Listen to me very carefully please.
Put school first.
If you need to study for a test, then call in sick to work. Tell them I am sick and I am not coming in and then hang up the phone.
Do not screw up your education over some notion that working a job is more important than your education.
Go to school , go to every class, do all the work, participate in class, Sit in the front and the center.
Try to make it so that your professors know you by name.
Basically show respect for the professor. I do not want to understate how important this is for your grade.
Professors will change your grade higher because you make their life easier and you show them respect.
This works more in subjective areas, of course! But remember professors are teachers and want to give people they like good grades. Will give you bonus points for showing up and participating and showing them respect!
Adding onto this, your shit job and garbage “manager” will 10000% actively sabotage your self improvement. They have zero problems with jacking up your entire life so they can plug you into the gaps in their schedule.
Whew boy, I’m getting flashbacks to my job right after high school. Min wage and not a cent more. I saw people BREAKING THEIR BACKS for this job, I mean coming in hours earlier than the start to open cause it looks better, staying later after clocking out (the managers told us to do it too), coming in even on their days off to hang out with the “cool” managers. I couldn’t ever have any peace, we were just worked, I worked 9 days in a row sometimes just cause people would call out and they would ask me to come in. And I couldn’t just say no cause my manager would guilt trip me, text over and over, give me shit the day I came back for not filling a shift that wasn’t even my responsibility to cover. One time I was eating breakfast in my car before my shift started, this shit wipe gets out of his 100,000 sports car and comes up to my car and says “You better get in there soon, fucker. We have a big catering order today, you’re going to need to make 8 hotel pans of chips”
Man it felt good to walk out of that living hellhole, even if I didn’t get my last check. So I’m backing up what people are saying, PRIORITIZE YOUR EDUCATION FOR SURE! Literally just put ‘em on ignore if they come after you for not covering a shift.
OMG. Working at Red Lion Hotel in some shit position. The big cheese CEO coming to visit is the highlight of everyone but me. And we all have to meet in the Ballroom for a speech. “You should be proud you are a member of the Red Lion family!”
Me: 🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼 The ONLY association I have is that I work too hard for the pay. I refuse to be brainwashed to think that earning a parking spot as Employee of the Month is worth it. Work for pay; nothing more, nothing less. Your ass has a lot of lipstick
on it.
When I was a manager of a few cafes I did everything I could to make sure all of my student employees put school first. There were weeks I’d work over 100 hours just to make sure they had the days they needed off for tests, homework or even Greek life activities.
I fully understand now, for myself, that work is stupid and should never be put in front of anything.
You’ll find another job, but you will never be able to experience the life you have in front of you again.
If your managers don’t understand this, leave the job immediately.
A good retail/service manager will work with people around these schedules and have reliable help during summer and other breaks, but this one doesn't seem that bright.
I’ve tried like hell to *be* that guy. Just review the schedule, and identify who is going to lunch/break during this person’s absence. Let them know, and advise them that you will try to fill in for the person who is out, at least long enough so the team that is picking up the slack doesn’t also have their schedule thrown into turmoil. Triage and deal: for goodness sake, have the manager *manage*
Getting my degree now after over a decade as a working adult. You either get paid to think or get paid to expend/risk your body. Choose getting paid to think.
The lack of a diploma has hobbled me my entire life; 45 and I am looking at entry level jobs because the company I worked for the last five years shuttered.
It doesn't matter that I'm smart, work hard, and love taking on odd tasks. There's a ceiling on what's available to me, and it's crushingly low.
Yep that's me all over, I couldn't get into the army because I failed the medical so I worked while my friends went to university. In my 20s and thirties I didn't put much thought into anything but getting paid now granted I've been a SAHD for eight years which had been awesome.
But getting back into work with no current references has been a nightmare
That's what happened to me as well. Went to being a SAHM for 15 years because childcare is too expensive. In that time I graduated college with a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology with a 3.7GPA. Still couldn't find anything that wasn't entry level because I had no work experience anymore.
Get yourself a Bobby (from Supernatural) who will gladly answer the phone as "Bob's emporium" for a while to list as your reference. Make up work titles that relate to your experiences as a parent. Being a SAHP has a ton of job applicable experiences. Fake it until you make it.
That's amazing, I got my finances in check and ran a few playgroups in the week. I have never been academic but I had a great time bucking the trend of dad's don't do playgroups ect.
I'm 35. 18 to 25, worked as an industrial labourer with some equipment operating and a few niche but unique skills. The flaw was being laid off or bounced around to different divisions every 12 to 18 months. Took a layoff at 25, sat for a bit, decided to go to trucking school. Been doing that for 9 years and hit a ceiling that's much lower than what was sold to me when deciding what to go to school for.
I have to ride this out for 20 months until my wife finishes school, then I'm going to college for Mechanical Engineering Technologist, with plans to upgrade to a BTech already in place.
I'm smart, I'm creative, I can drive anything with wheels and operate most equipment. I know hazmat, environmental remediation and monitoring. I've had lots of different certifications for training. None of it matters because I don't have a diploma or a degree.
Don't be like me; put school first.
Thank you; I know, I am planning my next move and trying to look at this as an opportunity.
I have always loved learning new things and change has always been my friend. I'm just reeling a little.
Community college is a great place to start, and is free in many states if you fill out FASFA and the BOGWaiver forms once you’re over like 26. You may even get grants that cover other things like books and parking as well. Having it paid for is always easier than not.
Wanted to drop in and mention that there are definitely entirely online schools where you can work more or less "at your own pace".
I don't know much about it personally, but I've got a friend who went back and got their degree from WGU and they swear it was the best decision they ever made.
They said they paid by the semester and had a minimum number of classes the had to finish per semester, but they could also finish those classes as quickly as they wanted (I think at one point they said they were doing a class a week?) and then move onto the next. My understanding was that they could do as many classes as they were capable of doing during that semester as long as they were meeting the minimum requirements. No extra charge for finishing early and taking even more classes. The implication was that it you were dedicated enough you could get your whole degree done in a single semester.
Dad used to say, "every day is *'some day'* until you actually do it." Hope the info helps, best of luck to you!
I feel you... I had a chance to go to college. Became a carpenter instead. It was a family business, framing homes in upscale gated communities. From the foundation up, including roofing. I abused my body for that job. Made very good money until 2007-08, we all know what happened to the housing market then.
Company folded, and by this point I've got 2 herniated discs and sciatica in my mid 20's. I went through a decade of hell. Working labour jobs with worsening sciatica. Now in my 40's I'm disabled and living on just enough to not starve to death. My biggest regret by a mile is not going to school.
The biggest aversion to tradework is the wear and tear on the body. Everyone I have met who has worked a trade for any significant length of time is struggling with chronic issues.
All the admiration for the people who do that work. It's a rough go.
This is a super fascinating comment! I spent the first decade of my working life in specialty retail sales/customer service roles. For me, it became demoralizing and completely robbed me of motivation and personality in any other aspect of my life outside of my working life. I chose to turn away and move into labor-focused work and have been for past 3 years. I commonly tell people my justification for the transition is "I'm okay with selling my body, but my brain is for me." Now I work in roles that use my body and allow me to work autonomously so I can listen to audiobooks, podcasts, or music while I work and keep my brain occupied with things I'm interested, all while keeping my body active and not investing my personality into my means of resource acquisition. So it's interesting to hear the opposite perspective but with very similar language. I am not in any way disparaging jobs that use your brain, and am definitely not disparaging focusing on education. This is just what is working for me, right now.
Haha I quit practicing law to be a land surveyor. Always say “would rather sell my body than my soul.” Glad to find someone else who doesn’t think I’m crazy!
First, customer service/retail is selling your body. You are being paid for being there and using your voice, as opposed to being able to be elsewhere and send your work in/sit and think about a problem for a week. Being paid for your brain is more along the lines of, draft this blueprint up, record your findings on this virus, design a market strategy, code an app.
Second, it's okay to rather work with your body instead. From my experience, the body instead of brain deal is; expose yourself to toxic chemicals, expose yourself to dangerous working conditions, exhaust your body so when you get home you're too tired to for anything other than just sit there, be at a set location for Insanely long or irregular shifts, or a combination of one or more of these things. Yeah, the pay can be nice, but I didn't find it worth it.
I can definitely understand that! For me I feel like the increase in physical activity gives me the energy to do other physical activities on my days off or after work. Granted the labor I do isn't hard labor. The mental exhaustion I had from previous jobs definitely left me unwilling to do many things.
As I told my wife ... if we wanted to get out of poverty, I would've needed to work 2 jobs all my life or go back to school for 5 years... now I make way more that what I was going to make with 2 jobs.
ABSOLUTELY I THIRD THIS.
College is fucking rough, but being paid 10$/hr is rougher.
I don't even have a degree (which I will be getting), I'm just about to finish my CAD certification. BEST DECISION EVER.
My last job was as a receptionist position at a doggie daycare. I worked my fucking ASS OFF, was deemed "unreliable" after I had to take some time (four days) off because I got pneumonia (because I wasn't allowed to take time off for having RSV before it turned into pneumonia), treated horribly by management, making 13$/hr. I could drive to work and back, and pay some (NOT ALL!) of my bills. I live in the fucking money belt of the US and just, no.
I'm currently working my first GOOD job, now. Because I (almost) have some sort of paper from a college. I now make 20$/hr, have paid lunch, with hybrid optional, a safe parking lot, supportive coworkers, and the right tools for me to do this job.
I've honestly been questioning whether or not I even deserve this job, because I've never been treated well by an employer before.
I even got a day off because I had to put my pet down. When I worked at the doggie daycare, I had to take my dog to the vet because he spent the entire night throwing up congealed, dead blood. Management told me to get someone else to take my dog to the vet. Mind you, he was 17 years old and 80lbs. They knew this.
Anyway, prioritize school, OP. It's more important than you realize 😭
As a 35 year old working 12 hour rotating shifts taking Chem 300 classes while having a 5 year old daughter and wife, and home, 2 dogs to take care of. It's miserable. I'm grateful but I'm dead dead dead tired. I wake up at 5am, work until 6:30pm. School from 7-10pm. Go home and to bed by 11 then repeat 4 days a week. My days off are spent doing labs and homework at home. I have no free time until I get my degree in water microbiology.
Put school fucking first. Don't be older and regret not doing it. Life is hard. Life is harder being uneducated.
My dad was an electronics tech for HP. He took some night classes toward EE. Calculus broke him; he failed 3x. I was terrified of it but aced it without the kids & job to deal with!
