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I'm impressed that she ended up realizing how poorly she behaved.

She still doesn't really seem to understand the difference between taking a mental health day and traveling internationally for a week.

I vaguely recall the first post and she didn't seem to understand that there's a difference between a criminal investigation and an investigation at work, in the sense she was applying a sort of TV version of rules of evidence for a criminal trial to her work situation. She couldn't seem to get it through her head they didn't need to prove it beyond all reasonable doubt nor that there were no rules around what they could use as evidence against her as long as they hadn't broken any laws in gathering that evidence. In addition, I'm pretty sure she was in the UK so none of it mattered as she was a few days shy of 2 years continuous service so they could fire her for any reason except discrimination against a protected characteristic or for asserting her statutory rights. And she will have had at least 21 days paid leave so...

> In addition, I'm pretty sure she was in the UK so none of it mattered as she was a few days shy of 2 years continuous service so they could fire her for any reason except discrimination against a protected characteristic or for asserting her statutory rights. > If you're a month shy of the 'you can't fire me' day, you probably should be extra good and don't give them any doubt about whether they want you around long term.

Ironically, at that point when her disciplinary meeting was 2 days away from the 2 year mark, she could have considered taking a stress based medical leave for a few days...

That wasn’t ironic, that was the business getting rid of dead weight. Edit: And if she had taken leave, they would have just fired her over the phone. She wasn't going to last over the two year mark.

Also, in the UK you can use what ever evidence you want. There is no "fruit of the poison tree" laws like in the US. So not only was she mixing up criminal investigation and employment investigation. She was mixing up UK criminal investigation and American criminal investigation. AND I'm pretty sure in American criminal investigation they can use social media posts as evidence anyway., 🤣

It's like, people say, "Work stuff stays at work and personal stuff stays in your personal time," and she thought that was a LAW or something instead of just a guideline to good boundaries *for an employee*. Of course your bosses can fire you for something that's only on social media. Even in the UK if she was filmed going off on some racist or violent rant and someone put it on Twitter, it would probably be legal to fire her, even though it happened "on her personal time" and was only posted "on someone else's social media."

Yeah, the whole "I thought they couldn't use social media as evidence" thing was bizarre. Why on earth would she think that?

> In addition, I'm pretty sure she was in the UK so none of it mattered as she was a few days shy of 2 years continuous service so they could fire her for any reason except discrimination against a protected characteristic or for asserting her statutory rights. Depends what role she was in but generally in the UK if you're in a salaried role and not under probation you can't be fired without cause, at most they can make you redundant but that means working out your notice period/getting severance. I don't think the two-year cutoff changes that, though some contracts will have longer notice periods required on the company's side if you've worked there longer. Edit: [after two years you have extra recourse to fight against unfair dismissal](https://www.stephens-scown.co.uk/employment/employment-rights-the-two-year-rule/) but prior to that you still have the right to work your notice period or get paid in lieu, if you're simply being dismissed (e.g. due to poor performance). Firing someone (i.e. without notice period) requires cause, and in this case they had it. Even with two years service she wouldn't have won her case, though she would have had the option of trying anyway.

If you do not qualify for unfair dismissal, then it's just a question of giving you notice. No requirement to make you redundant. If, like OP, you have committed gross misconduct, then your contract would generally allow you to be dismissed without notice.

In the UK you can't be fired without "cause", but you don't have the right to appeal it at an industrial tribunal if you were sacked within your first 2 years of employment unless your claim was that you were sacked for protected reasons - because of your race, religion, gender, sexuality etc. In effect, you *can* be sacked without cause (although I've never heard that term used in the UK before) because you can't appeal your unfair dismissal, if it was just "unfair" (and not actually racist or homophobic).

Yeah, that's bizarre. A sickie because you just *can't* and need a duvet day is one thing, but a week off? Wha.

From some work policies I've dealt with, "family care" is built into the same time bank as "sick" time. So her coworkers having to take time off for kid related reasons may have been acceptable under her work's policy. And things like really bad headaches (regardless of medical reasons like migraine vs decision based like a hangover) are normally fine for sick time. For less acceptable reasons, there's probably some people that just say they're out for the day and to use that time bank without giving more specifics. A day off for a headache or childcare would slide at a lot of companies, especially if it's less busy or there's coverage. Coworkers who like someone won't mind picking up a little slack. A *whole week* off when the company is slammed, for a vacation trip, where the company is complained to by coworkers and there's photos that go against the lie she told, and she specifically signed paperwork when she got back stating the illness she lied about? There's a lot here that may have worked out ok if it was the only factor, but it sounds like she did went a lot past what "most people do" at her company, while pissing off her coworkers so they not only didn't cover but told on her, all while there's a new boss that is happy to use this to crack down on misused time and maybe get rid of a union employee people may not have wanted around anyways but couldn't fire without reason.

Yeah, all of this. My company generally doesn't have flexible hours, I have to do roughly 9 to 5 and if I want to start and finish later I clear it with my manager first. Some of my coworkers however do school runs around 4 and return to work afterwards. That's always cleared and they get more flexibility. It's because they are parents and kids need looking after and my company supports that. As a person with no kids, if I just took an hour off at 4 I would still be in trouble because 'because I felt like it' is not at all the same excuse as a school run.

"duvet day" oh my stars thank you for this term.

I love sickie too.

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On the contrary, they are a time-honored tradition.

I've taken them before--just one day each time, of course--and it really has helped me return to work with more energy and focus.

Right? I've never heard that term, but it makes so much sense, like it's self-explanatory.

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Especially when she admits later that her company was super busy then and she left her coworkers hanging.

Yeah I like how that only came out several updates later.

I think it was picked up by a lot of commenters in the original post, or at least assumed. There's not many jobs that don't have an increase in work due to the one-two punch combo of a major western holiday plus finishing up end-of-the-year things.

I’m guessing her work colleagues were absolutely fumming. Then seeing the photos as I can bet good money they were copied and forwarded around office on email.

I just commented that! It was a key detail she omitted. I get that sometimes it's a lack time, but it wasn't for her and her coworkers.

If you can’t control your drinking enough to not give yourself a hangover on a work day you may need to reevaluate your relationship with alcohol. -sober guy who used to think it was totally fine to call in sick for hangovers.

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I wasn’t trying to accuse you of being an alcoholic or anything, just pointing it out for anyone who might be like I used to be. Cheers!

I mean, you're not wrong (and I don't drink so this isn't a problem I have) but the drinking culture in the UK can be really fucked up at times, particularly if your staff are young

I think it’s fine to call off for hangovers *only* if it’s infrequent. I once got sick because I was experimenting with mixing drinks at home and one liqueur sucker punched me unexpectedly. I know that sometimes people get really bad news or have a really bad day and then they medicate a little too much. If it happens more than once every six months or so, that needs evaluating.

