Imagine working retail at a company where your schedule for next week is posted at the end of the week. If you came back for your next scheduled shift and realized your schedule had changed, would you just go with it, or would you tell the manager that’s not how it’s supposed to work?

In this story, one employee is in this exact situation, and he decided to stand up to the manager.

Let’s read all about it.

Fired For Doing Things By the Book

I work in a store that seems to be well-known amongst the entire chain of stores to have very poor management.

There is one manager who refuses lunches to associates so she can sit in the back for her entire shift.

There’s another manager who will actively pull associates away from customers to staff registers when he himself is doing absolutely nothing.

He checked the schedule.

Two weeks ago, I got my schedule. I was scheduled to work every day Tuesday, and I made a note to remember this.

I brought my clothes into work on Monday afternoon, stepped into the back to clock in, and was faced with a screen reading, “unscheduled punch.”

This confused me, as I knew for sure I was working that day.

I checked the schedule and saw it said that I was off on Monday.

Maybe it was a simple mistake.

I figured I was wrong.

I asked my manager about it and he said it was strange and I prepared to go home.

Spoke to someone else on the way out who told me the managers were yelled at by corporate because the management constantly keeps associates in store for two or three or four hours after close to work on jobs they should’ve been “tasking” during store hours.

The reason the jobs weren’t done earlier is because the managers refuse to disclose the jobs (such as new shelf plans) until after closing time. As a result, more overtime than the company could afford was being paid out and the schedule was changed over the weekend.

Next time, he was going to make sure he had proof.

I don’t work weekends and nobody bothered to call and tell me my schedule had changed. Furthermore, upon asking about this, my manager lied to me.

I was not happy, but I worked the schedule I was given and got to spend a night with my wife on Monday.

On Friday I made a note to print out the schedule before I left, because as previously stated, I don’t work weekends.

It reads that I work Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. I was so excited that my wife even took Thursday off so we could do things together.

Here’s how the schedule works at this company…

If it’s not the same in every retail establishment, I should make a point to say that our schedules are not distributed on paper. They are in a computer system which you can view and print on your own.

It’s company policy that the schedule in this system is supposed to be the schedule. I’ve worked in other stores in the same chain and they all worked this way.

Anyway, I come into work on Monday and find a printed-out version of the schedule laying on the break room table. It reads, “revised as of 2/12/13.”

He wasn’t going to just accept this change. He was going to stand up for himself.

It states I now work Thursday as well.

I’m furious.

I go to my store manager and say, calmly, that I got my schedule from the system on Friday and it said I worked Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The schedule was changed and nobody bothered to tell me for the second time. I was not going to work Thursday. I’d made plans and I can’t back out of them.

If I need to tell them two weeks in advance that I can’t work a specific day they can have the common courtesy to have a schedule finalized before there is one day left in the previous week. They could AT LEAST call the associates affected to let them know when they work.

At least the manager admitted OP was right.

He looks me in the eye and tells me I’m on thin ice. That I’m the only associate making a stink about it and if I don’t wanna work on Thursday that he can figure it out for himself.

“I’m not going to cross this line with you, AlbusAlfred, because technically you’re right, but the way we do it here is if the schedule isn’t printed out and laying on the break room table, it’s not the official schedule.”

He proceeded to threaten to fire me or cut back my hours.

I think he needs to find a different job where the schedule doesn’t keep changing at the last minute.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Here’s a vote for finding another job.

Another person suggests going to the district manager.

This is another very good suggestion.

Another person urges OP not to let this go.

Bad managers need to be called out when they’re doing something illegal.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.