Bookkeepers refuse to continue working 18-hour-shifts, call out sick and ghost employer so there's no one to fill their role: '[They] refused to let me switch schedules after scheduling me to close at 11 PM and open at 5 AM'

There are some bizarre rules that will come into effect and be treated like a given practice simply because it's too convenient for management to do anything about it. An example of this is a member of staff who is required to be on-site from the opening until the closing of said site. Hiring two people to fill that requirement becomes "too expensive" quite quickly for the bean counters at the top, so they'll just demand that a single person be present the entire time. This is all too common and might be the keyholder of a retail operation or restaurant, or a site manager, or—in the case of this story—the shop's bookkeeper. 

The bookkeeper was required to work 18-hour shifts and be present from the opening until the closing of the home improvement store where they worked. If that sounds crazy to, well, you it's because it is.

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Author image for Brad Dickson Brad Dickson
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  • This happened to me in a former job in a former life, where, as manager, I was required to be present for the full 9 hours of the shop opening, and unallowed to sit for most of the day, even as manager, it was grueling. They did eventually reduce the hours that the store was open but conveniently cut the manager's pay simultaneously—despite the fact that they had been promising for years at that point that they would put us on a true salary that reflected our overarching responsibility to the shop.

    Funnily enough were we worked and what we were trading in meant that customers needed to access our shop before and after work. We worked in a busy central business district so the new opening and closing times were not congruent with customers' schedules. So, we were consistently butting heads with regional and upper management over the strict "no overtime" policy when we had to claim overtime every day since customers refused to abide by the new opening and closing hours of trade—bursting in the doors as we were closing up and lingering for up to half an hour afterward. 

    The bookkeeper decided they simply weren't going to put up with it anymore which led to this confrontation with management.

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    Cheezburger Image 10487205376
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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  • 02
    The Scheduler and Management Refused to Let Me Switch Schedules After Scheduling Me to Close at 11 pm and Open at 5 am. Okay, I Will Call in, and The Other Bookkeeper Will Not Answer Her Phone!
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    Several years ago, I was a bookkeeper for a huge home improvement store. As a bookkeeper, I arrived at 5 am to prepare for the store opening and/or stayed until 11 pm for closing. There were two of us, but for some reason, the scheduler and management would have one of us close and
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    open the following day. (We had a part-timer who worked 4-6 nights a month because she was in school. She did not open) The other bookkeeper closed and opened without complaining. But for me, that was absurd! Leaving the store at 11 pm and returning
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    at 5 am is unreasonable. We spoke with the scheduler and management to no avail. So, whenever the schedule came out, we switched if one of us was scheduled to close and open. The scheduler and management noticed but kept quiet because someone was there to do the
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    work, although they continued scheduling us to close and open for years. Eventually we got a new scheduler and manager who wanted to flex their authority over all departments and demanded the other bookkeeper, and I work the
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    printed scheduled hours. We maliciously complied. The following schedule had me closing and opening. I closed and called in the next morning. They tried calling the other bookkeeper, but she did not answer (I asked her not to respond). The part-timer could
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    not work because she had school. No one else was trained in bookkeeping (not even management). This meant they needed to contact me for instructions on opening the store. I was paid a minimum of 15 minutes for each call they made. If the call exceeded 15 minutes, I was paid a minimum
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    of 30 minutes. You get the picture. By the end of the day, I was paid for a full day. After that day, neither the scheduler nor the management said a word about which bookkeeper was working, regardless of the schedule.
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    CED
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

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    DarthJojo 12 hr. ago That's crazy to scheduled like that! In California it would be against the law- here you have to be given 8 hours between shifts.
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    Toots NYC 10 hr. ago • it's also just stupid. wouldn't you both have rather had a consistent schedule, one of you opening and the other closing? My dad worked at Home Depot and they
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    got a new scheduler who didn't make any attempt to tweak the computer algorithm, or didn't know how, and suddenly he couldn't know when he'd be working from one week to the next.
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    I always thought that was amazingly stupid, plus greatly unfair, to keep switching people's schedules around as the standard procedure. Of course people end up suddenly needing a different schedule this one week, but
    via u/Honest_Star7348
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    those one-offs are easily handled. I can't imagine it was helpful to managers or to anybody to have people not even know when their schedule was.
    via u/Honest_Star7348

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