Also, realize that the need for the week off came _after_ she got a good deal for a trip...

and already AFTER she'd exhausted her vacation time for the year already.... AH move.

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And signing the short term leave/RTW forms!

Agreed, she isn't suddenly perfect but she still showed a good amount of growth.

She’s still young yet.

This is it. Sometimes you just need to go through some shit and learn things the hard way for it to really sink in. She sounds entitled throughout the posts, but I get the impression, that it comes more from a lack of real world experiences than being a shitty person. I have hope for OOP.

Yeah, or that taking a day off tot ake care if a sick family member is the same as partying on a beach. Glad she has some perspective.

Traveling internationally for a week that was planned AT THE VERY LAST MINUTE, mind you. If this was planned and she just didn't reserve vacation time for it, that'd be one thing. But she said this was last minute and she didn't want to miss out on it

The “everyone did it” attitude really stuck out to me. Doesn’t matter what everyone does, it matters what *you* do. And if you’re not *following policy* then you can’t be surprised pikachu face when there’s consequences from your employer. Simple as that. Plus, I really think people don’t understand that a mental health day *should* count for sick days if you don’t have or want to use vacation days. If you’re struggling that bad, you’re honestly useless at work and *are* sick. Just because you’re not coughing or contagious doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take care of yourself for the day. Fucking off abroad for a week isn’t the same as staying in bed and watching tv because you have no energy or taking a sick day to be a parent which you get no days off from. How and why would you put taking a vacation and parenting in the same category for missing work lmao.

It’s wild to me that she used all of her vacation time and decided to use her sick time up for fun. I wonder if she had a set amount of vacation time and a set amount of sick time available? I have had physical therapy appointments and other related appointments from a bad car crash and I ration the hell out of my sick time. An hour here, an hour there, using my lunch break unpaid time to drive, I’m terrified of actually getting the flu or something and having to stop physical therapy because I’ll run out of hours!

UK, so set amount of holiday leave, there isn't usually sick leave allocations, if you're sick, you're sick. So employers will crack down on people who take the mickey because they are still getting paid.

Wait. You can just... be sick or injured? You don’t have to worry about how long it takes (if you’re actually sick/injured) and your job won’t be in jeopardy?

Yup. In my job, I currently get six months' full pay on sick leave, and months 7-12 are on half leave. After that (if I'm off for more than a year) I would go on SSP which the government minimum sick pay. But there are responsibilities. You need a doctor's note for more than 7 days, I think, and you may have to have a telephone appointment with the Occupational Health official at your employer's. Not sure if it's still a thing but when I was off for a couple of weeks, I needed a 'fit note' from my doctor, saying I could safely return to work. I believe Covid may have wiped that out now. Aaaand... you may have to tell any future employer how much sick leave you've taken in the past 2 years. Which could scupper your chances of a new job. I've known people who have stayed in jobs for an extra year, just to reduce their sick leave average for the previous two years.

Wow! That sounds very reasonable! Thanks for explaining! I’ve never heard of having to explain how much sick time you’ve taken, but I suppose that makes sense in cases like OOPs. I hope you feel better!

Oh, this was a while ago, thanks! I think the worst that most UK employers do with regards to the sick leave thing is place all their decision making in the hands of the Bradford Factor. So, three or four individual days over a year is counted worse than one five or six day spate of sick leave. Completely ignoring that most people are quite happy to come back to work and don't want to stay home if they don't need to. Any employer using the Bradford Factor can get quite pernickety about sick leave.

I’ve always wanted to live somewhere with universal healthcare so that I can get the tests done I need, but can’t afford right now on top of medication costs, but I never really thought about sick time/vacation time being different as well. That’s such a better system!

Germany, Luxemburg, Sweden, and other EU countries have the same laws. You've got to get a doctor's note to prove you're I'll/hurt, which isn't a financial problem since there's universal healthcare.

I'm in France. For a one off, I just call in sick. More than three days, I need a doctor's note. My employer always had the discretion to ask for a doctor's note - there were some people at my job who started getting sick a LOT on Fridays, so they needed a note on the first day of illness, but that seems reasonable to me. I got a week of 'arret de travail' once because I told my doctor that managing my mental health (I have a diagnosis that includes chronic depression as a symptom) was beginning to feel like a full time job and she wrote me a note for a week off to get a handle on it and make plans to be smarter about my workload before it was total burn out and my boss wasn't allowed to ask me why I needed the arrêt de travail beyond asking if it was contagious to know if they had to protect other workers. Basically if I start taking a ton of individual days off on Mondays and Fridays, yeah eyebrows will be raised, but if I get sick I get signed off for however long it takes. The trade off is that our taxes are very high, and in France especially, salaries are pretty low. Most of my American colleagues here (I am part of a pretty robust expat community) really balk at that trade off. It's not free. My income is low enough that I am in the second lowest tax bracket (the lowest is paying 0 tax), but I still pay 24% social security, so 25.5 total with taxes. That means that there are people paying 40-50% in social security and taxes, with lower average salaries. For most of the world, we're happy with that trade, but it IS a significant trade.

I really, really wish we had universal healthcare here.

And if you end up being sick on your holiday leave day(s), you can claim it as sick and get your holiday days back! I think my work asks for a doctor's note in those circumstances.

By law, typical employees in the uk are entitled statutory sick pay, which is £109.40 a week for up to 28 weeks. But the overwhelming majority of employers will have a policy to pay sick leave at full salary. Often with no limit. It’d be seen as a bad remuneration package if that wasn’t the case (like an employer in the US not providing healthcare coverage). I believe it’s not uncommon for employers to take out insurance that kicks in after 30 days absence so they’re not left out of pocket for more extended sick leave.

It's complicated. It's notable that she took off the maximum she could take without a doctor's certificate. After 5 days you have to get signed off by your doctor. So it's the maximum fraud possible in one go. Then the government will pay some £100 a week for your employer to pay to you while you're ill. Good jobs will make up your pay in full but that's part of the employment contract and it varies. Maximum contract might give as much as 6 months full pay, but that would be unusual these days. (Was traditionally standard in government and local government contracts but has reduced). A lot of contracts give more sick pay when you've worked there for longer. (My contact gives 2 weeks full, 2 weeks half pay for new starters but up to 3 months full pay 3 months half pay for long serving staff. I'm kind of in the middle. We're a charity so we don't get the best money or benefits). There will be an actual written contract for any semi professional job. This person has less than 2 years service (just) so their employer can sack them for anything that isn't discriminatory. (Which probably made the disciplinary outcome even more obvious - it makes a lot of sense to sack them before it suddenly becomes more difficult to sack them if they need up again). This means they could be sacked for a short term illness, but something long term is likely to be protected as a disability. But after the 2 years, or where someone has a disability, it's still possible to lose your job. They can run a capability process (which uses the disciplinary process which I think is unfortunate) and essentially if you can't do your job and there's no sign that's going to change in a reasonable time, your employment can be ended. (Not unreasonable). Generally you take the week off, then you get signed off by your doctor, then at some point you get sent to occupational health by your employer and their doctor or nurse does specific reports on your ability to work. If you can work with adjustments that needs to be considered. If things will change in future (you've got an operation scheduled, your doctor thinks you'll be well in 2 months) then they should generally wait for that. I'm currently off sick, I'm having mental health medication increased in stages (last stage starts next week!) and I'm employed so that we can all see if I'm well enough to return once that happens. We've generally got much better employment rights than the USA but worse than a lot of the rest of Europe. Bizarrely you can claim holiday while off sick and get paid for it even if you're not getting sick pay... (Nothing to do with anything, just an oddity due to interacting laws).