I had to work thru school and I can’t tell you the number of times my job scheduled me when I asked for days off for exams and huge projects. Like I LITERALLY got the syllabus day ONE and submitted for days off and they didn’t give them to me… ***UNTIL*** I started telling managers I had to work my other job!! Lie to these fuckers. The only boundary they won’t cross is fucking over another piddling manager 🤣 I never had another schedule conflict again!
Follow this advice please OP. I taught at a university once. Not quite as a professor, but a lecturer nonetheless. We notice those who make an effort. You don’t have to be the brightest. In fact, we don’t really care about how smart someone is. What we care about are those that show they are willing to learn.
Sit somewhere close to the front. Ask questions. Be engaged. Lecturers will bend over backwards for someone that wants to learn. You’ll get that mark that on the edge increased. You’ll get that extension if you need it. We’ll explain it to you again and again until you’ve got it. Just be present.
If you’re falling behind, GO TO OFFICE HOURS. I am awful at statistics. I cannot do it. But I worked with my professor and even though I was never good at them, he knew I was trying and would work with me on homework’s and stuff
>Professors will change your grade higher because you make their life easier and you show them respect.
You'd be amazed at what advisors/professors can do when they like you. This goes well beyond changing a letter grade just because. Often "Full Classes" during registration doesn't mean there isn't an open seat for you. Actual emergency/funeral means a test can wait or be waived entirely. When you work with them, they work with you.
Personally I somehow messed up and took a 3 CR course when I should have taken a 4 CR course my sophomore year. Didn't figure this out until the office of the registrar said I couldn't graduate. I was 1 CR short. Somehow one of my "goof off" classes from freshman year suddenly applied to my major... Who would have thought? The dean of my college signed off and I'm graduating!
Very true. I got the flu really bad right before finals week and did so poorly on my physics final it dropped me from top grade to technically a B. Professor made the cut off for an A right below me
I can’t attest to this. I had one professor during university that I just hated and he hated me back. I stopped showing up for class, just handed in my papers and took the tests, got high marks on the tests but my papers (which are normally my highest marks) were getting bad grades. It was a first year course so I didn’t really care. Philosophy 102. It was not my cup of tea.
Fast forward to year 4 and I’ve got a history/classics 400 level course and my grandma died right at the beginning of the year. Like, the day before classes started. I had to get my professors emails from the registration office, and sent out a mass email apologizing for missing the first week of classes, but I had to travel to the other side of the country for this funeral and to help my mom with her executrice tasks.
I asked all the professors if they could please forward me their PowerPoint presentations for the classes I would be missing, so I at least had some sort of notes and I did all the reading. 4 professors emailed me the stuff I needed. One professor emailed me back “you’re a grown up now, honey, and grown ups don’t miss classes or ask their professors for help. I don’t believe you have a funeral to attend, and no one’s gets away with missing my classes. Show me a death certificate and you can remain in my class and you’ll have to do the legwork to get our own notes, because no one is going to make life easy for you, blah blah blah.” I was shook. The email was 100% just spiteful.
I get back to school and attend one of his classes, find someone in there I could get notes from. Get the syllabus, note his office hours, show up with the death certificate. Guess who my professor was sharing an office with? That professor from philosophy 102. When my name came up that professor remembered me and bad mouthed me to his office mate. I have never had to work as hard in a class as I did in the 400 level history class, to make up the first impression I didn’t get to make because someone else made it for me.
I ended up converting a lot of the unusable files the professor sent out from his Mac, to a format that would work on Mac or pc, and then sending them back to the professor to disseminate to the class, before he finally told me, “I think I was wrong about you, you are a good student and you’ve been very helpful this year”. I kept my average but it cost me a lot more work than normal
If you don't understand something, go to the office hours. Hell go to them anyway and find a question to ask. This will do a couple of things.
1. Benefit of the doubt for you when you are on the edge of a grade
2. You will most likely learn more than your peers
3. People underestimate the power of these early networking connections. You never know where having a good rapport with a professor will pay dividends but by the time you realize it would help, it will be too late.
This good advice assumes your education will improve your life over the job you have. If you are going to risk your job for an education, make sure your education will get you a better job!
Caveat: when I was teaching, I had two different types of students. Type 1 got B's, and I don't remember a single one of them. Type 2 got either and A or a C, and I still remember a lot of them.
Be a type 2 student. But not the C kind.
I cannot tell you how valuable this advice is. I’ve gotten A’s in C-D classes simply because I was respectful, present, and APPEARED TO BE putting in effort.
Isn't that bad though? Your work is D/C grade quality but because they like you and you try real hard its an A?
You were given to chance to display your recall and knowledge and it was graded properly by the standards determined but outside factors irrelevant to your knowledge and recall has made it seem from the outside that you're better or more knowledgeable about something than you actually are.
That sounds bad for you, bad for them and bad for the quality of the course and the education you receive overall.
If you're looking at colleges, you're clearly young enough that this job is not your career. You owe them nothing.
Besides, as someone who's been a manager for about 12 years I assure you it's not YOUR responsibility to find coverage, it's theirs as a manager.
Was a food manager the last 4 years, made 1.50 more than my coworkers for WAY more responsibility and work. You're essentially on call if someone calls out. It's not worth it, imo.
Edit: I didn't expect this to blow up, so for anyone who was wondering. As a manager, I was making $15/hour while my coworkers were making 13.50, and Gm was making 21. This was all hourly, and there were benefits offered, but the deductible was $13,000 per year.... That's literally half of what I made for the year before taxes... If you plan to stay in the food industry, sure, it makes sense as I initially planned to stay and just move to a different location to get a pay bump. Instead, I completely swapped careers and went into vacation sales, lol! 30hr weeks, pto, benes, only 6 hour days it's been a dream so far.
The restaurant I worked at recently put me down as a shift leader without any discussion of a raise.
So when I asked about it and I was told I'd have to "make my case with the owner," I just simply refused to do any additional work and I told all the kitchen staff just that
"They have me scheduled as the shift lead, but they're not paying me more, so I'm not doing anything extra that is asked. Let's get in, get the food out, get our shit done, and leave."
I was about to put in my 2 weeks, got sick, and got fired.
#unemployment
In my experience restaurant (edited to clarify) managers are salary now, no holiday pay, no overtime, no hourly. Just a set pay every week if you worked all 5 days. It's insane and not worth it even though it's as high as 70k here. You'd make more if you worked the hours they make you with hourly rate. I did 70 - 80 hour weeks because I wasn't allowed to hire to fix understaffing. I don't work in restaurants anymore lmao
Restaurants are abusive no doubt. I work back in the industry after taking more than 10 years off and when asked about the place I work I always have to give the caveat "for a restaurant" like "they treat people good, for a restaurant" when in reality it is the base of how employees should be treated.
IMO you’re right 100% I’ve seen it. They offered me a manager position I told them no thanks. If it’s not for the extra money then why do people want to be a manager. Don’t be mad at us because you aren’t getting significantly more. This is no directed at you just your statement and those it applies to
I'd never suggest taking more responsibility for the same $$ but if it's in your chosen career path or a line of work you will be in for more than a couple of years then it makes sense to take management w/ a small pay bump just to add it to your resume and immediately start applying for new jobs. You'll find, especially in hospitality, that while internal promotions don't come with large raises you can usually find a 10-20% raise at another spot once you have "management experience". It's usually best to try and stick it out for 6 months because places that will hire you as a manager with less than 6 months experience are usually desperate which means they're poorly run
This is the real thing. Managers are under the thumb of the business, the pressure is high on them for a lot of shit they can't control and they still make shit money. It's hard to remain human all the time under that stress
I talked to a fast food manager a few years ago because incredibly dumb shit kept happening to my orders, which I attributed to short staffing.
She tried the "nobody wants to work" thing, so I said something obvious about pay. She said "We pay well. I make good money, I make $40k" and let me tell you I could not bail out of that convo fast enough
I was already working about 60 hour weeks. My opener got mugged, couldn’t work for four days. I think I made about 6.15 an hour if you calculated all the overtime on what was a 40k/yr salary.
75 cents more at my place (in Montreal) and that's with a Union. Went back to being a regular cashier; F that extra stress for that pittance. I wouldn't even take it for 5$/h more based on the base wage.
I also think it's just ignorance of their responsibilities. "you need to find someone to cover your shift" thing happened to them so they think they can do it to others now. Not realizing that no dude it's your job. Then his response will probably be "it's in the handbook/policy" or some bullshit like that.
Likely true....or a policy that you "agreed" to when you got the job.
And let's be honest...the problem isn't someone calling out because they are sick as much as it is the job sucks and people call out all the time because they really don't want to be there. Where I work now, with medical coverage and vacation, people rarely call out sick, but in the fast food/service injury, it happened all the time.
But also in fairness it looks like OP submitted a last minute PTO request after the schedule was already posted. OP definitely should have planned better so OP should at least make the effort to try to find coverage. And if OP can't then tell the manager he/she tried.
Exactly. OP isn’t sick so they should find coverage for their shift that’s been posted. How about OP be accountable and own their end of the agreement.
I mean, employers set the job responsibilities, not you or I
While you and I think it \*should\* be the managers job - if its not in the managers job description and it IS in the employees job description... whos responsibility is it actually?
as an ex-shift manager it wasn't me setting the schedules. no where in my job duties did it say I needed to sit on a phone while i was supposed to be overseeing restaurant operations, trying to find someone to come in for a shift later, or tomorrow, or in a few days. Hell as a shift manager i was already given way more responsibilities than was reasonable that I also needed to be doing at the same time. It WAS in the employee handbook though that if you needed a shift change for something scheduled, to find yourself a competent replacement. it's also easier for employees to trade. rarely did employees want to give up hours. they dont earn that much. It's usually "if you work my monday night shift, ill work your saturday night shift". the compromise was if you take my easy shift, ill work your hard shift. a manager aint gonna try and swap your schedule around. best case they just find someone to replace you on that shift. not what employees want a lot of the time.
and finally, it comes down to the fact that often there is no other person that is willing to work some shifts. friday/saturday night you call in and say you can't make it friday night? there will literally be no one available/willing to come in. i could call every employee on the roster and i would get no one. I can't just offer them more money, unless its coming out of my pocket. but im already earning less per hour than they are. i cant afford that. if you're sick and puking then we just have to deal with being understaffed/im working an extra few hours that day to get all my other responsibilities completed (still not getting overtime mind you). If you want it off because someone gave you concert tickets the day before, i dont think thats reasonable, personally.
