Kate Hackett
A now-deleted Reddit user shared a story about a job he once held at a disability shared accommodation agency. The job was rough: the poster hadn’t had any time off in over two years. So when OP finally did try to get leave, his boss made it increasingly difficult for him or her to take off time.
Here’s how the whole thing happened:
I used to work in a disability shared accommodation agency. It’s a job where you support 4-6 people with disabilities who share the accommodation. Its shift work, 2 clients per staff member during the day, 1 staff member on a “sleep over” at night. The rosters are 4 week rotating rosters. I was employed as a 0.75 meaning I work 75% of what is considered full time (equating to 57 hours a fortnight). Working shifts sucked, but the pay was good.
OP specifies the hours (which sound pretty grueling AND s/he wasn’t even full time!) but explains that the pay was good.
I was working in a house I’ll call sunup. Sunup had 4 residents and 7 workers. Each house had a house supervisor, they reported to the cluster manager (who managed 6 houses), cluster managers reports to the CEO.
By company policy, leave requests are “first in best dressed” meaning you need to put your leave in early to ensure you get it.
At the facility, Sunup, leave was only given first-come-first-served, so to get the leave you wanted you needed to plan ahead.
I was transferred to sunup from a 6 client house due to my qualifications and situations I cannot legally disclose. I worked for the first year, got to know staff, clients, house supervisor etc.
There was an obvious “clique” between 4 staff members, each school holidays, 3 would apply for leave, and one would call in sick with a medical certificate covering the same amount of time. They would always rotate who is “sick” to hide what they were up to. (They were friends outside of work who would party together)
OP says he or she quickly spotted a staff clique that had figured out leave. Three would take leave over a holiday and one would call in sick; they’d rotate the illness to avoid patterns.
After a year, the house supervisor fell sick. One of the Clique members “Karen” was appointed acting supervisor and it went to hell.
When the house supervisor was sick and one of the clique members (who OP oh-so-not-creatively named “Karen”) became acting supervisor. It did not start well.
She tried reducing my hours and giving extra time to a friend, I pointed out that I’m contracted for 57 hours a fortnight so I’m getting paid for 57 hours a fortnight.
Her friends got extra shifts. Were given the best shifts and we’re all around favored by Karen.
She immediately started fooling around with OP’s schedule and gave the best and extra shifts to her friends.
In January, I put in leave for March school holidays, Karen reject it on the grounds that others had already submitted leave (her clique all applied for this time). I left this alone.
And then OP’s leave started getting denied…
In March I checked the leave calendar for the June school holidays (each house had a leave calendar so management and staff can check who scheduled leave is) it’s was empty. I submitted leave again and it was rejected, Karen said “sorry, You were too slow, Karen said that A,B &C (clique) already submitted leave”. The next day the leave calendar showed this.
Repeatedly. It happened over and over again: OP would ask for leave and then, rather suddenly, the other crew had “already requested leave”.
In May I checked xmas leave calendar, put in my leave and sure enough, got the same result. This annoyed me as I have a family that I wanted to take on holiday. I spoke to the cluster manager (also a part of the clique) who said there nothing I can do. Note, I had no leave taken in 2 years.
January the following year, the clique was on holiday, we had a gastro outbreak across our facilities so we were short staff. All available staff (including CEO) were covering shifts.
I was rostered on with the CEO one shift, during the shift he said to me “op, you have a bit of leave accumulated. You should probably take some.”
By happenstance, OP was working with the CEO during a shift and the CEO noticed how much leave he or she had accumulated. The CEO noted that it might be time to put in some requests…
Me ” I put in 3 requests last year, all were rejected as others apparently already applied for those dates.”
CEO, “let’s lock in your leave now”
Me “ok, how about 4 weeks over Xmas”
But OP explained that it had been difficult to lock in the requested leave, so the CEO said “we’ll do it now”! And it was done. Boom. OP gets their leave!!
I filled out the form, CEO signed it off. He filled out the leave calendar and put my application in Karen’s pigeon hole.
I was on sleep over that night so I took my application, photo copied it for my self and replaced under the mountain of paperwork in her pigeon hole knowing she wouldn’t see it for a few months.
OP made sure to keep copies of the signed leave request. And then checked the leave calendar in March. Guess who had their leave disappear?
In March I checked the leave calendar, I noticed my Xmas leave disappeared replaced with Karen, A,B & C. I didn’t say anything as I had a leave form with CEO’s signature.
Fast forward October, original house supervisor passed away, acting supervisor was appointed permeant supervisor by the cluster manager with a mandatory 3 month probation.
OP left it alone because the CEO gave the approval — and remember: OP had receipts. The original boss, sadly, passed away; “Karen” was now in line to keep the promotion.
December comes around, first week of my leave, I get a call from Karen. “Where are you”
Me: “on leave”
Karen “I didn’t approve any leave, get your ass to work now” I come in, Karen chews me out stating she didn’t get an application form, Karen went on to sau “even if you submitted it I would reject it as you should know by now that we always take two weeks in December/January”.
She wrote me up for insubordination. I worked that shift, when Karen left I emailed the CEO filling him in on what happened. He called a meeting me and Karen.
December comes and OP takes their leave. “Karen” calls, forces OP to work, and writes them up for insubordination. After work, OP shot an email to the CEO.
CEO “what happened”
Karen cutting me off “op took it upon himself to approve leave, I wrote him up for skipping work”
ME: “actually I submitted leave in January, while you were away”
Karen “no you didn’t”
CEO ” yes he did! I approved it and added it to the leave calendar”
Karen “oh, um we already had 4 staff booked on leave”
CEO “show me the leave forms” Karen ” Um I destroyed them”
Me handing Karen my copy of my form signed by the CEO.
CEO, “OP is on leave I’m going to sunup and I’m investigating this situation. OP, my apologies go home, I’m extending your leave by an extra week”
The CEO is not happy to get wind of what happened. He extends OP’s leave by a week and investigates what’s been happening at the facility.
I go home. I come in 4.5 weeks later to be told that Karen has lost her promotion, she is thin ice.
CEO found out that Karen has been rejecting leave requests. She shredded my request without looking past the date. She deleted my leave from the calendar. The CEO told Karen that this borders on fraud.
The CEO also separated the “Clique” to different houses. He change the leave policy to state that he must sign off leave requests (in addition to house supervisor and cluster managers) He insured that all staff had access to prime leave dates.
Karen was fired 2 weeks later for failing audit requirements.
IMO this probably should’ve been done earlier, but: once the CEO was actually alerted to the situation, he or she handled it immediately. He busted Karen for fraud, reassigned the clique to different houses, and fired Karen two weeks later.
Edit: To clarify why the CEO did “Grunt work”, Funding bodies stipulated that during day, one staff was required for every two clients. We were short staffed across the board. There was lots of juggling staff. All staff employed with the company not on leave were working in houses(including CEO, cluster managers, administration) they were rosted on with qualified staff who took the lead. (CEO had social worker qualifications, social work experience but no support worker experience). It was an extreme situation that could see funding withdrawn.
The reason why he extended my leave by a week is because this incident took place on the Monday, CEO meeting took place on Wednesday or Thursday (can’t remember exactly). As I worked Monday and got called in for the meeting I wouldn’t of gotten my 4 weeks.
MAN what a story! And I think the takeaway is: move quickly when you think people are screwing you over. Stand up for yourself!