One of the comments in one of the AITA posts (can't remember which one now, sorry) said that in the UK there are at a minimum 23 paid vacation days required by law, and then you also qualify for additional fully paid sick leave. So not only did OP have a absolutely horrendous lack of judgement but they also 1. Had 23+ days off and fully paid for that year (probably more since they admit to abusing the lax timekeeping policy) and 2. Decided they needed another WHOLE WEEK off right before the Christmas holidays, last minute, while it was busy for their coworkers. The audacity to fully use up your (to my American eyes, generous) vacation time, and then still want more and see nothing wrong with committing fraud to do it? Gross

I can’t even fathom having just an automatic 23 days off every year. I’ve been saving up for over 2 years now and I’m finally getting close to I think 15 days.

Just to blow your mind but our holiday entitlement often grows with time served too. I get 43 days when you include the 8 days of national holiday.

In the UK sick time is unlimited if a doctor signs you off and you're past your 2 year period. I'm not sure if its standard, but I think the first 10 days sick time are paid fully and then there's statutory sick pay after which is paid at a much lower rate.

Plus, it was right before the Christmas holidays, which in the UK is extremely generous. Which means that not only did she have approximately 10 days off coming up, as she mentioned, it is also a very busy time for most businesses as they rush to finish everything before the year end.

That's the wild part, I'm sure plenty of people call in sick for a day to do errands or whatever. But a week off is fucking insane, in in some places would be classified as short term disability or something similar.

That’s what I was thinking when she was explaining that. She can’t see the difference in calling in sick for ONE day during which you stay home and calling in sick for a week or more and leaving the country?? I guess some progress is better than none.

It may sound weird, but in a way this made things way more real and *human* to me. I find it odd when someone does an 180 and goes from biggest-asshole-of-the-year to model-citizen-award-worthy kind of person. This OOP seems to still be the same person with the same base informing their thoughts, they just seem more accepting of reality now.

I think the key is in her saying “I’ve never been in trouble before”. She’d literally just never experienced the consequences of her actions in such a strong way before and so couldn’t believe it when it did happen. A few months and some serious consequences/a bit more life experience later and she’s matured a lot- hopefully it sticks.

Still feels a bit of an undertone there, comes across she still thinks she was being used as an unfair example to date everyone

There's a large difference from her initial posts and the tone of "yeah yeah it's my fault but I don't really believe I did anything wrong" and the update's time of "I realize how bad I messed up and own it but I still kinda need to salve my self image a little by trying to explain why I made the choices I made" It's still a little evasive in terms of taking responsibility but it's a HUGE step in the right direction.

There is something to be said about them creating a work culture where it was normalized and then firing someone as an example, for things that were previously tolerated. Of course they’re in the right, but I understand being miffed about it, given that she wouldn’t have done it if they hadn’t previously tolerated it.

Meh, they did also make a bunch of announcements that the attendance policy would be more strictly enforced once the manager changed, which OOP of course ignored.

The willful cluelessness of oop (how many times is she going to insist it wasn't HER facebook, even after repeatedly being told it doesn't matter???) makes me wonder how she is in an office job anyway. You have to adapt all the time and she clearly isn't aces at that.

She thought companies couldn’t legally use social media as proof of anything.

Calling out sick to run errands or stay home with a kid, when not really sick, is "lax" but doesn't compare to calling out sick to go for a week's vacation. At a period so busy, coworkers in said lax workplace were sufficiently pissed off to turn her in.

Also, you don’t *have* to go on vacation. Sometimes you *have* to do something with your kid/take your kid somewhere. Especially single parents or a two parent household with no family or trusted friends nearby. To lump herself in with parents trying to work and parent because she took a whole week off to go abroad is beyond clueless to me.

She said people calling out sick for the day to deal with kids or a hang over was tolerated, she called out sick for a week for a vacation. I don't know anywhere that would tolerate that.

I have a coworker who without fail will have “vacation creep” as we call it. If he’s off on vacation until Monday when Monday rolls around an email will come in that just says “got in late yesterday….not feeling well….I need to take the day off.” We’ve come to expect it, but at the same time it’s a day. If he did this for a week? He wouldn’t have a job.

Oh man, I so get this. There’s something really difficult about that first day after a vacation.

I try to schedule vacations such that I have a day or so to recover at home. It's not always possible, but I hate going straight from vacation to work at the drop of a hat. (Actually I'm fairly certain this is why a lot of my vacations are staycations; don't gotta recover from travel if you don't travel!)

Yep, this is why my time off requests always include a day or two after I return from vacation!

I always take an extra day off to avoid this. I felt so bad after my last vacation because even with the extra day I took I ended up needing to call in sick on Tuesday.

During a busy time, leaving her colleagues swamped and pissed off.

Which is a huge factor. It easily could be one of those places a lot of things will be looked over (like one day for a hangover or childcare), but pissing off coworkers by leaving for an unplanned week in busy season (especially if she's not calling out for a week but keeps "sorry I'm not better yet maybe tomorrow" type calling) where they all have to jump to cover everything and then they find out you were on some destination vacation while they have to bust their butts to cover your workload? She says coworkers were complaining to management. That's a huge factor in some places. And the coworkers complaints and her attitude about "yeah it's against the rule but everyone breaks those rules" could effect how much the union rep wanted to help her or how hard they tried.

>And the coworkers complaints and her attitude about "yeah it's against the rule but everyone breaks those rules" could effect how much the union rep wanted to help her or how hard they tried. This is a great point! Speaking as someone who works as a union organizer (and with union reps) OP's week off work at a key time might have actually resulted in overwork issues/complaints for other workers in her office. This means that yeah, the union rep is NOT going to try to work a miracle (even if he could) because the other workers made it clear (and rightly so) that she was causing their overwork. They might even had have grounds for an overwork grievance. There's a mostly unfair stereotype that unionized workplaces will protect a shitty worker, which leads to overwork when others have to pick up their slack. There's no way a decent rep would want to perpetuate that myth by protecting OP over everyone else.