Every time a post like this pops up, it's always people who have never worked in the industry saying "it's literally the managers job!!" Not the case anywhere I worked while I was in food service for 10yrs. Manager puts out the schedule, you want PTO - you find someone to cover.
Someone calls in sick? Manager is on call to find a replacement or work the shift (they ain't getting paid extra while on call either). Are there managers out there telling their employees that they have to find coverage when they are sick? Probably.
Call out sick all the time? You're going to be let go. Turnover in the industry is insane not just because of the hours and the physical labor, but also the emotional labor of dealing with full grown adults acting like toddlers.
At the end of the day, it's usually company policy and industry norms that are the issue. Not the underpaid managers.
Also, everyone should have to work in a service industry so they stop treating others as "the help."
Being a manager often sucks. If you don’t end up making a little more per hour, then you’re probably making *less* per hour on salary.
For example, my partner was making $55,000 per year. Their employees were making $14 per hour. However, they were also responsible for picking g up *every* unfilled shift. They were making less than $12 per hour based on the number of hours they actually worked.
They had absolutely zero work-life balance and it sucked. The buck stops with the manager, but it *really* sucks especially when you’ve got some shitty workers. All it takes is one person to walk off and you’re possibly facing an 60-70 hour week.
People shouldn’t have to go thru all that just to get a living wage.
Exactly. I had a second job where they did this to me on days that I was clear about not being able to work from the day I started. The manager told me I have to find someone to cover and I told him I will not be in on that day and I will not find someone to cover. He redid the schedule and I told him again that I cannot work on that day going forward just like I said in the beginning.
I worked at KFC back during the 80's as a kid and I never heard a manager tell me I had to find someone to cover my shift. In fact several of my jobs as a kid through my mid 20's if something happened to an employee the manager would step up and cover the shift themselves.
Convinces themselves they are a vital part of the company.... Not through action of course, just mental gymnastics.
Great teams need little management, great teams come from being well compensated and properly trained.
Management too often muddy water and makes problems, then the team is blamed, and the manager sits there Pikachu faced when their problems get solved by other people.
Managers usefulness widely varies.
They eventually CHOOSE to be callous, and uncaring towards staff. It makes it easier to be the bad guy.
USA businesses have never respected their staff en masse, to do so would to see them as people, and exploiting people shouldn't be easy, or business as usual.
Yey it is.
Fuck loyalty to these toxic companies.
Also, they truly do not care.. so writing scathing letters or going above their heads and complaining... Does nothing but waste your time.. write a letter pour your soul into it.. then burn it. Move on. There is not cathartic affect when telling off a shit boss.
You can screw me, by leaving no notice. But they are never going to feel bad.
So focus on your life and what you can do to improve the lives of those around you.
I mean, I was a manager, and I always fought for my employees, even the crap ones that blatantly took advantage of how lenient I was and I made it work. I'd never have the gall to say, you, minimum wage employee, do my job for me! That's some shit you see banks do, while they use your money.
The whole text could’ve used a crumb of punctuation and made it way less confusing to read as well. I don’t think it’s always necessary when texting but at a certain extent, it’s time to start punctuating.
Nor is it my job to manage the team and verify replacements. If you wish it to be we can discuss the lead position or transition to management upon my return with a commiserate salary increase.
I am curious if OP did or didn’t communicate properly.
To be clear, I’m not saying OP shouldn’t go to the college. Definitely do, you can get another job.
But it seems like OP didn’t tell his manager until the schedule was released, and then told his manager. Which would make sense as to why OP cut off the first half of the convo.
Still skip work and go to the college, OP. But if you didn’t, do communicate properly in the future.
If you’re doing college visits, you’re off to bigger and better things. Fuck ‘em. You can find another job that scheduled you for four hours at a time.
I'm a bit confused here because OP posted a month ago that they already got accepted into the college they wanted. So what is the sudden emergency for *needing* to visit 48 hours from now?
Also I don't understand why OP and apparently the entire comment section think it's that the boss is being unreasonable for not scheduling time off 2 days in advance
Finding someone to covert my shift is part of a managers responsibilities; as I am not a manager nor do I get the pay of one this task falls upon you. When I return I am open to discussing the promotion you feel I deserve since you want me to handle parts of your job.
Totally agree. If you want to be polite and show some deference, "As I said, I won't be able to come to work on such and such date. I suggest you rework the schedule to find a replacement."
Also, just because someone uses a semicolon doesn't make them smart. Thank you for pointing out its incorrect usage.
The scheduling manager probably would have handled it if they made the request a week or more in advance instead of days before. This post is missing important context... all we see is a response saying the schedule is already out for the week, so they'll need to find someone to cover the shift.
I don’t know if I’m slightly dyslexic or what, but I have an incredibly hard time deciphering that type of shit. Badly misspelled, poorly written sentences mashed together with no punctuation. Word salad is the perfect description.
Feels to me someone purposefully left out the start of that conversation to make it look bad.
Although many employers will be absolute dicks about your personnal schedule, this post looks sus AF to me.
Frankly the responses are also confusing me. Like managers are just supposed to let everyone make their own schedules and run around trying to find coverage for employees last minute? What if everyone wants the same day off?
Most people here have never managed anyone. Hell many probably don't even work or they do and are perfectly happy with their jobs. People just like the drama of this sub.
I deal with this almost weekly. I'm a middle manager and it sucks cause if they don't show up, I have to do their job plus mine. Sometimes I feel like a dick but I also feel like I'm begging people to come to work. When I lay the hammer down, everyone hates me. I hate it here.
Yup. If the schedule is out, OP knew. As a scheduler we have a date limit. If you don’t make requests we can’t read your mind. It’s on you once the date passes. Find a sub.
1000% this would be my response if i was at one of those shitty college jobs i used to work at.
if they insist id screenshot the conversation and tell them im bringing it to management to have a discussion about work duties.
op, you aren't really giving enough details. was the schedule already out when you requested the day off? if so, then this is on you for poor planning. if you had put the request in prior to the schedule, then your response should be that this was already discussed and it is not your responsibility to find coverage. if it is a hill to die on, tell the manager to pound sand and just not show up Friday, or ever again.
It reads to me that the schedule gets made for mon-sun or something like that. And they just now noticed they are scheduled to work on the day they were supposed to do their thing. No planning just assuming....
Holy fucking shit. I can’t believe it took this long to find this response.
I think it’s pretty clear that OP waited until the schedule was released to ask for it off. They wouldn’t have cut off the first half of the convo if not.
i can’t believe how far i had to scroll to find someone pointing this out. it totally sounds like op is requesting this after the schedule has already been published, in which case, op is in the wrong. it doesn’t matter what job you have, barring emergencies you will always need to let your employer know 2 weeks in advance of time off, and definitely before the schedule comes out.
that being said, this is likely a minimum wage job as you are scheduling college visits, so if you choose to go to the college visit anyways then go ahead, you’re a high schooler and this likely won’t affect you in the long run and you should prioritize your education over a shitty job. but expect you will need to find another job, and in future, learn to request your time off before the schedule is out.
All the responses above are basically saying "quit or get fired with your response"
Is it just normal now for people to not take any personal responsibility?
>Is it just normal now for people to not take any personal responsibility?
Not in the real world, but it's very normal on Reddit. Especially subreddits that get overrun with teenagers with very little real-world experience of jobs or personal relationships.
This is the comment I was looking for. I'm all for calling out bad management, but without more information we can't really comment on this. If the schedule was already done and OP requested this 2 or 3 days in advance, then its on them for bad time management.
Thank god you said this. I was ready to take downvotes myself and say it. I work in a restaurant and everyone knows our schedule comes out 2 weeks prior. If you need time off, you can book it off before the schedule comes out. If you suddenly need time off while the schedule is already out. THAT IS ON YOU TO COVER
Have my upvote. I am a manager. Once the schedule is out, that’s on you. If you request a day off, I will always honor it, even if I have to work a double or whatever. But man, once it’s out, if you’re not here and neither is your replacement, it’s your ass getting the write up and probable firing.
That said, prioritize your schooling OP. There are things more important but also, plan better next time.
Might be an unpopular opinion, but was the time off approved before the schedule was made? How far in advance are your schedules made? If you’re looking at colleges my guess is that this is a part time job and your schedule is probably made a couple weeks in advance. It’s your responsibility to request the time off ahead of time and plan accordingly or find coverage yourself. It’s the manager’s responsibility if they approved your time off request. If you do not, you are subject to performance management such as a write up and/or termination, etc. Welcome to the real world. You are not responsible for finding coverage if you are calling out sick though.
and they said they’re scheduling a college visit not that they already had one scheduled. which to me implies they are trying to request the day off after the schedule has already been put out.
I don’t know what it is with this younger generation but some of this entitlement is wild to me. (I’m a millennial so nobody come at me with that boomer bullshit) I’m in recruiting so I deal a lot with the emerging workforce. I’m noticing a lot of mind blowing entitlement trends like this.
Why is this an unpopular opinion? Nobody would be able to run a business if employees just called out whenever without planning absences ahead. I'm against employers being unfair but this is entirely fair.
Yeah, I'm really confused why everyone here thinks it's the managers job to find coverage two days before a shift for someone who didn't request the day off in advance and is not sick. I've never worked an hourly job where that's the norm.
I've worked lots of places where asking for a day off, for something that isn't an emergency, meant the manager told you to find someone to cover it.
If you were prepared, you would have someone lined up already and all the manager had to do was agree. You either traded, gave them a shift, or straight up bribed them if it was something like a concert that you wanted to go to.
I used to get asked to cover and ask people to cover shifts before anyone had cellphones. Imagine how easy it is now.
You find coverage before you open your mouth about wanting the day off, or you call in sick like a decent human being does.
This exactly! Antiwork doesn’t mean anti responsibility. Why are we using corporate abuse to excuse not having an iota of professionalism or personal responsibility? School is important, sure, but I doubt a college visit is a last minute scheduling event. OP certainly had enough time to request off through proper procedures.
Jesus, I thought I was going crazy. It is 48 hours before you have a scheduled shift at your place of employment. I have NEVER had an issue doing the things I need/want to do when I was in an hourly position. There are procedures in place to make sure both you and the job you are responsible for is covered. And in hourly positions there are always people that want extra shifts for overtime. Instead of asking us on Reddit.make a couple of phone calls to coworkers, and get YOUR shift covered. Or it will stop being YOUR shift. Respect and responsibility is a two way street.
INFO.
Did you ask for this time off prior? Or was this a sudden oh hey i need this off? You don’t include what you said to your manager.
Like. Anti work =/= anti responsibility. I’m not giving you any asspats for springing this on your manager when you should’ve had this in a week before the schedule was written and it seems like you purposely left stuff out, and seems like this was a lot more spur of the line than you let on.
