Pexels

Even when you’re expecting it, even if they’ve lived a very long life or have been slowly declining before your eyes, you never quite know how you’re going to react when a person you care about passes away. Because sure, rationality says that their pain is gone now, but in your heart you know that means that someone who was a big part of your life is not going to be a part of it any more, except for in your memories and in your heart. And that can be a difficult thing to adjust to.

That’s why all kinds of emotions come up when we’re grieving, and all those emotions – anything from sadness and depression to anger and even relief – are completely acceptable and completely human parts of the grieving process. Because even though we know logically that everyone dies in the end, actually facing up to that truth when it happens can be one of the hardest things you ever have to do.

So it was completely understandable when the grandchild in this story called in to request to not work the day after their grandpa died – and the manager they spoke to completely understood. But the next day, the worker received a phone call from a different manager with a very different stance on the matter.

Read on to find out what happened.

Time off not given to me for a dead family member. Time given off to another employee.

At the beginning of June, on a Tuesday, my grandpa died.

I called in that Tuesday morning for my shift Wednesday night. I told them my family was getting together to grieve and go through his belongings.

The manager I talked to said she would take care of it and that would be fine.

But the next morning, I got a call from the store director (main manager).

Let’s see what happened when the grieving grandchild answered the phone.

His exact words were, “Just wanted to make sure you were coming in tonight. They said you might not make it because your grandpa died or something?”

I told him I would appreciate if he could find someone else, and I would call back in a couple hours to find out.

About thirty minutes later he called me back and said I needed to be there, and there was no one else.

I was later told that two people offered to work for me, including this girl that was already there working that morning, and he told them no.

Yikes. This was made all the worse by what happened later down the line.

Fast forward to a few days ago, a guy calls in ninety minutes before his shift, and talks to the same girl working that morning shift that offered to work mine.

He asks her to take his shift for that night, saying his aunt died two days ago, and he just found out his family was having a get-together that night.

She says he needs to talk to the store director and redirects his call to him. He tells the employee “thats fine as long as she will work for you.”

As far as legal rights, I live in Missouri. I work 34-38 hours a week so that they can officially keep me part time. So I don’t think FMLA applies to me. I’ve been told to file a complaint with the corporate office, but I’m not sure that would help.

This kind of inconsistency is beyond frustrating – it also shows the employee exactly where they stand.

It would be one thing if no one had been available to cover their shift, though any good boss with an ounce of empathy would make it work, but that wasn’t the case.

Then to witness the same situation with a different outcome down the line? Heartbreaking.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.

This person thought that simply not answering the calls was the best option.

While others thought the worker could have put a foot down.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who cleverly shuts down customer arguments about closing time.

Meanwhile, this Redditor took a lesson from a (literal) senior.

The audacity of the other manager to call the bereaved grandchild to insist they come into work is astounding. Not even a statement of sympathy or anything like that – a simple “I’m sorry for your loss” would have been nice before launching into their demands. But no, because that would require a modicum of empathy, which this manager clearly doesn’t have for their staff.

Sure it might have been better if the employee had simply ignored the calls on the basis that the other manager agreed to them taking the day off, but clearly they care too much about their job than to ignore a call from a manager. But honestly, it seems like the manager has forgotten that employees are humans with feelings – and when your grandparent dies, those feelings are likely to be pretty huge. And to demand that a person works through that grief, even when other folk have offered to cover their shift, is horrendous management and shows that they’re not a nice person at all.