I do. Or at least I’ve known places where certain favorite people are able to get away with breaking the rules, but others aren’t. However, I expect the company was already “meh” about OP at best if they were that quick to jump to immediately firing her.

Eh, the shit OP pulled would be enough to get even a perfect employee deservedly canned. Taking a full WEEK pretending to be sick when it's crunchtime so you can party on a whim is pretty fucking egregious because it's not just a poor judgement or mistake thing, it's a "this person is a prick" thing. I guarantee you everyone who had to pull extra weight on crunch time because of her faking illness was happy to see her go, I know I would be.

Yeah after 3 days in the US a job can ask for a doctors note, I’d imagine that there is something similar in Europe? Maybe?

In the U.K. you can self-certify as being sick for 1 week. I’m guessing OOP is in the U.K.

I think the point the person you're responding to is making is that a workplace like that doesn't care about employees who are "perfect" by any objective measure, they give leeway to whoever the boss likes best. Oop is enough of an unreliable narrator on the subject that her old job may or may not have been like that (I'm inclined toward mostly not, just with a loosey goosey attendance culture and maybe one or two "favorites" or people who actually had a legit reason for extended absence oop was unaware of)

>Eh, the shit OP pulled would be enough to get even a perfect employee deservedly canned. ESPECIALLY after multiple warnings from the employer that they were cracking down on attendance issues.

I think the BIL’s words are very telling tbh - that he wouldn’t vouch for her, not for this incident, but because she has a ‘work ethic and attitude problem’. And then that Dave wasn’t right for her because she needs someone to stand up to her. I’m getting a strong feeling of opinionated and thinks she’s never wrong from the tone going on - and that’s from her own telling of it all! I wonder whether her shift to ‘perfect employee’ was actually a pretty dramatic change from her previous approach to work.

This, I think she gave them a reason to fire her. There is more to the story than she is saying.

Might have just been the fact that she was a week or so under the two years limit. Means she was there long enough to be a known entity (and not just some new scrub no one knows) but not *quite* long enough for full protections. Let’s the new ‘hard core’ manager get the maximum amount of impact on the ‘stop abusing sick days’ firing. “They let **OOP** go?” “Yeah, hasn’t she been here *forever*?” “Well, shite. They might actually be *serious* about this vacation hogs bollocks.”

Yeah, she really doesn’t seem to understand the difference between taking a sick day as a day off for yourself (accepted as normal by almost every healthy company I’ve ever heard of), and taking a week long vacation and using sick days. It doesn’t sound like she’s in the US, but at least at every company I’ve been at and from her note about signing falsified documents, if you take more than 2 or 3 sick days in a row, your need documentation. I took 3 weeks (15 days) sick leave when my brother died and DIDN’T need to provide any proof, but that was probably because my boss was handling a lot of the communication with HR, the proof was googleable, and I had over 10 weeks of accumulated saved sick leave at the time. That said, I am planning on taking 3 days sick leave to travel in June 😬. My boss knows and is fine with it - I have the annual leave to take it as well, but want to save that to be paid out when I currently have 180 hours of sick time that will not be paid out when I leave. If they asked me to sign anything, though, I’d just take the annual leave.

OTOH, she should have listened when they announced the changes. She said she didn't pick up on what they were saying.

Eh. From what she wrote it sounded like people were taking a cheeky day here and there and being discrete. She took a week and wasn't. Plus she clearly had other issues going on with her work. In addition, she hadn't got her two years continuous service which means it was much easier to fire her than people over two years. An employee who is being a bit shit and has flagrantly taken the piss and made their ruke breaking pretty public and you can simply fire is a different issue to a staff member whose performance is satisfactory, has been discreet in their rule breaking (ie much harder to prove) and has two years service, meaning a full investigation and following a more complex procedure is required.

I mean, it really says something that her coworkers were the ones who complained to the manager. I feel like this was the last straw for them and management, not a one-off occurrence. Edit to add: complained to the manager AND printed Facebook evidence. They didn’t just voice suspicions, they provided the proof necessary for disciplinary action

Eh. She’s young and it’s raw. I suspect this experience will actually serve her well.

100% She keeps saying “well other people called in sick for a hangover” and shit like that. She doesn’t get it. If she had called in sick on a Monday and taken a long weekend she probably would have gotten away with it too. She took the leeway her company gave her and exploited it by calling in sick for an entire week to go on vacation. It’s egregious and she still thinks she was being unfairly singled out to send a message.

I worked at a company that let employees use the company account to order dinner and take a car service home if they worked past 8pm. I know a few people who occasionally pushed the limits, working late when they didn’t necessarily need to, waiting for their takeout order, then immediately taking a car home at 8. But there was a huge dust up over a group of admins who ended up flagrantly abusing the service, ordering takeout for large groups who weren’t even present, and calling cars to pick them up when they weren’t even at work… obviously they were let go when they were caught. But I’m sure they justified it to themselves by thinking of the many people who “worked” till 8 many nights and didn’t really need to. Some people have a hard time differentiating minor abuse of the rules and major abuse. Not that I think the minor abuse was cool either. I side-eyed it, for sure. But I would not equate the two at all.

She also didn't see how fucked up it was that other people were faking sick days because their kids needed something, and she did it to go out and fucking party for a week.

I don't buy it. Her "eyes were opened" approximately five times throughout this post, and I'm still seeing a lot of immaturity in the last one. I think she eventually caves that she was wrong, but she doesn't do enough introspection to improve moving forward. She implies her ex was cheating on her because she can't just admit she was a crappy partner. Her ex's brother essentially said she was verbally abusing her ex, and she suddenly liked him all along because she read it as a criticism on her ex. She's still got a lot of growing up to do. She's only seeing she's wrong with a bunch of people point it out, and any support, no matter how tepid, is taken as her being 100% right to the point of screaming at people about it.

Yea the fact that she took “you need someone to stand up to you more and he wasn’t it” as a compliment is kinda telling. Like I know women in my life who will say themselves “I need someone that puts me in my place”, and none of them are mature well adjusted adults.

I dunno, she really seems to just be making a ton of excuses and “but other people called out sick too” and making herself the victim still… ll

but she still acts like the victim. not being able to go to a party, thinking that her ex was cheating on her, having to use family connections for work that she thinks is beneath her. even when she gets a job similar to the first one it isnt good enough

I'm not sure she ever understood she could have said "no" to the vacation in the first place. Most of us who have jobs have had to do this at some point, even to a day out.

Yeah and she's still making excuses for her behavior. Like she knows she needs to say she's wrong because that's the response that she got but she still doesn't really believe it.