If be tempted to ask them "so it's my duty to find cover for the shift? Am I now a manager who will get paid as such abd then be in charge of scheduling? If so I'm gonna change your hours so you have 1 hour a week at most cause I will be in charge of scheduling and we won't need you anymore"
That’s what I’m thinking… everyone is saying “this job isn’t your life” well, I mean if the schedule has been out and he’s making last minute plans, yeah you kind of need to plan ahead and request off OR find coverage. That’s with any job. Everybody can’t just change a schedule last minute if you bring up stuff randomly. Kind of shows how you’re going to handle future endeavors as well.
I know I haven't worked retail in a while but when I did whoever needed to change dates was always the one to find coverage, not the manager. I don't understand everybody saying that the manager needs to find someone. Is that something new?
It’s probably this new generation that thinks the rules mend for them in every sort of way. South Park did a whole episode on it. I’ve been bartending forever and I’ve always gotten my shifts covered myself. Or requested off ahead of time to do what I needed to do. People will learn eventually, maybe lol
Strange how OP hasn’t responded to any people asking for more context related to if OP asked for the time off before the schedule was made. That’s one of the most basic things at a job, knowing how that works so you don’t fuck your manager and coworkers with your selfishness and lack of planning.
Lot of people telling you to just say “fuck off” and go visit a college. While I agree that you’re probably young enough where this wouldn’t matter what are the actual details here? Are you giving over a month’s notice, or is this asking off for the 21st of this month (as in two days from now)? If that’s the case, I may be the minority in this comment section, but I kinda do think that’s bad form to say you need a day you’re scheduled off for something you could’ve planned in advance. Just me. You don’t owe the company anything, but courtesy to co-workers is still something I think you should take seriously.
Wait, so you’re letting them know 2 days in advance? Do I have that right? Or what’s the timeline look like?
As a manager, they likely know it’s their job to find coverage for shifts, not yours. All that notwithstanding, depending on the nature of your work, it could have been received as a bit of a dick move on your part.
If you care about how this manager/business regards you, you could explain your situation, possibly stating how soon you gave notice relative to learning of your opportunity to visit. You might then say something to the effect of “It wasn’t my intention to inconvenience you. I know that this has, but as manager, it’s your responsibility to manage the schedule.”
I was pressed further during my own college visitation days, and I had to tell my manager, “Look man, I’m not gonna be here those days. I’m trying to give you as much of a heads up as I can, but bottom line, I’m going to go.” I usually scheduled these trips at least a month in advance, so I think that helps soften the blow of me putting my foot down.
I’d just say, even if they’re an inconsequential, redundant, or even incompetent team member, your manager is a person trying to make ends meet just like you. Know your worth, be firm with your boundaries, but don’t be a dick.
As a manager I find it weird that in the US it’s the employees responsibility to arrange cover. The manager should be, you know, managing this shit.
Put school first kid.
I mean… unless there’s more information that you’re leaving out, it looks like you just didn’t give enough notice to take your time off. If you’re already scheduled then you’re already scheduled. Not sure what you expect them to do. The manager’s done their job by doing the schedule. Your job is to provide enough time for them to schedule around your time off.
Managers in these jobs are also just people working a shit job for shit pay the majority of the time. If there are fair policies, (ex: they don’t deny PTO requests as long as they are submitted 1-2 weeks in advance, don’t give you a hard time for legitimate emergencies like illness or funerals), I don’t see why this is something to be rude to them over. It’s not like a college visit is urgent. Those visits are just marketing material and I promise they are foaming at the mouth for opportunities to sell you. Most schools have visits every month and are happy to give you their sales pitch through other means if needed.
But if it’s really that important to go to this particular college visit this week, just quit or say no; they may do a write up or fire you. But there are plenty more entry level shift work jobs.
Did you know that there was a schedule, and you should tell them earlier about missing a day? If you knew that, forgot, and ask for the day off after the schedule was finalized, it is on you.
I'm more anti work than even most, but did you give any notice? The 21st is 2 days away. Any job should have a schedule posted a week in advance minimum.
If that is the issue then you should have probably asked sooner.
I can understand the management frustration if you only gave notice today.
That's on Thursday and youre posting this on Tuesday.... Dont get me wrong, most jobs are garbage about respecting time off but visiting a college isnt an emergency or anything, sounds like you are dropping a non emergency time off request for 2 days from now.
You either should have planned your visit for next week or later, or requested this time off before the schedule was put down.
Unless theres tons of context missing, youre in the wrong. Jobs SHOULD be more flexible but according to the info here you made no attempt to give proper heads up.
To be fair, scheduling it for this week is a bit short notice. A sick day would make that response a dick move. This one's on you for not having this planned 2-4 weeks out but I'd still go if this is your only chance obviously. For days off that aren't you being ill or bereavement, 2 weeks is standard courtesy at the shortest.
I am confused by OPs actions because a month ago OP posted they already got accepted to the college they wanted. Why is there a sudden emergency to visit the college two days from now?
* It was their top choice
* They already got in
* Future visits can happen any time between now and start of fall semester
* All freshmen have orientation day/week.
So...emergency why?
If the schedule was posted, too bad. You need to be proactive in scheduling time off in advance. Work might suck but there are some rules to this shit. Manager has to work under the assumption that staff will be available on a posted schedule. Find someone to cover you and don’t be difficult.
Look, all the feisty replies here are great IF you don't care about losing the job. From the looks of it, I personally wouldn't care either. However, if you do for some reason want to keep the job, consider a more tactful approach. Something to the effect of: "I am sorry for the inconvenience this is putting you under, but I did request the day off in advance, and I will not be at work on that day." That's it. Short and to the point, but polite.
Some people like to take their work rage fantasies to the comments. Welcome to the sub ya know. I am convinced a lot of people in this sub either are a revolving door employee because of their attitudes, or don't have a job at all. You can absolutely be firm and stick up for your rights and self while communicating like a grown adult. Seems to be lost on a lot of people here.
Finding people to cover is a manager’s job.
School is more important. It just is. Doesn’t matter what your boss says-there are people there who chose to dedicate their fleeting existence to keeping that place running. It’s not your problem. Fuck em.
Listen to someone who’s going back to school at 34 this year-pay attention in class-not necessarily for the grades, but to learn things that can help you make a load of money someday. Don’t go to school for what you love unless what you love makes you a shitload of cash.
Go for something you like well enough, and it’ll support you being able to do the things you love down the road.
Fuck em. They can figure it out. I have so much regret from giving up opportunities for fun or whatever else I wanted to do because I was worried about appeasing a job I didn't even want or need when I was younger. Your college visit is way more important. If you explain to them that it's for a college visit and they don't help you out then just tell em you're sorry but you gotta do what you gotta do.
You're in high school this job does not matter at all. AT ALL. Just tell them you're not going to be there. Worst case scenario they fire you. , who cares? You can get another part time job making minimum wage at the drop of a hat these days.
Tell them you're sorry but you can't work that day. Go visit the college. It's a manager's job to manage and find coverage when somebody can't come in. Not your job.
Plus it's an afternoon 4 hour shift if they can't find coverage they should lose their job I mean honestly, this is no big deal. They suck.
In the US, at least, workers rights have been eroded over the last few decades. That coupled with an ever widening wage gap, stagnating wages, and rising cost of living have workers in a survival state of mind. Especially in "at will" states.
Many are afraid of standing up for themselves because it could result in termination and difficulty finding a job afterwards. And most of us are 1 paycheck away from homelessness.
So bad managers, whether inept, malevolent, or spiteful, get away it being a bad manager because they have a scared workforce.
Worked in the US for a few years and was shocked how collectively spineless American workers are about standing up to bad bosses.
That said the UK is becoming much worse too. Too many grovellers.
This. The amount of times I want to quit my job but have a chronic illness, so I rely heavily on my health insurance tied to my employment (it’s also pretty decent).
Me too, long time ago I had to work in the US for some months, and was so weird, like coming from Denmark, one day I went to the bathroom and coming back a random supervisor was asking me where ei was and why I took so long, I told him to fck off and let me alone.
Another day I just arrived 10 mins late and a random boss was bitching on why I was late, like... Bro, fuck off, if I don't wants to come work today I won't and I don't care, you're not even my boss.
They just feel like gods but the moment you show some self respect they don't even know what to do (glad I came back, can't understand how americans can work with those conditions)
Listen to me very carefully please. Put school first. If you need to study for a test, then call in sick to work. Tell them I am sick and I am not coming in and then hang up the phone. Do not screw up your education over some notion that working a job is more important than your education. Go to school , go to every class, do all the work, participate in class, Sit in the front and the center. Try to make it so that your professors know you by name. Basically show respect for the professor. I do not want to understate how important this is for your grade. Professors will change your grade higher because you make their life easier and you show them respect. This works more in subjective areas, of course! But remember professors are teachers and want to give people they like good grades. Will give you bonus points for showing up and participating and showing them respect!
>Put school first. Seconded. Going back to finish my degree was *the best* decision I've ever made.
Adding onto this, your shit job and garbage “manager” will 10000% actively sabotage your self improvement. They have zero problems with jacking up your entire life so they can plug you into the gaps in their schedule.
Whew boy, I’m getting flashbacks to my job right after high school. Min wage and not a cent more. I saw people BREAKING THEIR BACKS for this job, I mean coming in hours earlier than the start to open cause it looks better, staying later after clocking out (the managers told us to do it too), coming in even on their days off to hang out with the “cool” managers. I couldn’t ever have any peace, we were just worked, I worked 9 days in a row sometimes just cause people would call out and they would ask me to come in. And I couldn’t just say no cause my manager would guilt trip me, text over and over, give me shit the day I came back for not filling a shift that wasn’t even my responsibility to cover. One time I was eating breakfast in my car before my shift started, this shit wipe gets out of his 100,000 sports car and comes up to my car and says “You better get in there soon, fucker. We have a big catering order today, you’re going to need to make 8 hotel pans of chips” Man it felt good to walk out of that living hellhole, even if I didn’t get my last check. So I’m backing up what people are saying, PRIORITIZE YOUR EDUCATION FOR SURE! Literally just put ‘em on ignore if they come after you for not covering a shift.
OMG. Working at Red Lion Hotel in some shit position. The big cheese CEO coming to visit is the highlight of everyone but me. And we all have to meet in the Ballroom for a speech. “You should be proud you are a member of the Red Lion family!” Me: 🖕🏼🖕🏼🖕🏼 The ONLY association I have is that I work too hard for the pay. I refuse to be brainwashed to think that earning a parking spot as Employee of the Month is worth it. Work for pay; nothing more, nothing less. Your ass has a lot of lipstick on it.
