Applebees Made me choose between seeing dad with cancer or working the week before christmas. Marietta Ohio

First off, I am sorry that your dad has cancer.  Some of my close relatives have also had cancer, so I know what a tough time that can be.  I have never worked for Applebees, but I am a server at the Cracker Barrel, so hopefully these suggestions might help people in the future who are in similar situations.

One of the first things I learned from working in the restaurant industry is to never assume anything, whether it is related to employees or customers or your managers.  A few years ago, I had jaw surgery over the summer which took me out of work for about 2 to 3 months.  I approached my general manager as soon as my surgery date was booked (which was 3 months down the road from when I talked to him) and let him know I would need an official "leave of absence" due to medical reasons.  He was perfectly fine with this and gave me the leave once I showed him official proof that I actually was having the surgery, and not just wanting the summer off.

I'm going to list parts of your report and my suggestions as to how to handle them:


1) After 6 months of working, you found out your dad had cancer.  You called into work that day to tell them you couldn't make it in (for obvious reasons).  They told you they needed proof that this was actually the case.

I don't want to be devil's advocate for the restaurant, but this is corporate policy with lots of businesses.  If an employee calls off of work, the company needs to find a way to fill that void, or shift around responsibilities to cover everything.  I wouldn't expect you to call the hospital/doctor immediately to get proof of your dad's situation, but maybe you could tell your manager "Look, I can't provide you with that today.  Can I have them fax it to you tomorrow?"  If your manager doesn't accept this, then further actions with corporate would need to be taken.

By the way, I've seen employees come up with rather large excuses to get time off of work.  You're not sick minded, you just need to prove this actually happened.


2) Since you were in college, you assumed your managers knew you would want to be gone for the Christmas break.  You asked them 2 months in advance about it (that would be early October) and they said they would discuss it.  They told you the week after Thanksgiving (the first week of December) that you couldn't be gone over break.

Referring back to my earlier point made, never assume anything.  Even though you're in college, your managers are going to expect that you will not be traveling for any long periods of time, *unless* you tell them beforehand.  You did present this to them in mid-October, which should have been plenty of time to get it figured out (and if they were efficient managers, they would have done so quickly).  Did you ever ask them for an update or remind them of your upcoming circumstances, or was the week after Thanksgiving the next time anyone ever spoke of it?  If the latter is true, then the blame would fall on you for not being more proactive and getting this set and done (which I am assuming that to be the case since it is not mentioned in your report).  If you wait too long before getting things set, you're more likely to get screwed because of time constraints.


3) You basically had nowhere to live since the college shut down for break, unless you wanted to pay to stay in the dorms.

This goes back to the previously made point.  This is a cause and effect result from not being proactive and getting your time-off set in stone.  Basically, you didn't have the time off to go to Arizona, and because of that, you had nothing set up as far as a place to stay. 

Now, if it came down to a situation where you did frequently remind your managers of your time-off needs, and they simply ignored approving it or kept delaying, then you would need to contact your corporate office and explain the situation waaaay earlier than a week before you would need to leave for Arizona.  No matter what size a company is, there is always someone higher up the power chain who will be willing to help its employees, even if it takes multiple tries to get in touch with that person.


This rebuttal is not at all meant to put you down or slam you for your actions.  Yes, I did make suggestion as to how you could have better handled the situation (strictly based on the information given in your report).  But that was done in a sense of helping future people who might find themselves in a similar setting, whether at Applebees or not.  I've been in my fair share of scheduling and time-off conflicts, and I know they can be tense times.  The main points of my rebuttal are to never assume that people see situations the same way you do, and always make sure to get things set and in writing plenty of time in advance.