Woman refuses to cover for coworker with a sick kid, 'she got fired.' AITA? 'No chance.'
↵
"AITA for not covering for my coworker with a sick kid, resulting in her being fired?"
I 25f, work as a hospice nurse for a home hospice company. All of the nurses are salaried, and we make our own hours for the most part. This is a desirable job for nurses wanting to get out of working 12 hour shifts at hospitals. It’s very desirable for parents especially.
We all have to take turns being on call overnight, roughly once every two weeks. This is mandatory. All of my coworkers have kids pretty much. Everyone except me. In the three years that I have been here I have asked my coworkers for virtually nothing. I never really get sick, and I handle my stuff. I have never called out of an on call shift.
My boss has a three strikes rule, where if you have to call out of your on call shift three times within a year you get fired. No exceptions. If you trade your on call shift however it doesn’t count against you, it only counts against you if our boss has to mandate someone into covering the shift. I have watched my boss fire several people over this in the few years that I have worked here.
We got a new coworker, let’s say Mandy, about four months ago. She has called out of her on call shift twice so far, so not a good track record. Apparently her husband is active duty and deploys a lot, and she has four kids and struggles to find a babysitter for them.
This past Monday was Mandy’s on call again. She sent out an email begging for someone to take it, because her babysitter got sick. I offered to trade her, if she works Valentine’s Day for me. Win win right? I get Valentine’s Day off, and can go on a date. And Mandy gets her shift covered and doesn’t get fired.
Mandy said her husband comes back on Thursday, and they wanted to go out for Valentine’s Day. Apparently their marriage was heading towards divorce, and they really needed this night. She asked me if she could just work a day for me next month instead. I said no chance.
She tried guilting me and shaming me, so eventually I just said f it, you’re on your own. She tried to backpedal, but I said no. She pleaded with both me and our boss, but Mandy got fired. I can tell my boss and some of our coworkers think I’m an ahole, since I had the free time to cover her shift, and I don’t have kids or anything. AITA?
EDIT:
Her kid got her babysitter sick, and the babysitter cancelled. Both were sick, so she had to stay home with her kid. I worded things wrong.
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
dplafoll said:
NTA. You DID offer to cover her shift, and she refused the entirely-reasonable compromise that you offered in exchange. All those coworkers could've covered it, and your boss is blaming you for the boss enforcing their own policy on someone who absolutely violated that policy. Nobody here is right except you OP. Her emergencies are not yours.
jrm1102 said:
NTA - this is on her. She got herself fired, she knew the policy.
tempdump9 said:
NTA - Valentine's day will not save that marriage, and you're not responsible for her prioritizing a failing marriage over her career.
Sufficient-Lie1406 said:
She could have had her Valentine's on Saturday. A simple one day shift and she could have made the deal with you and kept her job. NTA, and making the choice to have kids means the responsibility to take care of those kids...it is never someone else's problem.
_gadget_girl said:
NTA one of the first things they told us in nursing school was that the students who were parents needed to get childcare in order. They told them in addition to a babysitter they needed a backup babysitter and a backup for the backup babysitter. They made it crystal clear that lack of childcare was not a valid excuse for missing clinical’s because it wouldn’t be a valid reason once we were nurses.
Mandy knew the policy from your boss and didn’t have her priorities straight. Even if you had covered for her it would have just delayed the inevitable for a few weeks until she had another issue.
WhizzoButterBoy said:
She sounds manipulative af. Using the kids, her deployed husband and now the threat of a failing marriage to justify getting what she wants when she wants it. Not saying life as a single mom is easy by any means but a marriage that will fail because they don't go out on valentine's day (as opposed to the next day or the day before ?) Is pretty much over You are well rid of this woman. NTA.