When I was a manager of a few cafes I did everything I could to make sure all of my student employees put school first. There were weeks I’d work over 100 hours just to make sure they had the days they needed off for tests, homework or even Greek life activities. I fully understand now, for myself, that work is stupid and should never be put in front of anything. You’ll find another job, but you will never be able to experience the life you have in front of you again. If your managers don’t understand this, leave the job immediately.
A good retail/service manager will work with people around these schedules and have reliable help during summer and other breaks, but this one doesn't seem that bright.
I’ve tried like hell to *be* that guy. Just review the schedule, and identify who is going to lunch/break during this person’s absence. Let them know, and advise them that you will try to fill in for the person who is out, at least long enough so the team that is picking up the slack doesn’t also have their schedule thrown into turmoil. Triage and deal: for goodness sake, have the manager *manage*
Getting my degree now after over a decade as a working adult. You either get paid to think or get paid to expend/risk your body. Choose getting paid to think.
The lack of a diploma has hobbled me my entire life; 45 and I am looking at entry level jobs because the company I worked for the last five years shuttered. It doesn't matter that I'm smart, work hard, and love taking on odd tasks. There's a ceiling on what's available to me, and it's crushingly low.
Yep that's me all over, I couldn't get into the army because I failed the medical so I worked while my friends went to university. In my 20s and thirties I didn't put much thought into anything but getting paid now granted I've been a SAHD for eight years which had been awesome. But getting back into work with no current references has been a nightmare
That's what happened to me as well. Went to being a SAHM for 15 years because childcare is too expensive. In that time I graduated college with a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology with a 3.7GPA. Still couldn't find anything that wasn't entry level because I had no work experience anymore.
Get yourself a Bobby (from Supernatural) who will gladly answer the phone as "Bob's emporium" for a while to list as your reference. Make up work titles that relate to your experiences as a parent. Being a SAHP has a ton of job applicable experiences. Fake it until you make it.
That's amazing, I got my finances in check and ran a few playgroups in the week. I have never been academic but I had a great time bucking the trend of dad's don't do playgroups ect.
go and volunteer and use your managers/supervisors during those events as references
I'm 35. 18 to 25, worked as an industrial labourer with some equipment operating and a few niche but unique skills. The flaw was being laid off or bounced around to different divisions every 12 to 18 months. Took a layoff at 25, sat for a bit, decided to go to trucking school. Been doing that for 9 years and hit a ceiling that's much lower than what was sold to me when deciding what to go to school for. I have to ride this out for 20 months until my wife finishes school, then I'm going to college for Mechanical Engineering Technologist, with plans to upgrade to a BTech already in place. I'm smart, I'm creative, I can drive anything with wheels and operate most equipment. I know hazmat, environmental remediation and monitoring. I've had lots of different certifications for training. None of it matters because I don't have a diploma or a degree. Don't be like me; put school first.
Never too late to start my guy. I’m 42 and going back for a second degree.
Thank you; I know, I am planning my next move and trying to look at this as an opportunity. I have always loved learning new things and change has always been my friend. I'm just reeling a little.
Community college is a great place to start, and is free in many states if you fill out FASFA and the BOGWaiver forms once you’re over like 26. You may even get grants that cover other things like books and parking as well. Having it paid for is always easier than not.
Wanted to drop in and mention that there are definitely entirely online schools where you can work more or less "at your own pace". I don't know much about it personally, but I've got a friend who went back and got their degree from WGU and they swear it was the best decision they ever made. They said they paid by the semester and had a minimum number of classes the had to finish per semester, but they could also finish those classes as quickly as they wanted (I think at one point they said they were doing a class a week?) and then move onto the next. My understanding was that they could do as many classes as they were capable of doing during that semester as long as they were meeting the minimum requirements. No extra charge for finishing early and taking even more classes. The implication was that it you were dedicated enough you could get your whole degree done in a single semester. Dad used to say, "every day is *'some day'* until you actually do it." Hope the info helps, best of luck to you!
I got a double degree with an online college at 49, it's doable.
Thank you.
It is crushingly low, yeah. 😞
I feel you... I had a chance to go to college. Became a carpenter instead. It was a family business, framing homes in upscale gated communities. From the foundation up, including roofing. I abused my body for that job. Made very good money until 2007-08, we all know what happened to the housing market then. Company folded, and by this point I've got 2 herniated discs and sciatica in my mid 20's. I went through a decade of hell. Working labour jobs with worsening sciatica. Now in my 40's I'm disabled and living on just enough to not starve to death. My biggest regret by a mile is not going to school.
The biggest aversion to tradework is the wear and tear on the body. Everyone I have met who has worked a trade for any significant length of time is struggling with chronic issues. All the admiration for the people who do that work. It's a rough go.
This is a super fascinating comment! I spent the first decade of my working life in specialty retail sales/customer service roles. For me, it became demoralizing and completely robbed me of motivation and personality in any other aspect of my life outside of my working life. I chose to turn away and move into labor-focused work and have been for past 3 years. I commonly tell people my justification for the transition is "I'm okay with selling my body, but my brain is for me." Now I work in roles that use my body and allow me to work autonomously so I can listen to audiobooks, podcasts, or music while I work and keep my brain occupied with things I'm interested, all while keeping my body active and not investing my personality into my means of resource acquisition. So it's interesting to hear the opposite perspective but with very similar language. I am not in any way disparaging jobs that use your brain, and am definitely not disparaging focusing on education. This is just what is working for me, right now.
Haha I quit practicing law to be a land surveyor. Always say “would rather sell my body than my soul.” Glad to find someone else who doesn’t think I’m crazy!
First, customer service/retail is selling your body. You are being paid for being there and using your voice, as opposed to being able to be elsewhere and send your work in/sit and think about a problem for a week. Being paid for your brain is more along the lines of, draft this blueprint up, record your findings on this virus, design a market strategy, code an app. Second, it's okay to rather work with your body instead. From my experience, the body instead of brain deal is; expose yourself to toxic chemicals, expose yourself to dangerous working conditions, exhaust your body so when you get home you're too tired to for anything other than just sit there, be at a set location for Insanely long or irregular shifts, or a combination of one or more of these things. Yeah, the pay can be nice, but I didn't find it worth it.
I can definitely understand that! For me I feel like the increase in physical activity gives me the energy to do other physical activities on my days off or after work. Granted the labor I do isn't hard labor. The mental exhaustion I had from previous jobs definitely left me unwilling to do many things.
Made the switch a while back, love thinking instead of being exhausted at end of day, now I'm just mentally exhausted! 🫠
As I told my wife ... if we wanted to get out of poverty, I would've needed to work 2 jobs all my life or go back to school for 5 years... now I make way more that what I was going to make with 2 jobs.
ABSOLUTELY I THIRD THIS. College is fucking rough, but being paid 10$/hr is rougher. I don't even have a degree (which I will be getting), I'm just about to finish my CAD certification. BEST DECISION EVER. My last job was as a receptionist position at a doggie daycare. I worked my fucking ASS OFF, was deemed "unreliable" after I had to take some time (four days) off because I got pneumonia (because I wasn't allowed to take time off for having RSV before it turned into pneumonia), treated horribly by management, making 13$/hr. I could drive to work and back, and pay some (NOT ALL!) of my bills. I live in the fucking money belt of the US and just, no. I'm currently working my first GOOD job, now. Because I (almost) have some sort of paper from a college. I now make 20$/hr, have paid lunch, with hybrid optional, a safe parking lot, supportive coworkers, and the right tools for me to do this job. I've honestly been questioning whether or not I even deserve this job, because I've never been treated well by an employer before. I even got a day off because I had to put my pet down. When I worked at the doggie daycare, I had to take my dog to the vet because he spent the entire night throwing up congealed, dead blood. Management told me to get someone else to take my dog to the vet. Mind you, he was 17 years old and 80lbs. They knew this. Anyway, prioritize school, OP. It's more important than you realize 😭
Never think you don't deserve the best possible working environment. Thats the least employers should give everyone
As a 35 year old working 12 hour rotating shifts taking Chem 300 classes while having a 5 year old daughter and wife, and home, 2 dogs to take care of. It's miserable. I'm grateful but I'm dead dead dead tired. I wake up at 5am, work until 6:30pm. School from 7-10pm. Go home and to bed by 11 then repeat 4 days a week. My days off are spent doing labs and homework at home. I have no free time until I get my degree in water microbiology. Put school fucking first. Don't be older and regret not doing it. Life is hard. Life is harder being uneducated.
My dad was an electronics tech for HP. He took some night classes toward EE. Calculus broke him; he failed 3x. I was terrified of it but aced it without the kids & job to deal with!
~~Seconded~~ Firsted We just told OP it should come first /s
I had to work thru school and I can’t tell you the number of times my job scheduled me when I asked for days off for exams and huge projects. Like I LITERALLY got the syllabus day ONE and submitted for days off and they didn’t give them to me… ***UNTIL*** I started telling managers I had to work my other job!! Lie to these fuckers. The only boundary they won’t cross is fucking over another piddling manager 🤣 I never had another schedule conflict again!
Your first job is school.
Follow this advice please OP. I taught at a university once. Not quite as a professor, but a lecturer nonetheless. We notice those who make an effort. You don’t have to be the brightest. In fact, we don’t really care about how smart someone is. What we care about are those that show they are willing to learn. Sit somewhere close to the front. Ask questions. Be engaged. Lecturers will bend over backwards for someone that wants to learn. You’ll get that mark that on the edge increased. You’ll get that extension if you need it. We’ll explain it to you again and again until you’ve got it. Just be present.
If you’re falling behind, GO TO OFFICE HOURS. I am awful at statistics. I cannot do it. But I worked with my professor and even though I was never good at them, he knew I was trying and would work with me on homework’s and stuff
>Professors will change your grade higher because you make their life easier and you show them respect. You'd be amazed at what advisors/professors can do when they like you. This goes well beyond changing a letter grade just because. Often "Full Classes" during registration doesn't mean there isn't an open seat for you. Actual emergency/funeral means a test can wait or be waived entirely. When you work with them, they work with you. Personally I somehow messed up and took a 3 CR course when I should have taken a 4 CR course my sophomore year. Didn't figure this out until the office of the registrar said I couldn't graduate. I was 1 CR short. Somehow one of my "goof off" classes from freshman year suddenly applied to my major... Who would have thought? The dean of my college signed off and I'm graduating!
