I was getting ready to post anyway, when I ran across this post. I have three kids, so my wife and I have a pretty good plan that works out. We have to take turns. It works out pretty well anyway since my days off rotate, I am off during the week about 80% of the time anyway, so I do sick parent duty. This week, however, our two year old spent about 36 hours puking her guts up. What with me taking an extra day off for the funeral last week, we decided that she would stay at home. She has a certain amount of sick days that she is alloted anyway, which I unfortunately don’t. It is almost unheard of for a manager to call in sick. Company policy of course says that you don’t come to work when you are sick, but reality dictates it’s own terms.
The funeral for my friend Chris last week actually is what brings me to the point of this rambling shit, sort of. One of my waitresses called me last night, in tears, barely intelligible. I said ok, I would cover it, but was there anything that I could do for her? She said no, that her dog had died. Her FUCKING dog died YESTERDAY, so she can’t come to fucking work today. I didn’t day anything at all for a minute, finally I told her that she was just going to have to come to work. She babbled on and on, I don’t even know what the fuck she said. I finally just told her that I would cover the shift, and hung up.
She called back later, I did not answer, she was babbling on and just needed someone to talk to. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I went to my best friends funeral last week, missing one day of work, and was at work when they took him off life support. How do I tell a valued (in question) employee that I really don’t give a flying fuck about her fucking dog dying and maybe would like to run over a couple more of her fucking strays just to make her feel better.
I understand that people, me included, are very close to their pets, and a lot of times they feel as if the animal is part of the family. That’s ok, but the fact is, it was a fucking dog. I wasn’t a person and is not a fucking valid reason to not come to work. Perhaps if I come to your house and put a fucking bullet to your dog’s head a few minutes before you have to go to work, you might have a valid reason to call in, but not when it is an entire day before. They must have had to recover from having the fucking doggie wake.
Apparent’y she tried to call my cell phone earlier, didn’t leave a voice mail though. My boss calls me about 30 minutes later, and told me that the unnamed waitress would not be in tommorow because she has poison ivy, and with all of the crying and wiping of eyes, now she can’t see. bwah hahahahahahahahha. She also told me that I had hurt the waitresses feelings by not answering my cell phone when she called. Tough shit. I basically told my boss how I felt about it, and the fact that had I taken the call, I might have had to repeat it to the lady. I may be an asshole, but stupid I am not.