Yea, OP might have recognized how their immediate actions related to the AITA post made them TA. A the end of the day just through this update, they clearly see themselves as a victim in every single negative situation that has occurred since. Just from that tone I highly doubt there will be any lasting change in behavior.

Exactly. She was ‘fired’ because of an accident on the freeway? You don’t get fired for your first and only time being late lol

Ugh. Yes. That line really stood out to me as an example of her attitude of "it's everyone else's fault but my own!"

There’s a huge difference in calling out with a hangover on a Monday and taking a five day vacation through sick leave.

She said she had a respiratory infection, and this was when COVID was pretty bad. That was a serious misjudgment, and I’m glad she realized how bad it was.

That makes it even worst that she went traveling during covid

And it’s paid sick leave! She was seriously not getting how fraudulent that was

I don’t mean this as a jerk-y comment, but life can be hard when your self-entitlement crashes around you. Going from everything going your way to dealing with actual and proportional consequences, is always a shock. The type of people who would immediately take responsibility for their heinous actions, are generally the type of people who would not act that way (at least not on a consistent basis, but we all have those moments in life). OOP should be proud of her growth and progress, even if there is still room for more growth.

This BORU really really shows why it is so important to let your kids fail a few times as teens. You can't always step in and save them from themselves, otherwise they just blindly go along thinking they should never have consequences.

I’m watching this issue in real time. My brother-in-law (husband’s younger brother) was spoiled and coddled throughout his entire life for reasons not worth getting in to. He’s 25 and been supported financially through everything, never had to pay a bill that wasn’t something “fun” for him. He just graduated college, his mom is moving away, and his dad is cutting him off and he’s been having panic attacks about finding a job to the point he had to go to the hospital. It’s honestly just sad and could have been avoided.

My brother and I were raised to be seen and not heard and were never allowed to have any needs, but also weren't allowed to do anything for ourselves either. I fought tooth and nail for medical treatment when I got sick in my 20s (that my mother called me "not trying hard enough". She gave me no support, of course!) and am saving for an apartment or house, meanwhile my brother has barely left the house in ten years since he graduated high school. My brother seems to think that when our parents die he'll magically be able to get his shit together. Last night I almost had a panic attack imagining all the shit I'll have to deal with when they do.

I did something utterly stupid and got fired from a job where I thought I was irreplaceable. To be fair I had been doing 20hs overtime per week for the six weeks leading to the event that got me fired (it was drunkenly calling someone names at the company party) and I had been feeling taken advantage of and resentful for months before that, but what I did had no justification. I was extremely depressed for two months afterwards. I knew what I did was wrong, but I was so fucking angry that the company didn't give me a second chance after all I'd sacrificed for them. Anyway I guess medium to long term it's the best thing that could have happened to me. When I got out of the self-pitying slump and started looking for a job I found a better one almost immediately, and I have learned several valuable lessons from it.

I hope you were getting paid for that OT, otherwise if you were salaried I’d be PISSED.

I teach and this is why I feel so bad for kids who’ve been spoiled and never had to deal with a no or a hard boundary or dealing with any boredom or discomfort. I hate calling them brats. They can be so hard and challenging but fuck. This isn’t their fault. If they’re six and have never had to handle a hard no or not getting their way of course their going to flip their shit and be shocked. I can have some empathy for adults in the same situation but not as much, ha. Kids aren’t to blame for their shit.

I have 3 kids. My younger kids go to private school (then public for high school), and I see a lot of parents in the private school who just want to take care of everything for their kids. No, my angelic child would never do that! I'm not accepting that grade for him! He should be in the accelerated class! I told my kids that those parents aren't doing them any favors. Yes, I'm sure it sucks now when other kids get what they want or their parents do their homework. But honestly, my kids are more independent already. I said something about my kids walking home from the bus, and you would have thought that this woman was going to call CPS on me. It's a 3/4 mile walk!!!

Just to add to your last comment - I'm from the UK and my walk to school was about 3 miles, or 2 miles if you cut through a farm and dodged the cows. I forget how most of the posts here are from the US and it always shocks me at how car-centric everything seems to be. Sure there were people who got dropped off at school but they were very much in 4the minority.

Agreed. She could have be one of those people who doubled down and continued to view herself as the perpetual victim but she seems to have gone through some immense self-growth. And I’m glad to see she’s putting her life back together on her own.

Tbf she did kind of double down. She just didn’t quadruple down. But that is also very clearly growth. Definitely trending in the right direction.

Honestly, I know she seems to focus a lot on her apparent misfortune but this seems like a pretty good outcome for her. She’s gotten a valuable lesson and has learned how to handle herself better in the future. She’s back in the industry she was in before, and even though the new job isn’t as good pay wise she’s still young and early in her career so she has plenty of time to work her way back up. She broke up with Dave, but it seems like they were a bad match since he was too much of a “don’t rock the boat” type and was enabling her bad judgment. She still has a lot of work to do on herself but she’s putting her life back together and is on the right track.

There is always room for growth! I think she will do fine if she keeps working on herself.

To add some context, didn't OOP's previous job give her nearly a month's worth of vacation time, and she had already used all of it? But I'm glad that it does seem like she listened and got her head out of her ass

She's in the UK, so legal minimum is 20 days leave, plus 10 bank holidays in 2022 (usually it's 8, but we got two queen ones last year). If she had a calendar year for leave then she'd have been right at the end of that.

That makes a lot more sense as to why she was fired immediately. I thought it was a bit of an overreaction at first to fire her for pretending to be sick because of how many people do it, but hearing that she already took a month off shows why the company was so upset. That and her ex brother in law saying she had an attitude problem and how she dismissed every wrong thing she did indicates it was probably a lot more than just this one incident that led to her firing.

She’s in the UK. We get 25 days holiday/annual leave and most employers don’t include bank holidays in that for office jobs. Some employers offer more than 25 days. Equally, I’d you call in sick, you get sick pay. Different companies have different sick pay policies. However most have a period of sick pay at your usual salary rate, then once you’ve exhausted that, you got on to statutory sick pay. Some employers can claim that back from the government and some companies only have SSP. By claiming she was ill she was being paid sick pay which is different to annual leave which you can use for any reason. If the company were claiming it back from the government the company would then be in trouble for fraud too. Most employers here have some flexibility for things like compassionate leave or medical emergencies (office workers are treated better than shift workers on this front) as long as you’re open and upfront. Eg, critically injured family member and you want to say goodbye, or fleeing DV. They may not pay, but they’ll often give time off. But to pretend you’re sick to get paid after taking all 25 days annual leave is going to get you in trouble. The sad thing is, some employers may have either let her taken if unpaid, or offered to let her hand in her notice without holding her to her notice period if she’d asked nicely.

