When you have a job, it is important to be there to work, but if your doctor says you are too sick, then you need the days off, and your boss should be understanding.

What would you do if your doctor said you needed three days off to recover, but when you returned, your boss said that your attendance was unacceptable and that he was going to fire you in one week?

That is what happened to the guy in this story, so rather than working for the week, he walked off the job immediately, leaving the team very short-staffed. This alerted other members of management to his boss’s bad practices, but of course he didn’t get fired.

I certainly don’t blame this guy for leaving when he knew he was getting fired anyway. There is no reason to put in the work at that point. Read through the full story below and see if you agree.

Next week, I’m going to fire you

Worked for a bad airline company. Let’s just make up a name… United Blairlines.

The pay might be based on the cost of living in different areas or other factors.

At this company they started a smaller company that could hire and train people to run the planes, but pay them way less at certain airports.

Where my colleagues at other airports were making over $20/hr, I was getting paid $10.25 for the same- and sometimes more- work.

Free flights are an amazing benefit.

It honestly would scare you to know how little the people who are the ones that make sure your plane takes off safely are paid.

All of us had two to three jobs to be able to pay rent, and we were all in the job for the benefits- free flights to anywhere in the country- on standby.

Stomach pain can be debilitating.

Anyway I had a boss, we’ll call him Jim. I could tell many stories on how terrible of a boss he was, but this one has actual malicious compliance.

I had to go to the hospital from the airport because of intense pain in my stomach. It turns out that because of stress caused by that job, my intestines decided to stop functioning.

He is welcomed back with an extra busy day.

Anyway I spend the day in the hospital and then they gave me a note saying that I didn’t have to work the next two days.

I told Jim’s boss (since I hated talking to Jim). When I went back into work three days later. We had five people total to load all luggage, load the water, and push out five planes in a little over an hour.

The hospital said he needed the time off to recover.

Already an incredible amount of work for so few people. We had our morning work meeting to discuss how bad it was going to be, then Jim asked me into his office. “Your attendance is unacceptable.” He said.

Dumbfounded, I asked what he meant. “You’ve been late a couple of times, and now missing the past three days…”

If he actually said he doesn’t care about policy, he could get in real trouble, I bet.

I said “Jim, I have the note from the hospital. According to work policy, that shouldn’t affect my attendance.”

“I don’t care what work policy says. I’m going to fire you.” Again I cited work policy since we were “protected” by a union. I said “Jim you have to give me an attendance warning before you’re allowed to fire me for attendance. This is the first time I’m hearing about attendance, so you can’t fire me right now.”

Honestly, who can blame him?

Jim said “it doesn’t matter, I’m going to give you a warning right now, and when I get back from vacation next week, you’re going to be fired, now go back to work, my decision is final.”

So, I told my coworkers what happened. Then I decided alright well if next week he’s firing me, I’ll just leave now. Even though their day was about to be crazy since now four people were working five planes, they all said screw this place, get out of here!

It is hard to believe Jim was surprised.

So I left and went to get breakfast (this all happened at 4am.)

As I’m enjoying my meal, Jim calls me. I happily ignore. He calls three more times and then texts me, asking where I was.

Leaving immediately helped to shine a light on Jim’s poor management.

I told him “you fired me, why would I keep working for you?” No response. I try to soak in the sight of Jim running between planes like a chicken with his head cut off.

I don’t imagine any plane took off on time that morning. I get a call from HR, and the union rep, and the General manager, who is Jim’s boss. They all said Jim was wrong and asked me if I could come back to work it out.

I think he made the right decision.

But quitting felt so good, and I felt such weight lifted off my shoulders thinking about not working there anymore, so I never went back.

Some more info. Although this isn’t so satisfying, it’s more a testament of United Blairlines complete lack of ethics.

This guy needs to be fired.

Jim got in really big trouble when he had a guy who had a shoulder injury and had a note and told Jim several times he couldn’t do super heavy labor.

Jim sent him to the bag room by himself anyway. Imagine having to lift 300-700 50-70 pound bags over your head per hour all while running between bag carts and the belt.

That guy should sue.

Needless to say the guy tore his shoulder and had to get surgery on it. They still didn’t fire Jim.

Instead they “promoted” him to manage the workers who did ticketing and no manual labor. As far as I know, Jim still works for United. My coworker still cannot move the way he used to two years later.

It is unbelievable what some managers will do to their employees, and even worse that companies let it happen.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this awful story.

I hope he is working in a much better place today.

Here is someone else who worked for the same airline. He also thinks it is awful.

He should have at least given this a try.

LOL. Perfect.

The union should have done more in this case.

His boss should know that healthy employees are going to be more reliable and work harder, but apparently he doesn’t care. It seems like management positions sometimes attract the type of people who are the worst at managing.

It is unfortunate what this guy went through, but I assume that it would be easy for him to get a better job that pays more.