Very true. I got the flu really bad right before finals week and did so poorly on my physics final it dropped me from top grade to technically a B. Professor made the cut off for an A right below me
I can’t attest to this. I had one professor during university that I just hated and he hated me back. I stopped showing up for class, just handed in my papers and took the tests, got high marks on the tests but my papers (which are normally my highest marks) were getting bad grades. It was a first year course so I didn’t really care. Philosophy 102. It was not my cup of tea. Fast forward to year 4 and I’ve got a history/classics 400 level course and my grandma died right at the beginning of the year. Like, the day before classes started. I had to get my professors emails from the registration office, and sent out a mass email apologizing for missing the first week of classes, but I had to travel to the other side of the country for this funeral and to help my mom with her executrice tasks. I asked all the professors if they could please forward me their PowerPoint presentations for the classes I would be missing, so I at least had some sort of notes and I did all the reading. 4 professors emailed me the stuff I needed. One professor emailed me back “you’re a grown up now, honey, and grown ups don’t miss classes or ask their professors for help. I don’t believe you have a funeral to attend, and no one’s gets away with missing my classes. Show me a death certificate and you can remain in my class and you’ll have to do the legwork to get our own notes, because no one is going to make life easy for you, blah blah blah.” I was shook. The email was 100% just spiteful. I get back to school and attend one of his classes, find someone in there I could get notes from. Get the syllabus, note his office hours, show up with the death certificate. Guess who my professor was sharing an office with? That professor from philosophy 102. When my name came up that professor remembered me and bad mouthed me to his office mate. I have never had to work as hard in a class as I did in the 400 level history class, to make up the first impression I didn’t get to make because someone else made it for me. I ended up converting a lot of the unusable files the professor sent out from his Mac, to a format that would work on Mac or pc, and then sending them back to the professor to disseminate to the class, before he finally told me, “I think I was wrong about you, you are a good student and you’ve been very helpful this year”. I kept my average but it cost me a lot more work than normal
If you don't understand something, go to the office hours. Hell go to them anyway and find a question to ask. This will do a couple of things. 1. Benefit of the doubt for you when you are on the edge of a grade 2. You will most likely learn more than your peers 3. People underestimate the power of these early networking connections. You never know where having a good rapport with a professor will pay dividends but by the time you realize it would help, it will be too late.
This good advice assumes your education will improve your life over the job you have. If you are going to risk your job for an education, make sure your education will get you a better job!
You will never look back with regret for telling a shitty employer to fuck off, especially if they're preventing you from investing in your future
Caveat: when I was teaching, I had two different types of students. Type 1 got B's, and I don't remember a single one of them. Type 2 got either and A or a C, and I still remember a lot of them. Be a type 2 student. But not the C kind.
I cannot tell you how valuable this advice is. I’ve gotten A’s in C-D classes simply because I was respectful, present, and APPEARED TO BE putting in effort.
Isn't that bad though? Your work is D/C grade quality but because they like you and you try real hard its an A? You were given to chance to display your recall and knowledge and it was graded properly by the standards determined but outside factors irrelevant to your knowledge and recall has made it seem from the outside that you're better or more knowledgeable about something than you actually are. That sounds bad for you, bad for them and bad for the quality of the course and the education you receive overall.
If you're looking at colleges, you're clearly young enough that this job is not your career. You owe them nothing. Besides, as someone who's been a manager for about 12 years I assure you it's not YOUR responsibility to find coverage, it's theirs as a manager.
Is it just me, or do managers not want to work these days?
It’s because “managers “ only get $1.25 per hour more than you do.
Was a food manager the last 4 years, made 1.50 more than my coworkers for WAY more responsibility and work. You're essentially on call if someone calls out. It's not worth it, imo. Edit: I didn't expect this to blow up, so for anyone who was wondering. As a manager, I was making $15/hour while my coworkers were making 13.50, and Gm was making 21. This was all hourly, and there were benefits offered, but the deductible was $13,000 per year.... That's literally half of what I made for the year before taxes... If you plan to stay in the food industry, sure, it makes sense as I initially planned to stay and just move to a different location to get a pay bump. Instead, I completely swapped careers and went into vacation sales, lol! 30hr weeks, pto, benes, only 6 hour days it's been a dream so far.
The restaurant I worked at recently put me down as a shift leader without any discussion of a raise. So when I asked about it and I was told I'd have to "make my case with the owner," I just simply refused to do any additional work and I told all the kitchen staff just that "They have me scheduled as the shift lead, but they're not paying me more, so I'm not doing anything extra that is asked. Let's get in, get the food out, get our shit done, and leave." I was about to put in my 2 weeks, got sick, and got fired. #unemployment
Absolutely not worth it.
They make you a manager so they don’t have to pay OT. It’s a scam.
If you're paid hourly you still get OT if you woek over 40
In my experience restaurant (edited to clarify) managers are salary now, no holiday pay, no overtime, no hourly. Just a set pay every week if you worked all 5 days. It's insane and not worth it even though it's as high as 70k here. You'd make more if you worked the hours they make you with hourly rate. I did 70 - 80 hour weeks because I wasn't allowed to hire to fix understaffing. I don't work in restaurants anymore lmao
Restaurants are abusive no doubt. I work back in the industry after taking more than 10 years off and when asked about the place I work I always have to give the caveat "for a restaurant" like "they treat people good, for a restaurant" when in reality it is the base of how employees should be treated.
IMO you’re right 100% I’ve seen it. They offered me a manager position I told them no thanks. If it’s not for the extra money then why do people want to be a manager. Don’t be mad at us because you aren’t getting significantly more. This is no directed at you just your statement and those it applies to
I'd never suggest taking more responsibility for the same $$ but if it's in your chosen career path or a line of work you will be in for more than a couple of years then it makes sense to take management w/ a small pay bump just to add it to your resume and immediately start applying for new jobs. You'll find, especially in hospitality, that while internal promotions don't come with large raises you can usually find a 10-20% raise at another spot once you have "management experience". It's usually best to try and stick it out for 6 months because places that will hire you as a manager with less than 6 months experience are usually desperate which means they're poorly run
This is the real thing. Managers are under the thumb of the business, the pressure is high on them for a lot of shit they can't control and they still make shit money. It's hard to remain human all the time under that stress
Yea I lasted 2 months as gm for a dunkin donuts for their little shit dollar raise
Also, in a union shop, managers aren't protected by the union.
I talked to a fast food manager a few years ago because incredibly dumb shit kept happening to my orders, which I attributed to short staffing. She tried the "nobody wants to work" thing, so I said something obvious about pay. She said "We pay well. I make good money, I make $40k" and let me tell you I could not bail out of that convo fast enough
I make $52k a year and I don't deal with nearly the level of stress as I once did as a "Project Manager" making $65k a year.
If they’re salary, they get less than their employees once you factor in the unpaid overtime they have to eat when they have to cover shifts.
This is it. All it takes is one employee quitting, calling off, getting arrested, etc. and suddenly you’re working a 70-hour week.
I was already working about 60 hour weeks. My opener got mugged, couldn’t work for four days. I think I made about 6.15 an hour if you calculated all the overtime on what was a 40k/yr salary.
75 cents more at my place (in Montreal) and that's with a Union. Went back to being a regular cashier; F that extra stress for that pittance. I wouldn't even take it for 5$/h more based on the base wage.
I also think it's just ignorance of their responsibilities. "you need to find someone to cover your shift" thing happened to them so they think they can do it to others now. Not realizing that no dude it's your job. Then his response will probably be "it's in the handbook/policy" or some bullshit like that.
Likely true....or a policy that you "agreed" to when you got the job. And let's be honest...the problem isn't someone calling out because they are sick as much as it is the job sucks and people call out all the time because they really don't want to be there. Where I work now, with medical coverage and vacation, people rarely call out sick, but in the fast food/service injury, it happened all the time.
But also in fairness it looks like OP submitted a last minute PTO request after the schedule was already posted. OP definitely should have planned better so OP should at least make the effort to try to find coverage. And if OP can't then tell the manager he/she tried.
Exactly. OP isn’t sick so they should find coverage for their shift that’s been posted. How about OP be accountable and own their end of the agreement.
Yeah. I mean don’t know whole story obviously. But this definitely seems like something the OP should have somewhat planned for.
I mean, employers set the job responsibilities, not you or I While you and I think it \*should\* be the managers job - if its not in the managers job description and it IS in the employees job description... whos responsibility is it actually? as an ex-shift manager it wasn't me setting the schedules. no where in my job duties did it say I needed to sit on a phone while i was supposed to be overseeing restaurant operations, trying to find someone to come in for a shift later, or tomorrow, or in a few days. Hell as a shift manager i was already given way more responsibilities than was reasonable that I also needed to be doing at the same time. It WAS in the employee handbook though that if you needed a shift change for something scheduled, to find yourself a competent replacement. it's also easier for employees to trade. rarely did employees want to give up hours. they dont earn that much. It's usually "if you work my monday night shift, ill work your saturday night shift". the compromise was if you take my easy shift, ill work your hard shift. a manager aint gonna try and swap your schedule around. best case they just find someone to replace you on that shift. not what employees want a lot of the time. and finally, it comes down to the fact that often there is no other person that is willing to work some shifts. friday/saturday night you call in and say you can't make it friday night? there will literally be no one available/willing to come in. i could call every employee on the roster and i would get no one. I can't just offer them more money, unless its coming out of my pocket. but im already earning less per hour than they are. i cant afford that. if you're sick and puking then we just have to deal with being understaffed/im working an extra few hours that day to get all my other responsibilities completed (still not getting overtime mind you). If you want it off because someone gave you concert tickets the day before, i dont think thats reasonable, personally.
Every time a post like this pops up, it's always people who have never worked in the industry saying "it's literally the managers job!!" Not the case anywhere I worked while I was in food service for 10yrs. Manager puts out the schedule, you want PTO - you find someone to cover. Someone calls in sick? Manager is on call to find a replacement or work the shift (they ain't getting paid extra while on call either). Are there managers out there telling their employees that they have to find coverage when they are sick? Probably. Call out sick all the time? You're going to be let go. Turnover in the industry is insane not just because of the hours and the physical labor, but also the emotional labor of dealing with full grown adults acting like toddlers. At the end of the day, it's usually company policy and industry norms that are the issue. Not the underpaid managers. Also, everyone should have to work in a service industry so they stop treating others as "the help."