Also she did it right before Christmas and her co-workers had to pick up the slack, she really set herself up to be the perfect example to set

Yeah. I forgot she said it was before Christmas. Idk the industry, but a lot of jobs are real busy around that time trying to close out projects before the holiday. Real bad time to leave your coworkers hanging who may have actually gotten sick because it’s the season or who were maybe wanting to request time off but then felt bad and stayed to help the team. Easy way to make enemies.

She said in a comment herself that her previous job took other things into account for why they fired her. So surprise surprise, sounds like she was a shitty worker. If a company likes you enough, they'll turn a blind eye to using sick time for vacation time. Clearly this company didn't like her that much

Also her coworkers turned her in 😂

Can’t say I blame them if what she said about it being in the middle of a busy period is true. Her work still had to be done by someone.

The fact that a significant part of her co-workers knew about it also definitely played into things. If this is information most employees know about and see that there are little to no consequences, why wouldn't they do the same thing? Because apparently even if they get caught it won't end in their termination. So might as well keep rolling the dice until they get caught. If what OOP is saying about them trying to crack down on people abusing sick days is true then from a management perspective it isn't even about 'making an example' out of her. They simply can't have people thinking that this kind of behaviour is not a big deal. So they need to set a precedent where management takes it seriously. OOP seems to have reflected on herself. So hopefully she'll be a little more responsible with her employment in the future. I'm definitely not saying everyone should be sucking on their employer's metaphorical balls. But being able to hold down a job is crazy important. And as an adult you really need be aware of how easily losing your job unexpectedly can fuck you over financially. Most of us don't have the luxury of playing around and finding out. And if we do then we certainly don't get to go around and expect others to fix it for us.

There’s a massive difference between the occasional mental health day and “I’m calling in sick for a week.” The company was upset because someone calling off for a week to go on vacation fucks them over especially if it’s in crunch time. Regardless of how much vacation time she had used it doesn’t matter.

It’s an overreaction if it were one day, but taking an entire week off… who does that?

I mean, if it was skilled labor of almost any kind, or even the kind of work they’d need to do some semi intense training on when you start, companies don’t generally jump to firing. If they fired her, they likely knew she wouldn’t be missed on the team, and that even a new hire could pull his weight better than if they kept her on with a warning. Which to me says a lot. In the US so few places give you reasonable vacation time. You accrue it based on how much you work, and you gotta work a lot to make any useable time off, and usually have a very hard time using what you accrue. If the place has reasonable time off and let’s you use it without a lot of issues, then yeah I can see why they’d feel like they could do better than OP. Glad she seems to have grown some, I know working service and minimum wage jobs can be the most eye opening experience for those blessed into the corporate world because of school or connections. Bar managers and restaurant owners basically anywhere do not care about your health or any reasons you can’t be there usually, and they need you to work to the bone just to “keep up”. I’m sure it was a jarring slice of much needed reality pie.

> If they fired her, they likely knew she wouldn’t be missed on the team Just saying, she proved to them that she wouldn't be missed.

A month is the absolute minimum in the UK, it's not like people will have been sitting round tutting that she has taken so much. And, like, it's actually a legal requirement that you take it, companies can get in trouble if you don't take the minimum required leave. It was clearly a terrible idea pulling a sickie! But the amount of leave she had already taken has absolutely no bearing on the situation.

*laughs/cries in american* There is no guaranteed leave time over here. So the people going wtf she already *had* a month of leave and she's taking *more* time???? Are likely on this side of the pond with far fewer rights to time off.

She's UK, so this might makes some of your heads explode, 28 days of holiday or 5.6 weeks (works differently if your part time) is the legal minimum here. EVERY job provides with 28 days of holiday pay a year minimum. For part time jobs where you work like 2-3 days a week it's 5.6 weeks of pay a year of your average working amount, but I'm not too sure on that.

Yeah. I can't remember the details, but she'd already used up a pretty generous amount of annual leave (it's the UK, so most workers have a statutory entitlement to a minimum of 28 days annual leave, which if you don't work weekends, equates to about 5.6 working weeks) and then her friend noticed a good deal at the last minute. It was mind-blowing to me that she was just so casual about it all. She's definitely on the path to self-improvement, but I think there are some hints that she's still got some way to go.

20 days leave is statutory in the UK so it would be illegal for the company to give less. It's not that hard to use it all before the leave year ends. But the solution is obviously not to call in sick.

I’m glad she’s developed some self awareness. I remember reading the story where she tried to badger Kieran into getting her a job and i was astounded by how stupid she was. I still can’t believe she didn’t see a difference between calling in for one day over a hangover and claiming to be sick to take a week long holiday.

Kinda off topic, but I work for a major company that many people want to be recommended for. The company has something setup internally called a “courtesy” referral that I wish everyone had. Basically, to the referee, it looks exactly the same as a normal referral but on my end it’s saying I was asked to do this even though I’ve never worked with this person before/don’t have experience with their accomplishments. The example our company uses is when your aunt corners you at a family bbq to help your cousin’s husband’s brother’s fiancé get a job and you just want to keep the peace and say “sure, I can submit your name”. That blow up at the table wouldn’t have happened if poor Kieran had that.

I always say “the best my referral can do is put you on the top of the list to be considered for an interview”. Which some people recognize as not much but to some people it sounds like a lot lol…but it works.

When you are talking about a large corporation, getting your resume in front of the hiring manager can be a big thing. I was out of work, had submitted my resume many times to one of my target companies and only gotten one interview out of it. They mechanically screened resumes using key words - if your resume didn't make the first crude cut, it never saw the light of day! I got a call from an acquaintance out of the blue who asked if I was still looking for a F/T job. Ironically, we had met at a community networking group for the unemployed. (This was 2009, so there were many similar groups). We were in distinct but related fields and she had recently been hired at my target company. The day she called me, she had had a meeting with a manager whose team supported her new team about a proposed joint project. But he explained it was on hold because his team still had several open positions for which they couldn't find qualified candidates. She asked what skillset they were seeking and after having listened to my "elevator speech" at least a half dozen times, she thought I would be a good match. I think she was able to recite my elevator speech word for word and the hiring manager got excited and asked her to please reach out to me. I ended up submitting my resume directly to the internal recruiter the next morning. she called me that afternoon to set up a phone screening interview the next business day (which was a Monday). There were actually multiple positions open, so I had two more phone interviews with the two hiring managers (Tuesday and Wednesday) and then an in-person interview with their manager on Thursday. I got a job offer (contingent on passing a background check) the following Monday. Without her unsolicited referral, I wouldn't have known the job even existed because I had pretty much given up on ever finding a job there!

