Yeesh, What A Rough Week!
When I started working for a restaurant, they made it crystal clear (even at the job interview) that unexplained tardiness without a phone call would not be tolerated. The first occurrence was a write-up; the second was an automatic termination. Period.
It was only three weeks before I bagged my first write-up after some cop stopped me, thinking I matched the description of a mugging suspect. They took their sweet time at the dispatch office to confirm my identity and eventually let me go… aaand I then saw that my phone was dead.
The following day, I discovered that my girlfriend had been cheating on me. I was so upset that I spent the entire night wandering the town because I couldn’t sleep at all. As dawn began to roll in and I had an early morning opening shift, I was concerned that it would take too long to walk all the way home, grab my uniform, and then walk to work since the busses didn’t start running until 9:00 am on Sundays. I figured it was better to just walk directly to the restaurant since I was about fifteen minutes away, hang out there until they opened, and just ask the shift manager for a fresh uniform to change into.
I walked over, sat next to the door, closed my eyes, and soon dozed off until the shift manager walked up and gave me a playful kick with a cheerful, “Rise and shine!”
The following day, the general manager called me into the office with a somewhat unamused look on his face.
Manager: “I know that you were warned that if you were late again, you would be fired—”
Me: *Going into panic mode* “I WAS ON TIME! I know I was! I was actually here before everyone else was!”
Manager: “Oh, yes, we all saw that!”
He then pointed to his computer screen, which showed an email containing a screenshot of surveillance footage… of yours truly, knocked out in front of the restaurant door.
Manager: “Putting aside the giggles you’ve provided everyone in the corporate office and throughout the restaurant chain, can we kindly ask for you not to camp out on the premises to avoid being late? Especially two hours before your shift begins? This is just a restaurant, not the freaking Marines! I’ve spoken to [Shift Manager #1] and [Shift Manager #2], and they said they would be more than happy to come and scoop you up for the early bird shifts since you don’t have a car.”
Me: “Yeah! Thanks! I appreciate that!”
He kept an annoyed look and tone of voice.
Manager: “You’re quite welcome. And thank you for at least taking that warning so seriously. As an added favor, I tossed your last tardy write-up.”
The other managers found that photo amusing, as well, and posted it on our bulletin board with the caption, “Now THIS is dedication!”
Surprisingly, the corporate office did away with the “two-strike” policy shortly after that incident and simply left it up to individual management to decide what appropriate disciplinary actions to take for tardiness.
It always cracked me up how a purely unrelated series of events inadvertently painted me in a completely unintended favorable way and ultimately ended up changing an ultra-strict policy!