this twas an oldie repost but it suits this QOTW lovely
2 mates I used to work with, Lee and little wee Karen. Both lovely peeps, a couple outside of work and worked on the same team together in the office.

One night however both failed to show up for work and did not contact anyone in the office, so they were marked as UUA (basically absent without leave). This was unusual behaviour for them and the team were worried. Rightly so, as it turned out that Lee's mother had collapsed and was dying with a heart defect, plus due to the stress of this Lee's father collapsed with a heart attack also. Lee was in the worst place of his life, and Karen was staying right with him.

Thankfully both of Lee's parents made a full recovery from this ordeal; Lee rung up work the next day when they were through the worst of it and let our HR know.

A few days later Lee and Karen are back in; we had heard of what happened and had bought him a get well card for his parents (hell we're good like that). A few hours into the shift a rep from HR walks over and asks for Lee to have a meeting with them. We all figure it's to check up on him, to see if he's alright. Nope; they're taking him to a meeting to give him a disciplinary as he didn't ring in on the night both his parents almost died. He apparently just sat there and said "Whatever, my parents are a bit more important than this place" and walked out of the meeting, back down to his desk. He told Karen, who went purple with rage.
Now the thing about Karen is that she's great until pissed off then after a few minutes she sees the red mist and goes fucking crazy. Unfortunately HR decided to take 2 minutes before coming down and asking the ticking timebomb upstairs. She got into the room and blew her top, screaming at HR and telling them to stick her and Lee's job right up thier arses as they could give a flying fuck about real lives, just numbers. After 5 minutes of this she leaves the room all calm after the storm and walks down to Lee, tells him to get his stuff and they both walk out of the building, never to return.

I speak to both on Facebook, both have never been happier :D
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Tue 27 May 2008, 19:29, 3 replies)

What utter utter bastards
I would have done the same in Lee's position about calling in. There are such things as emergencies and priorities. And I wouldn't care about work procedure if someone I was in charge of hadn't called in because of something like this.

I've known people in charge who are little jobsworths, and to be honest everyone who has left companies who have attitudes like that, never look back.
There are better places to work without bosses who are such idiots.

Buy them a pint for me.
(Wize, Tue 27 May 2008, 21:56, closed)

I have experienced something similar
At the time i was working as a barman in the comedy store

every thursday i would earn a extra shift by going in mid day and cleaning the dishwashers/ polishing the mirrors on both bars ect... (you get the point)

Anyway my father had just got out of hospital a week or so before. and had run out of medication, he was not feeling too well (try having your ribcage cracked open and veins taken out of both legs for a tripple bypass) so i offered to pick up said medication from the royal free hospital.

4 fucking hours i took for them to fill his prescription.

in this time i phoned work about 6 or eight times (left at least three messages) and finaly got hold of someone, explained the situation, and said as it would be no use me coming in this late i would do my cleaning shift on the friday afternoon

turned up at work friday afternoon and everything is locked up till normal opening time (5ish

anyway i was VERY early for work when wendy (the bar manager) turns up. she was absolutely fine with me

restock my bar, get my till and prepare for a useual nights work

Enter Don Ward the cunt (err owner)

"you were not in yesterday" says he

"sorry don, my dad has just had a triple bypass and i had to pick up some medication for him. it took longer that i had supposed it would, i am willing to make up the time" says I

"I do not care if your dad is dead. you are on the rota and i expect you to be here" says he

i will save myself a lot of typing and you guys reading lots of sweary stuff, suffice to say i told that cnut what he could do with his job.

17 year later and i am still barred, guess i told him good huh? (well it has been about 4 years since i tried to get in but, artistic licence?)

moral of the story?.... family always comes first

oh and within a month i was earning twice the cash for about half the hours :)

oh by the way Don in the unlikely event you are reading this, everything i said about your wife is true:D
(Patfish, Wed 28 May 2008, 9:24, closed)

^^nice :D
I left a computer shop under bad circumstances and within a week I was earning 50% more pay doing barwork. Sometimes an unscheduled changes does you the world of good.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Wed 28 May 2008, 11:16, closed)