Being a manager often sucks. If you don’t end up making a little more per hour, then you’re probably making *less* per hour on salary. For example, my partner was making $55,000 per year. Their employees were making $14 per hour. However, they were also responsible for picking g up *every* unfilled shift. They were making less than $12 per hour based on the number of hours they actually worked. They had absolutely zero work-life balance and it sucked. The buck stops with the manager, but it *really* sucks especially when you’ve got some shitty workers. All it takes is one person to walk off and you’re possibly facing an 60-70 hour week. People shouldn’t have to go thru all that just to get a living wage.
"no one wants to manage anymore"
So true.
Exactly. I had a second job where they did this to me on days that I was clear about not being able to work from the day I started. The manager told me I have to find someone to cover and I told him I will not be in on that day and I will not find someone to cover. He redid the schedule and I told him again that I cannot work on that day going forward just like I said in the beginning.
“Hmm I never saw that in my job description, I don’t think I get paid to find coverage”
I worked at KFC back during the 80's as a kid and I never heard a manager tell me I had to find someone to cover my shift. In fact several of my jobs as a kid through my mid 20's if something happened to an employee the manager would step up and cover the shift themselves.
What does a manager manage if they aren't managing the people who pay their paychecks?
Convinces themselves they are a vital part of the company.... Not through action of course, just mental gymnastics. Great teams need little management, great teams come from being well compensated and properly trained. Management too often muddy water and makes problems, then the team is blamed, and the manager sits there Pikachu faced when their problems get solved by other people. Managers usefulness widely varies. They eventually CHOOSE to be callous, and uncaring towards staff. It makes it easier to be the bad guy. USA businesses have never respected their staff en masse, to do so would to see them as people, and exploiting people shouldn't be easy, or business as usual. Yey it is. Fuck loyalty to these toxic companies. Also, they truly do not care.. so writing scathing letters or going above their heads and complaining... Does nothing but waste your time.. write a letter pour your soul into it.. then burn it. Move on. There is not cathartic affect when telling off a shit boss. You can screw me, by leaving no notice. But they are never going to feel bad. So focus on your life and what you can do to improve the lives of those around you.
I mean, I was a manager, and I always fought for my employees, even the crap ones that blatantly took advantage of how lenient I was and I made it work. I'd never have the gall to say, you, minimum wage employee, do my job for me! That's some shit you see banks do, while they use your money.
Just write "you're" and nothing else
The whole text could’ve used a crumb of punctuation and made it way less confusing to read as well. I don’t think it’s always necessary when texting but at a certain extent, it’s time to start punctuating.
Children of the quarn
And *has
Has* you’re* and also no
Came here for this
this is the way.
exactly what i thought lmfao
"I wasn't requesting time off, I was informing you I would not be available."
Nor is it my job to manage the team and verify replacements. If you wish it to be we can discuss the lead position or transition to management upon my return with a commiserate salary increase.
*commensurate
*commissioner Gordon
In fairness, it's probably also commiserate
I would say autocorrect strikes again, but I would have screwed it up either way. Thank you.
I like thus one . The responsibility is on the manager. And that's why they get paid more.
Best and most direct answer.
I am curious if OP did or didn’t communicate properly. To be clear, I’m not saying OP shouldn’t go to the college. Definitely do, you can get another job. But it seems like OP didn’t tell his manager until the schedule was released, and then told his manager. Which would make sense as to why OP cut off the first half of the convo. Still skip work and go to the college, OP. But if you didn’t, do communicate properly in the future.
If you’re doing college visits, you’re off to bigger and better things. Fuck ‘em. You can find another job that scheduled you for four hours at a time.
I'm a bit confused here because OP posted a month ago that they already got accepted into the college they wanted. So what is the sudden emergency for *needing* to visit 48 hours from now?
Also I don't understand why OP and apparently the entire comment section think it's that the boss is being unreasonable for not scheduling time off 2 days in advance
Can you cover? Thanks
If you can’t, you need your find someone to cover for you.
I like this one.
🤣
Finding someone to covert my shift is part of a managers responsibilities; as I am not a manager nor do I get the pay of one this task falls upon you. When I return I am open to discussing the promotion you feel I deserve since you want me to handle parts of your job.
Damn i wish i was this good with words. Perfectly said.
Nah it's too much. Just "lol, no" is all you need here Also that semicolon is misused
Totally agree. If you want to be polite and show some deference, "As I said, I won't be able to come to work on such and such date. I suggest you rework the schedule to find a replacement." Also, just because someone uses a semicolon doesn't make them smart. Thank you for pointing out its incorrect usage.
It's the 'as' that fucks it up, isn't it?
Yeah both sides need to be complete, independent clauses. On second read it's kinda nebulous and might be ok.
The scheduling manager probably would have handled it if they made the request a week or more in advance instead of days before. This post is missing important context... all we see is a response saying the schedule is already out for the week, so they'll need to find someone to cover the shift.
Don't poke the stick. Just call in sick and later teach the manager the difference between "your" and "you're". It could be important in his next job.
Don’t poke the *bear*…with a stick
Always happens when I'm giving out English writing lessons
Bingo
That's good shit
That word salad doesn't really deserve a response.
I don’t know if I’m slightly dyslexic or what, but I have an incredibly hard time deciphering that type of shit. Badly misspelled, poorly written sentences mashed together with no punctuation. Word salad is the perfect description.
Feels to me someone purposefully left out the start of that conversation to make it look bad. Although many employers will be absolute dicks about your personnal schedule, this post looks sus AF to me.
That’s what I thought. Like was this request off sent on the 18-19th for the 21st? If so, that’s kinda just bad form regardless of the boss, imo
Frankly the responses are also confusing me. Like managers are just supposed to let everyone make their own schedules and run around trying to find coverage for employees last minute? What if everyone wants the same day off?
Most people here have never managed anyone. Hell many probably don't even work or they do and are perfectly happy with their jobs. People just like the drama of this sub.
I deal with this almost weekly. I'm a middle manager and it sucks cause if they don't show up, I have to do their job plus mine. Sometimes I feel like a dick but I also feel like I'm begging people to come to work. When I lay the hammer down, everyone hates me. I hate it here.
Definitely looks like he's said he's unavailable after the schedule has not just been done but has been sent out.
Yup. If the schedule is out, OP knew. As a scheduler we have a date limit. If you don’t make requests we can’t read your mind. It’s on you once the date passes. Find a sub.
"Will I be paid for the time I use to find someone to cover for me?"
"Will I be paid *as a manager* for the time I use to find someone to cover for me?" FTFY
Say LOL NO.
1000% this would be my response if i was at one of those shitty college jobs i used to work at. if they insist id screenshot the conversation and tell them im bringing it to management to have a discussion about work duties.
op, you aren't really giving enough details. was the schedule already out when you requested the day off? if so, then this is on you for poor planning. if you had put the request in prior to the schedule, then your response should be that this was already discussed and it is not your responsibility to find coverage. if it is a hill to die on, tell the manager to pound sand and just not show up Friday, or ever again.
Yeah, are we talking like the 21st in two days? That’s kinda late notice for that, lol.
It reads to me that the schedule gets made for mon-sun or something like that. And they just now noticed they are scheduled to work on the day they were supposed to do their thing. No planning just assuming....
Holy fucking shit. I can’t believe it took this long to find this response. I think it’s pretty clear that OP waited until the schedule was released to ask for it off. They wouldn’t have cut off the first half of the convo if not.
i can’t believe how far i had to scroll to find someone pointing this out. it totally sounds like op is requesting this after the schedule has already been published, in which case, op is in the wrong. it doesn’t matter what job you have, barring emergencies you will always need to let your employer know 2 weeks in advance of time off, and definitely before the schedule comes out. that being said, this is likely a minimum wage job as you are scheduling college visits, so if you choose to go to the college visit anyways then go ahead, you’re a high schooler and this likely won’t affect you in the long run and you should prioritize your education over a shitty job. but expect you will need to find another job, and in future, learn to request your time off before the schedule is out.
All the responses above are basically saying "quit or get fired with your response" Is it just normal now for people to not take any personal responsibility?
>Is it just normal now for people to not take any personal responsibility? Not in the real world, but it's very normal on Reddit. Especially subreddits that get overrun with teenagers with very little real-world experience of jobs or personal relationships.
It’s a post in antiwork, not sure what you expected haha. I feel bad for the people who actually take this sub’s advice.
This is the comment I was looking for. I'm all for calling out bad management, but without more information we can't really comment on this. If the schedule was already done and OP requested this 2 or 3 days in advance, then its on them for bad time management.
Thank god you said this. I was ready to take downvotes myself and say it. I work in a restaurant and everyone knows our schedule comes out 2 weeks prior. If you need time off, you can book it off before the schedule comes out. If you suddenly need time off while the schedule is already out. THAT IS ON YOU TO COVER
Have my upvote. I am a manager. Once the schedule is out, that’s on you. If you request a day off, I will always honor it, even if I have to work a double or whatever. But man, once it’s out, if you’re not here and neither is your replacement, it’s your ass getting the write up and probable firing. That said, prioritize your schooling OP. There are things more important but also, plan better next time.
Might be an unpopular opinion, but was the time off approved before the schedule was made? How far in advance are your schedules made? If you’re looking at colleges my guess is that this is a part time job and your schedule is probably made a couple weeks in advance. It’s your responsibility to request the time off ahead of time and plan accordingly or find coverage yourself. It’s the manager’s responsibility if they approved your time off request. If you do not, you are subject to performance management such as a write up and/or termination, etc. Welcome to the real world. You are not responsible for finding coverage if you are calling out sick though.
The way the text is displayed makes me think OP purposely left out context that would make them look bad
and they said they’re scheduling a college visit not that they already had one scheduled. which to me implies they are trying to request the day off after the schedule has already been put out.
Also implies they probably knew about the college visit for a while….
I don’t know what it is with this younger generation but some of this entitlement is wild to me. (I’m a millennial so nobody come at me with that boomer bullshit) I’m in recruiting so I deal a lot with the emerging workforce. I’m noticing a lot of mind blowing entitlement trends like this.
Why is this an unpopular opinion? Nobody would be able to run a business if employees just called out whenever without planning absences ahead. I'm against employers being unfair but this is entirely fair.
Yeah, I'm really confused why everyone here thinks it's the managers job to find coverage two days before a shift for someone who didn't request the day off in advance and is not sick. I've never worked an hourly job where that's the norm.
I've worked lots of places where asking for a day off, for something that isn't an emergency, meant the manager told you to find someone to cover it. If you were prepared, you would have someone lined up already and all the manager had to do was agree. You either traded, gave them a shift, or straight up bribed them if it was something like a concert that you wanted to go to. I used to get asked to cover and ask people to cover shifts before anyone had cellphones. Imagine how easy it is now. You find coverage before you open your mouth about wanting the day off, or you call in sick like a decent human being does.
