realize I needed to look elsewhere for work.

It had become obvious that my boss was not capable of running a business, my hours were being slashed, and I was running out of groceries.

So I started work as a music teacher at a local music school.

This meant a good amount of my pay was swallowed by the school to cover renting the studio, but I was promised a certain number of hours a week, and it was enough to start off with for me to accept the position.

I ended my business at the retail shop and let this school fill in the gaps until my summer job started.

It was a very small studio with very part-time hours, and I never intended for it to be my main gig.

The studio had big problems.

It soon became clear that “administration” at this school did not exist. Everything was being run by the owner, who refused to hire any staff other than teachers.

There was no receptionist. Students would e-mail the owner and receive no response.

Teachers were not allowed to contact their students or schedule their own lessons.

We were repeatedly told to let the owner handle things for us, but our hours were consistently botched every month.

Students were called in for lessons at the wrong times. Parents were confused about when lessons were to start and end.

Scheduling was really the only big problem.

You might be wondering why I was still working there when I could see this dysfunction…

To be honest, there were a lot of teachers there in the same boat, and we all stayed for the same reason: the owner was pregnant.

We assumed the stress of having a baby while running an entire school was the issue.

Unlike my retail job, my boss here was charming, kind, and exhausted. The building was lovely.

The students were enthusiastic. It was a great environment for working, apart from constant schedule mishaps.

The owner wanted to keep control even though she was on maternity leave.

The baby was born in June. Our owner took a leave for the month, and we were all very happy for her.

However, during this time, she insisted on being in charge of our schedules, even though she was not physically in the building, responded even less to her messages, and was generally distracted.

I am a musician and my summer gigs out of town start in June, so my schedule was going to be slightly different in the last week of the month.

I let her know about this well in advance and reminded her in June.

I was assured that everything was fine. I had my schedule all written out and my students were out of school, so they could have their lessons any time that fit my schedule.

The owner completely forgot about the out of town gig.

The night before one of my gigs, at midnight, while I was out of town, I received the message that my students were called in for the next day.

I reminded my boss that I was out of town and she had received plenty of notice, reminders, and confirmations.

In fact, in the thread she was messaging me from, the previous three messages were about my schedule being confirmed.

She had forgotten to let my students know as she was obviously in no position to be running reception duties, and accidentally told their parents to arrive as usual.

I explained I could not possibly change my schedule, it was after midnight and I was out of town, I had rehearsals in the morning, I would remind the students that I was away.

(I had let them know during their lessons that I would be away and talked about preferred make-up lesson times with them!)

She canceled the out of town gig this one time.

I received a very final notice that if I did not show up to teach, I would lose my regular job, as the owner wanted to “be professional” and not send a second notice about lesson times.

I made an executive decision for myself. I cancelled my rehearsals on short notice and explained the emergency to my summer employer. They were extremely understanding.

I also let the school owner know, I would show up this one time even though they had made a scheduling error since they were threatening my job, but I would not tolerate a second error of this kind.

If I had to miss any other work, I would terminate employment immediately.

I made this extremely clear.

She was serious about only humoring the owner this one time.

I was missing a full day of pay for other work.

I was making a three hour trip to the school from out of town to accommodate their error.

I would give no second chances.

This was a massive favour.

She found another job.

After that day, I immediately began interviewing for a better teaching position elsewhere, and I continued to be very firm about the conditions of my employment.

In writing. It was all there.

I landed an excellent position at a much larger school with a solid reception desk and administration department. I was offered full-time hours, benefits, the whole package deal.

I had four days a week blocked off for them, and one day a week for the previous school for my returning students. That one day of the week was confirmed multiple times over the summer.

She was assured the schedule wouldn’t be messed up again.

All throughout August, I stayed in contact with the owner. I explained that the other four days were full and impossible for me.

I was told this was fine, I only needed to come in for one day a week anyway. My schedule would be the same as the year before, so I knew exactly what to expect.

I had new students lined up. I had a solid schedule waiting for me.

I also knew to expect errors.

The owner tried to change the schedule at the last minute.

This is r/ProRevenge, so you can probably guess errors were made.

I was told on Labour Day Monday that the owner would like to switch my work days to one of those previously mentioned days of the week where I was fully booked.

Labour Day Monday is the day before schools open here, so she was changing my start date the day before.

That’s less than 24 hours of doors opening for business.

I told her it would be the day we had confirmed multiple times over the last three months, or it would be nothing at all. I wasn’t giving second chances.

She quit the job.

She decided to call my bluff. I’m not sure why, because I wasn’t bluffing.

She asked me to come in “just this once” on the day she wanted me to work, rather than the day we agreed on, and complained that I really needed to “work together” on this.

Again, I’d found work elsewhere and she couldn’t expect me to live off of one part-time day of work a week; she knew I had other work.

I wrote back that as it was physically impossible to start work in two places at once, I would be ending my employment immediately, as discussed previously.

The owner was still asking for favors.

This is the part where she knew she’d done a bad thing.

The school was going to open tomorrow and there would be no teacher available.

Her students had already registered for classes with me. They paid tuition for this. She’d accepted it.

First, she asked me to find a substitute teacher for the week and I would begin my regular schedule that we’d agreed upon for the next week.

I wrote back that with sadness but as per my previous letter, I had already resigned and was no longer responsible for arranging substitutes or showing up to work.

After all, we had agreed in writing on the terms of my employment and schedule.

The owner ended up losing a lot of money.

She had no choice but to lose the students and refund them, the week of the school re-opening.

I’m pleased to report that this has a tangible effect on her bottom line. Her business lost over $15,000 of tuition dollars a year.

The kicker is that I had agreed on the schedule with my students before the summer began, and they registered for that day.

I was confused and asked my good friends who worked there why there was an abrupt schedule change.

It turns out, she only wanted to use the piano that was in my studio room for her own lessons.

Her power trip cost her $15k, which is more than the price of the piano.

That owner really needs to hire an assistant or a receptionist. That is a very disorganized work environment.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story…

This reader points out that she checked all the boxes.

Another reader compares the ending of this story to poker.

This person wishes her “good luck.”

Another person feels bad for the baby.

This reader praises her “kindness.”

The owner should not have been in charge of scheduling.

It’s a recipe for disaster.

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.