Most restaurant managers understand that visibly sick employees probably shouldn’t be handling food or interacting with customers all day. Unfortunately, the fast food worker in this story says his general manager seemed more interested in asserting authority than using common sense.

At 17 years old, the employee was working a drive-through shift directly next to a tree that triggered his severe seasonal allergies. After spending the morning with an increasingly runny nose, he repeatedly asked his manager to either move him to another station, let him buy allergy medicine, or simply send him home. Each request was denied.

So the teenager decided to stop arguing and let the situation play out naturally.

Knowing the franchise owner would eventually stop by the restaurant that day, the employee continued working through boxes of tissues while sounding and looking progressively worse. When the owner finally arrived and saw the condition the teenager had been forced to work in, the manager suddenly had some very uncomfortable explaining to do.

You won’t let me leave when I’m obviously sick? Let’s see what YOUR boss has to say.

Jack was brought in to “Fix the restaurant”, and loved exercising his power as GM.

Ugh, why are people like this? Surely they know that everyone hates it.

Classic power tripping boss who hates actually putting in the work.

Anyway, a bit of context about me. At the time of this story, I was 17, working at this restaurant after school to save for college.

Seasonal allergies can be debilitating.

I also get horrendous seasonal allergies, to the point I have three bottles of industrial-strength antihistamines placed strategically so I’m never far from my medicine.

They tend to flare up without warning, so I can’t just take one in the morning.

Ok, let’s see what happened.

Anyway, that’s besides the point, since at the time of the story, I didn’t take anything for my allergies. They were never severe enough to bother, and I was a broke high school student. This story would change that.

Right, on to the story.

This tree is going to cause him some problems.

I was working the drive-through one fine fall morning, right across from a palo verde tree. Anyone who has a palo verde tree near them, you know just how bad the pollen from those things gets in the fall.

As you can imagine, after about an hour, my nose was already running something fierce. I saw where this was headed, and after blowing my nose, I went and found Jack to figure something out.

Customers definitely don’t want that around their food.

Having a runny nose in food service is a bad idea, so surely, he’d be willing to work with me, right?

Nope. I’ve once again overestimated Jack.

Why wouldn’t he move him?

I started by asking if I could simply move to another station to get away from the offending tree. “No, we’ve got a full staff today and I’m not willing to move you around.”

Alright, then can I leave for just long enough to run to a corner store and pick up some over-the-counter antihistamines?

Well, this is a stupid policy.

“No, it’s company policy not to let employees leave and come back for the same shift.” (This one was completely false, by the way. People left all the time when they had a long break and wanted peace and quiet to eat.)

By this point, I was getting confused. I was quite obviously suffering from a runny nose, even while talking to Jack, so I thought even he wouldn’t be dumb enough to not throw me a bone.

What a stupid decision.

I asked if I could go home then, since I can’t do anything else to alleviate my symptoms. Nope, I needed to stick around, dripping snot all over the counter while I talk to customers.

Eventually, I realized he wasn’t going to give. He wanted me to sit there and smile, in spite of my visible symptoms? Fine. Cue malicious compliance.

Knowing the routines of management can certainly come in handy.

Now, something I failed to mention earlier was that I was friendly with the franchise owner, Sam, who was the only person there who outranked Jack.

I also knew that part of Sam’s weekly routine was to stop by this restaurant to catch up on paperwork on that day of the week, during my shift.

Jack is about to learn an important lesson.

This was information Jack had as well, but I suppose he didn’t consider that Sam could possibly disagree with his handling of the situation.

So, I waited. I snagged a box of tissues from the staff bathroom, set myself up at my station, and worked as best I could.

Wow, he must be absolutely miserable.

I made my way through that box, then a second, and half of a third before Sam got there about an hour before my shift was scheduled to end.

(The tissues were provided by one of the shift leads, who I paid back. I felt bad using so many, since Jack didn’t pay for them.)

I can’t believe these customers didn’t file complaints.

My throat was sore from the mucus running down it, and my voice was hoarse from pushing through it. I’m sure the customers must’ve thought I was coming down with the plague or something.