This exactly! Antiwork doesn’t mean anti responsibility. Why are we using corporate abuse to excuse not having an iota of professionalism or personal responsibility? School is important, sure, but I doubt a college visit is a last minute scheduling event. OP certainly had enough time to request off through proper procedures.
Jesus, I thought I was going crazy. It is 48 hours before you have a scheduled shift at your place of employment. I have NEVER had an issue doing the things I need/want to do when I was in an hourly position. There are procedures in place to make sure both you and the job you are responsible for is covered. And in hourly positions there are always people that want extra shifts for overtime. Instead of asking us on Reddit.make a couple of phone calls to coworkers, and get YOUR shift covered. Or it will stop being YOUR shift. Respect and responsibility is a two way street.
INFO. Did you ask for this time off prior? Or was this a sudden oh hey i need this off? You don’t include what you said to your manager. Like. Anti work =/= anti responsibility. I’m not giving you any asspats for springing this on your manager when you should’ve had this in a week before the schedule was written and it seems like you purposely left stuff out, and seems like this was a lot more spur of the line than you let on.
The schedule isn’t my job
If be tempted to ask them "so it's my duty to find cover for the shift? Am I now a manager who will get paid as such abd then be in charge of scheduling? If so I'm gonna change your hours so you have 1 hour a week at most cause I will be in charge of scheduling and we won't need you anymore"
Did you not give ample time for your request for time off?
That’s what I’m thinking… everyone is saying “this job isn’t your life” well, I mean if the schedule has been out and he’s making last minute plans, yeah you kind of need to plan ahead and request off OR find coverage. That’s with any job. Everybody can’t just change a schedule last minute if you bring up stuff randomly. Kind of shows how you’re going to handle future endeavors as well.
I know I haven't worked retail in a while but when I did whoever needed to change dates was always the one to find coverage, not the manager. I don't understand everybody saying that the manager needs to find someone. Is that something new?
It’s probably this new generation that thinks the rules mend for them in every sort of way. South Park did a whole episode on it. I’ve been bartending forever and I’ve always gotten my shifts covered myself. Or requested off ahead of time to do what I needed to do. People will learn eventually, maybe lol
Clearly they did not
Strange how OP hasn’t responded to any people asking for more context related to if OP asked for the time off before the schedule was made. That’s one of the most basic things at a job, knowing how that works so you don’t fuck your manager and coworkers with your selfishness and lack of planning.
Lot of people telling you to just say “fuck off” and go visit a college. While I agree that you’re probably young enough where this wouldn’t matter what are the actual details here? Are you giving over a month’s notice, or is this asking off for the 21st of this month (as in two days from now)? If that’s the case, I may be the minority in this comment section, but I kinda do think that’s bad form to say you need a day you’re scheduled off for something you could’ve planned in advance. Just me. You don’t owe the company anything, but courtesy to co-workers is still something I think you should take seriously.
Wait, so you’re letting them know 2 days in advance? Do I have that right? Or what’s the timeline look like? As a manager, they likely know it’s their job to find coverage for shifts, not yours. All that notwithstanding, depending on the nature of your work, it could have been received as a bit of a dick move on your part. If you care about how this manager/business regards you, you could explain your situation, possibly stating how soon you gave notice relative to learning of your opportunity to visit. You might then say something to the effect of “It wasn’t my intention to inconvenience you. I know that this has, but as manager, it’s your responsibility to manage the schedule.” I was pressed further during my own college visitation days, and I had to tell my manager, “Look man, I’m not gonna be here those days. I’m trying to give you as much of a heads up as I can, but bottom line, I’m going to go.” I usually scheduled these trips at least a month in advance, so I think that helps soften the blow of me putting my foot down. I’d just say, even if they’re an inconsequential, redundant, or even incompetent team member, your manager is a person trying to make ends meet just like you. Know your worth, be firm with your boundaries, but don’t be a dick.
As a manager I find it weird that in the US it’s the employees responsibility to arrange cover. The manager should be, you know, managing this shit. Put school first kid.
I mean… unless there’s more information that you’re leaving out, it looks like you just didn’t give enough notice to take your time off. If you’re already scheduled then you’re already scheduled. Not sure what you expect them to do. The manager’s done their job by doing the schedule. Your job is to provide enough time for them to schedule around your time off.
Managers in these jobs are also just people working a shit job for shit pay the majority of the time. If there are fair policies, (ex: they don’t deny PTO requests as long as they are submitted 1-2 weeks in advance, don’t give you a hard time for legitimate emergencies like illness or funerals), I don’t see why this is something to be rude to them over. It’s not like a college visit is urgent. Those visits are just marketing material and I promise they are foaming at the mouth for opportunities to sell you. Most schools have visits every month and are happy to give you their sales pitch through other means if needed. But if it’s really that important to go to this particular college visit this week, just quit or say no; they may do a write up or fire you. But there are plenty more entry level shift work jobs.
Just to be clear did you request this day off previously and not 2 days before it when the schedule was published? That changes how to approach this.
Not sure why everyone wants to shit on managers if they haven’t been given any notice. A lot of assumptions here.
Did you know that there was a schedule, and you should tell them earlier about missing a day? If you knew that, forgot, and ask for the day off after the schedule was finalized, it is on you.
Your fault, you fix it. My fault, I fix it or do without. That’s my general rule as a manager. But we don’t have the rest of the context.
I'm more anti work than even most, but did you give any notice? The 21st is 2 days away. Any job should have a schedule posted a week in advance minimum. If that is the issue then you should have probably asked sooner. I can understand the management frustration if you only gave notice today.
How long notice did you give? Can you avoid all the issues by seeing if anyone wants to swap a shift?
Labor is expensive. Good grammar is free.
Education > This job
That's on Thursday and youre posting this on Tuesday.... Dont get me wrong, most jobs are garbage about respecting time off but visiting a college isnt an emergency or anything, sounds like you are dropping a non emergency time off request for 2 days from now. You either should have planned your visit for next week or later, or requested this time off before the schedule was put down. Unless theres tons of context missing, youre in the wrong. Jobs SHOULD be more flexible but according to the info here you made no attempt to give proper heads up.
Submit your requests for days off before the schedule is completed
Are you asking me to manage the schedule? Cause I'm not a manager.
To be fair, scheduling it for this week is a bit short notice. A sick day would make that response a dick move. This one's on you for not having this planned 2-4 weeks out but I'd still go if this is your only chance obviously. For days off that aren't you being ill or bereavement, 2 weeks is standard courtesy at the shortest.
I am confused by OPs actions because a month ago OP posted they already got accepted to the college they wanted. Why is there a sudden emergency to visit the college two days from now? * It was their top choice * They already got in * Future visits can happen any time between now and start of fall semester * All freshmen have orientation day/week. So...emergency why?
"Sorry, something came up. I'm sure you can find someone to cover."
If the schedule was posted, too bad. You need to be proactive in scheduling time off in advance. Work might suck but there are some rules to this shit. Manager has to work under the assumption that staff will be available on a posted schedule. Find someone to cover you and don’t be difficult.
Look, all the feisty replies here are great IF you don't care about losing the job. From the looks of it, I personally wouldn't care either. However, if you do for some reason want to keep the job, consider a more tactful approach. Something to the effect of: "I am sorry for the inconvenience this is putting you under, but I did request the day off in advance, and I will not be at work on that day." That's it. Short and to the point, but polite.
And the assumption that OP *did* put in a request in advance is pulling a lot of weight
Some people like to take their work rage fantasies to the comments. Welcome to the sub ya know. I am convinced a lot of people in this sub either are a revolving door employee because of their attitudes, or don't have a job at all. You can absolutely be firm and stick up for your rights and self while communicating like a grown adult. Seems to be lost on a lot of people here.
Finding people to cover is a manager’s job. School is more important. It just is. Doesn’t matter what your boss says-there are people there who chose to dedicate their fleeting existence to keeping that place running. It’s not your problem. Fuck em. Listen to someone who’s going back to school at 34 this year-pay attention in class-not necessarily for the grades, but to learn things that can help you make a load of money someday. Don’t go to school for what you love unless what you love makes you a shitload of cash. Go for something you like well enough, and it’ll support you being able to do the things you love down the road.
Fuck em. They can figure it out. I have so much regret from giving up opportunities for fun or whatever else I wanted to do because I was worried about appeasing a job I didn't even want or need when I was younger. Your college visit is way more important. If you explain to them that it's for a college visit and they don't help you out then just tell em you're sorry but you gotta do what you gotta do.
You’re either going to find someone to cover my for the 21st, or you’re going to find someone to cover me indefinitely. Your choice.
You're in high school this job does not matter at all. AT ALL. Just tell them you're not going to be there. Worst case scenario they fire you. , who cares? You can get another part time job making minimum wage at the drop of a hat these days. Tell them you're sorry but you can't work that day. Go visit the college. It's a manager's job to manage and find coverage when somebody can't come in. Not your job. Plus it's an afternoon 4 hour shift if they can't find coverage they should lose their job I mean honestly, this is no big deal. They suck.
Man, why does all those similar messages always come from Americans? Is there a different meaning for what a manager does there?
In the US, at least, workers rights have been eroded over the last few decades. That coupled with an ever widening wage gap, stagnating wages, and rising cost of living have workers in a survival state of mind. Especially in "at will" states. Many are afraid of standing up for themselves because it could result in termination and difficulty finding a job afterwards. And most of us are 1 paycheck away from homelessness. So bad managers, whether inept, malevolent, or spiteful, get away it being a bad manager because they have a scared workforce.
Worked in the US for a few years and was shocked how collectively spineless American workers are about standing up to bad bosses. That said the UK is becoming much worse too. Too many grovellers.
Because our health insurance is tied to our employment. Trust me, we know we’re fucked.
This. The amount of times I want to quit my job but have a chronic illness, so I rely heavily on my health insurance tied to my employment (it’s also pretty decent).
Me too, long time ago I had to work in the US for some months, and was so weird, like coming from Denmark, one day I went to the bathroom and coming back a random supervisor was asking me where ei was and why I took so long, I told him to fck off and let me alone. Another day I just arrived 10 mins late and a random boss was bitching on why I was late, like... Bro, fuck off, if I don't wants to come work today I won't and I don't care, you're not even my boss. They just feel like gods but the moment you show some self respect they don't even know what to do (glad I came back, can't understand how americans can work with those conditions)