Can't Call Out Twice When Sick
This is another story from my old job that I was thankfully able to leave a few months ago.
When I was 17, my mom suggested I order from this pizza spot I've never heard of for takeout. I took her advice on it, and I ended up with the worst food poisoning of my life. Back then I only worked two days a week. My food poisoning started a day before my first shift. The day of my shift I was still sick. I was throwing up, so I called out of work. The next day, I was still throwing up. By this point I had been puking consistently for three days straight and couldn't keep anything down. I had been throwing up so much that my throat was irritated and raw and my mom was about to take me to the hospital (Never ended up going because I have a fear of hospitals and doctors and wanted to try over the counter stuff first, which thankfully ended up working.)
Seeing as Im still actively puking and ill, I called out again. When speaking to my ex-boss and explaining the situation, she went "Ok_Fan, you called out yesterday. You're really gonna call out again today?" Honestly I was pretty shocked in the moment, so all I said was "I'm sick. I'm sorry." My old boss stayed silent for a second, then goes "I mean. You're really letting the team down. We're gonna be short staffed." By this point I'm trying not to puke again, so I go "I know and I feel bad. But I'm sick. I'm calling out 6 hours in advance. I'm sorry. I have to go." We say our goodbyes and I hang up.
When I come into work after my food poisoning had subsided, my boss pulled me into a meeting to express how disappointed she was in me for calling out both shifts. I never got in trouble for it of course, but it still blows my mind to this day. Maybe if my shifts were weekend shifts I could see her skepticism. A teenager calling out of Saturday/Sunday shifts, that's a little eyebrow raising. But my shifts were on Wednesday/Thursday. I also wasn't in school pretty much that whole week, which one of my coworkers who I had a class with apparently mentioned to our boss. Did she expect me to come in and puke all over customers to prove I wasn't lying? I still don't get it all these years later.