Her Supervisor Vanished and Left Her with 8 Missed Flights—Until HR Called Her In and She Threatened Legal Action
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Sometimes, doing your job a favor can come back to bite you.
One college student found that out after agreeing to cover an overnight shift for her manager even though she had an exam the next morning.
The only reason she ever agreed was that he told her she could leave at 6am sharp to make it where she needed to go.
Unfortunately though, when morning came, her supervisor was nowhere to be found, so she ended up handling a huge line of passengers by herself.
In fact, she even stayed an extra 30 minutes before leaving for her exam. But instead of thanking her, management later blamed her when eight passengers missed their flights.
Read on to see what happened when they confronted her about it.
AITA for leaving my job and snapping at my managers and telling them I’ll drag them to court?
I (20F) work part-time in aviation. It’s usually once or twice a month, while studying law full-time.
My manager begged me to work a night shift because they were short-staffed.
I initially declined since I had an exam the next morning, but he kept asking. Eventually, I agreed only under the condition that I could leave at 6 AM sharp to make it to my exam. He promised that was fine and scheduled me that way.
Unfortunately, she was working with the wrong person that night.
Here’s the issue: my supervisor that night was Anna (33F), an ex-friend I cut off for being toxic and unreliable. I respect her position, but she is someone who gave me crap for not making time for her on the days she was off, even when I had exams.
In her eyes, I had a lot of time because I am just a student, whilst she works full-time. She is also a supervisor who will just vanish and hang out somewhere with friends or be on her phone.
Sure enough, that night, I was alone at check-in. The line was massive, and Anna was nowhere to be found.
With plenty of time still left, she reminded her manager about the time.
I called my manager at 4:45 AM to remind him that I was leaving at 6 AM, and I wanted no issues because between 5–7 AM, there is no manager. He said yes, no problem.
By 5:30, it was chaos. I called Anna 8 times, no answer. No manager, no ticketing, no coordination staff, just me and a massive line of passengers.
At 6:00, I was supposed to leave. I stayed another 30 minutes because the line was still long.
Finally, at 6:30, I told the passengers in line that someone was taking over. By this point, they were furious and angry, as they had been in line for hours. I clocked out and rushed to my exam, which I barely made.
Then, she saw all the messages.
On the way, I emailed HR explaining the situation to protect myself.
After my exam, I had several missed calls from duty managers telling me to come in. I went, exhausted, running on zero sleep, and found three managers waiting.
They said 8 passengers missed their flights because of me. I explained what happened, but they just repeated, “That’s no excuse.”
That’s when I snapped. I said, “This was the deal. I stayed 30 minutes longer and almost missed my exam. You broke your word, not me. This is how you show gratitude? I’m studying so I don’t end up stuck here with ungrateful rats like you. You wouldn’t tell your kid to miss an exam, would you?”
Apparently, no one had spoken to Anna.
I also asked if they had spoken to Anna. They hadn’t.
I told them, “You’re blaming the one person who actually worked while your supervisor vanished. I called Anna 8 times, and she didn’t pick up. Where was she? It’s easy to blame someone who you don’t have to look in the eye every day, but I’m really the wrong one. I have done far too much for you. Get your act straight and start doing your job, ’cause right now, you suck at it.”
They called me rude and said they’d report me to HR, and I should be ready to get fired. I told them I’d already emailed HR.
Here’s what makes her worry just a little.
So here is why I might be a bit rude, because I said, “The second you called me during my exam and called me back into the office to give me bull about leaving after working longer than agreed, while I’m still running on 0 hours of sleep, and you’re not even looking for the actual responsible person, Anna, to ask her why she wasn’t in position and left me alone the whole night to check in everyone, I stopped being nice. Sorry.”
I later added, “I’m not trying to be a ***** here, and it’s not like I need this **** of a job. I was coming here ’cause it was fun to do, but try to fire me for this. We’ll see each other in a courtroom, and I’ll make it a story and write my end thesis about it.”
HR later reached out for a meeting the same day. I told them no, I needed to rest and study, and that we could schedule it for next week. They weren’t happy, but I refused to budge.
My friend says I went too far and should’ve stayed polite. But I honestly think I had every right to defend myself after being left alone all night.
AITA?
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Yikes! That whole company sounds like a nightmare.
Let’s see if the people over at Reddit would’ve handled it the same way.
This person writes it all off as stress.
Hopefully, she saw this advice.
According to this reader, the company knows they messed up.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who found a way around his company’s denial of company time to study for his Commercial Driver’s License.
This person may be onto something.
Management really dropped the ball here.
None of them should forget that she was doing them a favor.
And not only that, but the agreement was that she would be able to leave at exactly 6am.
The only person who should be in trouble here is the disappearing supervisor.
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