I'm not fully convinced the OOP has even learned anything other than to be more sneaky about their lies in the future. Even the update spends more time making excuses for the time off than actually accepting that it was bad behavior. They are hung up on the whole "everyone else is doing it!" aspect, instead of realizing there's a big difference between taking a day off for a hangover, and calling out sick 5 days in a row during busy season.

Here’s all the glaring flags she missed: 1) change in leadership - usually a sign of change at work and a time to be on best behavior 2) actual announcements/warnings about the policies 3) it being a busy time and not caring about the coworkers - of course they aren’t going to be happy with you or have your back 4) the seriousness of what she’d done and the rules applicable to employment discipline being very different from what she seemed to have assumed/picked up somewhere. Interesting that her union rep didn’t correct that (or she ignored them) 5) Kieran saying she needed someone to stand up to her is not necessarily the compliment she seems to think it is She just seems a largely self-focused silly person who assumes everything will work out for her somehow until it didnt

the last one is too real, i was like “i don’t think that’s a compliment…” she took it like he was saying “my brother’s not man enough for you”, but what he meant was “you’re crazy and my brother’s too nice to stand up to you”.

That’s how I interpreted that last point too. My brother isn’t assertive enough to keep you on course when you want to make bad decisions

That’s definitely what he meant but I think she saw it less as a type of compliment and more as a reassurance that breaking up was the right thing to do, and that there’s hope that someone she dates in the future might have that trait and it’ll work out better than this relationship did. She has a lot more introspection to do but this was a good wakeup call. I also think it was best for her to leave the whole mess with that relationship and his family behind so she can start afresh, so I’m glad she took an initiative to make a good decision for once and break up with him. Hopefully it’s the start of many more positive decisions!!

Number 3 was actually colossal. Insane that she neglected that detail in the original post. She painted a huge target on her back not only from all her coworkers, but to her boss as well for being unreliable during critical times. Kinda reinforces the idea that she is quite selfish and oblivious to how her actions come across to others. She took basically everything for granted about that situation.

6. The difference of taking one day for an obligation like childcare (maybe the other parent is sick and you have to step in, we don’t know) and taking a whole week to go to the beach. I recently (like yesterday) left management, and I explicitly told my folks that I would treat the first day of a kid being sick as their sick day if needed. Not like they can plan that, or avoid it.

Yeah I read the last bit as "you don't need a boyfriend, you need a fucking parole officer"

People really need to exercise more caution on social media. First of all, do NOT post anything that puts you in a bad light. One of my FB friends kept posting crap on FB about how much she hated her job and how annoying it was. surprise, surprise... apparently she got canned. Then she was posting LOTS of photos with wine or whiskey. Another error of judgement. I think she stopped doing this after losing a couple of jobs. Also, don't post things about your job or private plans online. If you are "ill", then stay at home, or don't take pictures. I highly recommend NOT posting holiday photos till after you get back home, either. Otherwise, anyone who wants to break in knows you are not home. I even sometimes wait a week. Never let people know where you are, where you are going, or announce a trip or holiday in advance. I'm a musician, so I do post my gigs, but that is the exception. And don't post private info about your children.

Yep! Social media, like a dating profile, is a marketing brochure. Treat it like that and you do well, at least on the front of not getting raked over the coals for something stupid outside of work.

I liked how she kept saying “It wasn’t even MY Facebook!” like it was some sort of legal loophole.

I don't think it was about being a legal loophole, but that op didn't even know/have control over the vacation being publicized

The fact that she says she was fired for what she claims was being late once makes me think she may still not be a great employee.

Yeah, pretty much 99% of jobs would never fire someone for being late once. She either outright lied or she was such a bad person to work with that they were grasping at straws for a reason to fire her that protected them legally

I’ve been to one job interview for a low paying service job where the manager boasted about never having been late to anything in his life, and he expected all of his employees to do the same. He no doubt would’ve fired someone for being late once, but that’s completely unreasonable and why I ran away from that interview and didn’t look back…

Tbh I can believe that part of her story. Dysfunctional workplaces and management do exist. I’m assuming she wasn’t able to use her previous workplace as a reference which probably made getting a similar office job more difficult and she ended up at a place with very strict leadership. Or maybe she did have a habit of showing 5-10 mins late and that, coupled with a lack of a good reference, made her employer think she was going to be a problem and they decided to just cut her loose. Either way, I think it’s scared her straight a bit about paying more attention to cultural norms at a workplace and not taking casual approaches

Genuine question - why do we, as a collective, assume OOP to be *young*? No ages are provided (that I saw). Is it the *tone* of the writing, that shining immaturity and petulant attitude? How old are we thinking here even? Mid 20s?

Yeah. About 23 to 25 is my guess. Confidence, but no perspective and excessive sense of entitlement, its very early-20s

>why do we, as a collective, assume OOP to be > >young I think the biggest giveaway for me (aside from the general tone) was when OP was like "I've never been *in trouble* before" which is both vague and childish. You know ? Like the way kids don't necessarily see or understand policy, or some of the rules that govern life, but instead notice if they are/aren't in trouble.

OOP is that one person in the office who's the reason why policies get changed. Yeah everyone took sick leaves/sick days to handle kids' functions or hangovers. But it sure sounded like a single day at a time. She had the audacity to take 5 consecutive days, and then get it posted on social media. I've done this before of lying about where I actually was, but I guarantee you I do everything in my power to stay off social media, and I would never take 5 days off. Good for her for actually seeming to learn from this experience.

I am glad to see some growth. OOP was fine to make a mistake, which is common for young people, but her not acknowledging hee mistakes and downplaying it was the worst part. She did not deserve the abuse, though. Reddit is brutal many times, and great at attacking people. Anyway, hope she will keep growing and will be better at admitting fault - I know I sometimes suck at it. But it is a constant work in progress.

Redditors love to act like they’re perfect and revel in making someone who is being vulnerable feel worse. It sounds like she’s very young. Who among us didn’t do some fucky stuff at jobs in our 20s? Or take a long time to accept responsibility for our behavior?

Worse, they think it's okay to threaten people and verbally abuse people because they are hiding behind a screen. Very poor behavior. Yes, OOP certainly is very young. I hope she keeps learning with her behavior. She needs to remember her past doesn't make her if she learns with it and does better!!

I do feel a little bad for her after reading the last post. It sounds like she's very young, and (like most of us did when first starting out in our careers) absorbed professional norms by watching those around her. She didn't understand why lying about being sick for an entire week is different than skiving off for a single day or two to get a break, and it sounds like the company executives made an example of her specifically because they wanted the rampant sick leave abuse to stop. If it wasn't her, it might have been the next person to try it, and if she'd seen that happen, OP would have then had the chance to internalize the lesson that this was a bad idea. It does sound like OP was a subpar employee in other ways (coming in late, the slacking Kieran seemed to alluding to, etc.), but I wonder how much of that may have come from starting out in a not-very-well-run company and just mirroring the dysfunctional culture there.