Finally, Sam arrives. I wait patiently for him to make his rounds, checking in on all the staff, seeing how we’re doing and making small talk with the ones who weren’t busy.

Let’s see what Sam has to say.

Finally, he walks over to the drive-through, and immediately notices my condition.

“OP, are you feeling okay? You don’t look well,” he says.

He is just being honest about the situation.

I responded, “I’m hanging in there. My allergies are acting up, no big deal.”

Sam frowns. “You sure? This looks like more than allergies.”

“Oh, definitely. It’s that palo verde tree causing it. I get like this every year.”

Look who just stumbled onto this little fact.

He looks confused now. “Why didn’t you move to a different station, or take something for it? You can’t work with food like this!”

Gotcha. “I asked Jack, he said I couldn’t do either, and refused to send me home. I’ve just been trying to tough it out.”

Sam is not happy. Not one bit.

Boom. Sam’s face contorted for a moment, before straightening out into a look of grim determination. “Come with me,” he says, “I’ll grab someone to cover your station while we go talk to Jack.”

Sam has me hand my headset to one of the aforementioned non-busy coworkers (guess it wasn’t that hard after all), then leads me to the back office where Jack is doing whatever it is he does.

How long will it take before Jack realizes his mistake?

Jack greets Sam, then notices me standing there and frowns.

“What are you doing back here? You need to stay at our station,” Jack admonises.

Sam gets right to the point.

Before I can respond, Sam cuts in with a stern “I had someone cover him. Why’d you keep him on the drive-through when the tree was making his allergies act up like this?”

Jack started in with the same excuses he gave me, but Sam cut him off. “We’re not even that busy. You could’ve easily moved him, or sent him home.”

This is how a boss should act.

One again, Jack tried to justify his decision. “Well, I asked the other employees, and none of them wanted to swap-”

At this, Sam turned to me. “I’m sending you home. You’re in no state to finish your shift. I’m sorry you even had to stay this long.”

I would love to be a fly on the wall in that office.

I thanked him, and turned to leave. Unfortunately, Sam closed the office door, so I didn’t get to eavesdrop on the ensuing conversation.

I clocked out, and immediately booked it to the corner store and slammed down some medicine to stop the runny nose.

Wow, he really got sick from this.

Long story short, when I proceeded to develop a lingering cough that stuck around for a significantly long time, I went to UrgentCare to get checked out. As it turns out, a lot of that mucus I inhaled ended up in my lungs, and I had pneumonia.

Neat! So, after ending up on a doctor-prescribed day of rest, a dose of steroids, and a bottle of horse pills I took for a week, I was cured. To this day, I carry antihistamines with me so it never gets that far again.

Sam must be good at some other parts of his job since he wasn’t fired.

As for Jack? Well, nothing happened to him as far as I could tell. That situation did get an honorable mention at the next staff meeting, though.

Sam mentioned that employees should not be coming to work sick, and that any employees who develop symptoms while on the clock should be sent home. Go figure.

Wow, that job really worked out well for Sam. It is good that this person moved on to greener pastures.

Sadly, the well was poisoned for me after that, and I quickly found a new job where I was much happier.

Jack’s still working there to this day, though from what I hear, he’s getting ready to quit so he can move to another country to be with his girlfriend. My heart goes out to that poor woman.

For the most part, being a manager isn’t a terribly difficult job. Unfortunately, so many people in this role just use it as an opportunity to lord their power over the employees. Not only is this mean, but it also results in less productivity and more problems.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a betting shop employee who is asked the dreaded question “don’t you know who I am?”

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about this situation.

Now this would have been brilliant.

Allergy attacks really can be debilitating.

Ok, very funny.

Here is someone who makes a good point.

This commenter recommends getting allergy shots.

A manager at a restaurant should know that sick employees should never interact with customers. In this case, it seems obvious that he would rather exert his power than do what is in the best interests of the company.

While things worked out in the end for the worker, the manager didn’t seem to have any consequences. He should have been fired, or at least written up, on the spot. Sadly, this is the way things go far too often.