My manager fired me, and now he's asking me to come back
In short, I (M21) was fired from my full-time job because I asked for 10 days off from my paid leave balance to study for finals. This happened about 3 weeks ago.
Honestly, I was very lucky and got an offer and interview faster than I expected. The initial call went much more smoothly than I thought. The follow-up round was technical, so I tried the Interviewman AI tool that I had been seeing advertised a lot in the App Store. Honestly, it was surprisingly good. It picked up the interviewer's questions and gave me quick, organized answers that sounded professional without seeming awkward. I'm still waiting to hear back from them, but then suddenly something unexpected happened...
I found a message from my old boss telling me to come back to work as usual, and that he'll approve the leave too.
Honestly, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. When I first asked for the leave, he refused immediately. He told me there was a lot of work piled up and that he wouldn't be able to keep things running without me being there.
I should also mention that we had a new guy in our department who had only been there for about 3 weeks, and he asked for around 9 days off to go to his cousin's wedding. My manager approved it for him without any problem.
Now if I go back, I'll probably find about 5 weeks of piled-up work waiting for me because he fired me, and the other guy is still on his leave. I don't even know what to reply to him with.