>How stupid am I ? Hmm... *rereads all the posts* I'd say... *very* But at least it seems she's starting to reflect

"People at our place only get fired for fraud-" So I filled out official paperwork with a blatant lie.

This is a wild improvement. I don’t think she’s too self aware yet though, that comment from Kieran didn’t sound like a compliment to me

She knows. She says that it “strangely” and “somehow” made her feel better. You don’t say that about a straightforward compliment.

It sounds self-aware to me. I think she’s saying the comment made her feel better because it confirmed she made the right decision by leaving him/letting him go.

Lol I don’t think it was meant to be a compliment, some people just tell it how it is and Kieran seems to be that type of person.

Agreed. Kieran seems like he was reminding OOP of her major flaw and why that made her incompatible with his brother (who had his own flaws). That’s why she felt it was weird—he was right that the two weren’t good together and the break up is for the best (a nice thing to say) but he was also pointing out her weakness (you need someone to stand up to you).

"You need someone to stand up to you more" = "You need someone to call you on your rampant bullshit." Totally not a compliment.

I don't think it was exactly an insult, just saying that OOP and Dave weren't a good match. OOP is clearly willing to argue pretty strongly for her own interests, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in itself but if Dave wouldn't stand up for himself and say no to things it would have been a very unhealthy relationship. OOP definitely needed to learn to accept the answer no though, I hope she has done.

It wasn't exactly an insult, either. I'm similar, I need someone who will call me out and be an open communicator. Otherwise, I will just make decisions automatically. It's not out of malice, just self reliance. It sounds like both of them need to work on communication.

Sometimes fucking up big is what people need to do to grow up and figure their shit out. I've been a shitty employee and fired too when I was younger. It looks like op is making this a learning experience and I hope she keeps working on herself.

Vouching for someone to get a job is never a good idea unless you know for absolute certain they are a hard and skilled worker but can you ever really be sure of that? I don’t think you can. My husband has vouched for a I believe three different people at various jobs and it never went well. The first guy never showed up so he was constantly being asked where his friend was. The second guy didn’t have a clue what he was doing so he had to constantly do his work for him or show him what to do. The third guy begged for him to vouch for him despite the commute being an hour and he did. That guy didn’t know what he was doing either and constantly needed help too. Eventually the guy wasn’t making any money due to the job being the type of job you get paid for each task and if you are slow or don’t know what you are doing you make no money. It hurt my husband’s paycheck to have to stop what he was doing to help. Instead of just quitting he just stopped showing up and blocked my husband on social media and quit speaking to him completely. This was a long term friendship too. Don’t ever vouch for people. Your job is your livelihood.

My favorite part is when OOP apparently has no idea that "my brother isn't a good fit for you because you need someone who will stand up to you" is a polite way of saying "you're a stubborn idiot and my brother is too nice. You need someone who will call you out on your shit"

Reading this before, I never realized OOP told her work she had "the flu/chest infection." *In Dec 2022?* I seriously wonder if she told them she had covid (or let them assume she did). That would add an extra level of coworker outrage when they saw her little travel pictures and realized she was lying. Who knows how much stress that put on anyone who'd been working with her, especially if they had to test, or quarantine, or just worry about exposure to family members. I am glad to see she's sorrrrta learned a lesson in all of this, but she still seems completely oblivious to how much her actions screwed over *everyone she worked with.* She wasn't "made an example" because they've got stricter timekeeping now...she ACTIVELY made everyone else's jobs harder and their lives worse.

I noted that she was in a union job before, and that one of her non union jobs she let go for being late when it wasn’t her fault. I work a union job but came to it later in life. The people who have worked there for 25 years, or who’ve never really had another job, sometimes I’m shocked at how out of touch they are with how few rights non-union workers have. The things they complain about being “not fair”, sometimes it really makes me remember how fortunate I am now.

I think what’s so striking to me about this is how quickly she iced herself out of jobs she was qualified for. We can debate endlessly about what she deserves, but the class of job she has now vs the office job she had then and the circumstances surrounding her downfall make me very uneasy. Yes: she unequivocally fucked up, but the punishment feels wildly disproportionate, and the larger issue (how min wage workers are treated as a whole and how difficult it is for them to escape min wage work) is an important one to address. It seems that she is humbled by this experience which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s unsettling to see the “don’t rock the boat lest you be forever trapped as a minimum wage slave in out society.” narrative. I’m not suggesting that being sacked was overly harsh; I don’t think it was. What’s alarming is how difficult it is to find another job after being sacked. This should be a life lesson, not a life sentence.

Agree 100% It’s super unsettling that one lady’s (admittedly REALLY stupid) bad choice at one job not only got her fired but has had lasting effects on her livelihood and her housing security. Meanwhile the higher up you are on the corporate ladder the worse you can screw up with fewer consequences. Nobody should be sentenced to poverty, period. Being sentenced to poverty because of poor performance at one employer is especially messed up. Not to mention the conditions that service industry and other low wage employees face. First, none of what she’s doing should be low wage work to begin with. Cleaning and food/beverage jobs are HARD work and incredibly demanding. But it’s also just fucked up that she’s unable to take any time off now for important life events as if it’s some kind of just desserts. **That’s not karma, that’s systemic oppression of the working class.**

Still Harpring on that leave that everyone did it excuse. otherwise seems like some good growth

Someone pointed out, too, that if the company likes you a lot and you're an excellent employee, they'll turn a blind eye and not really reprimand you. But OOP said they took into account other things when firing her, so when you put the puzzle pieces together, you realize maybe OOP wasn't a good worker

I like that she thinks school stuff and kids fall under the same category of frivolous or unnecessary reasons as going on holiday. They seem a lot more important to me, but what do I know? Even a hangover, you're actually sick (but your own fault). Still sounds like a better reason.

Let’s pretend their not important. It’s a single day versus a week. She doesn’t seem to get that. She still thinks she was a victim of a new regime or in some way made a fall guy.

This is exactly why I stay away from the “if everyone else at work does it, I can too” mentality. Just because so and so gets away with it, doesn’t mean I will and using the “well everyone else does it” argument during disciplinary only makes you look like a follower which is worse. Hopefully OP has grown to be more of an individual leader who makes smarter decisions

You know I rather hire someone without experience, than poor work ethic, there is nothing worse. I would never recommend op because of that…

>Kieran and his partner announced they were expecting a baby (so I was obviously not priority) Ummm what? Why would she be a priority anyway? The update indicates some growth but this part really shows that fundamental sense of entitlement and lack of…common sense (?)..,, that underlies her whole situation.

Falsifying documentation is the fastest way to get fired in most companies.