Employee attends funeral of husband's grandma who she knew for 35 years, manager claims she doesn't count for bereavement leave: 'She encouraged me to go to the funeral'

The last thing anybody wants to deal with while they're in mourning is the idea that they are causing a problem.

Unfortunately, many employers act like it is normal to see it that way. The vast majority of the workforce will experience some kind of bereavement throughout their careers, and how their management or company deals with that can feel like the luck of the draw. A lot of places are not going to show an appropriate amount of sensitivity.

The biggest reason for this is that most funerals do not really respect the timetable of traditional working hours. This means that employees have to take time off to attend them, and of course, anything that takes them away from the most important task of doing their job is a massive inconvenience.

One of the worst things to experience at work is going through a tough time that is not treated with the appropriate care or consideration, and this is common with those who lose somebody close to them. Fitting in the mourning period around work adds another headache to an already painful experience. What should be so simple can be unnecessarily complicated by those who need to overexplain a completely understandable absence.

via Kateryna Hliznitsova (Unsplash+)

_{^{A woman sitting on a bench in a cemetery, holding an open umbrella above her head in one hand and red carnations in the other}}
_{^{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}}
When an employee suffered the bereavement of her husband's grandmother, the CEO of the nonprofit she worked for encouraged her to take time off to attend the funeral, which was out of state. She had known the grandma for over thirty years, having met her husband at 18.
She took two days to pay her respects, but when she got back to work, it seemed like circumstances had changed. She was told that her husband's grandmother didn't count for bereavement leave, and the days would have to be taken from her PTO. Despite her reminder that they had previously had an agreement, she wasn't willing to let it go.
CEO said grandma doesn't count

via Pir8inthedesert
via Pir8inthedesert
via Kateryna Hliznitsova (Unsplash+)

_{^{A woman holding an umbrella over her head while placing red carnations on a grave}}
_{^{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}}
via Pir8inthedesert
via Pir8inthedesert
via Pir8inthedesert
via Kateryna Hliznitsova (Unsplash+)

_{^{A woman holding an umbrella over her head stands in the middle of a cemetery}}
_{^{Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}}
via Puzzleheaded-Sale-91
via Pir8inthedesert
via SportySue60
via CreamJealous939
via Deansdiatribes
via Pir8inthedesert
via Pir8inthedesert
via No_Pilarapril
via Pir8inthedesert
via Few_Breadfruit_3285
via Pir8inthedesert
via SleepyWeasel25
via Pir8inthedesert
via ScientistForeign9803
via Exciting_Garbage4435