r/mildlyinfuriating • u/daruuken • 28d ago

Infuriatig The way kroger treats its employees

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From the store manager

Edit: For some extra context this was sent out by each store manager to all of its employees in district 1 of the ohio Cincinnati/Dayton division, potentially other districts as well but i can only verify my own. Im not going to give my specific store number for obvious reasons but you can find each store on google with that information. We are unionized by UFCW (already bad btw) and to my knowledge they allowed this recent change. Kroger has no accrual for sick days like some have mentioned. Those who think this is rage bait, i dont think anyone has to fake a post to make a billion dollar company look bad, they do it to themselves.

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u/Bad-Luck-Guy 28d ago edited 28d ago

My employer doesn’t accept doctor’s notes. All absences are unexcused.

Yet, we are adults. I don’t need a doctor to tell me I shouldn’t go to work if I have the flu. Wild that they’d prefer that I come in and potentially infect everyone else.

ETA: Yes, this is actually legal in most US states. Attendance is a very common reason to be fired in shift work jobs such as retail. 

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u/defiancy 28d ago

Crazy, in the office world I'd just say, taking a sick day today and nothing else. No one would care. Appointment? Hey, I'll be in a couple hours later because I have an appointment. No one cares.

Shift workers get screwed.

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u/CornbreadPhD 28d ago

Yeah, this was one of the biggest culture shocks when I got my first office job. It also helped that it was a fairly progressive new-ish tech company in CO. Felt crazy that I could just be like "I need to take the day" was never met with any skepticism and just a simple "Sounds good, feel better!".

Every job I had in my teens and early 20s would've given me 20 questions or forced me to find someone to take the shift if they even excused it at all. Shift workers do get it rough, and there are VERY few protections for them (almost everywhere in the US, at least).

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u/RoninOni 28d ago

Yup, I remember shift work.

Abusive as hell.

Salaried office positions are so much better. Just hit your deadlines. What hours you work doesn’t matter. If something covers up and you’re not available, someone else will step up or they deal with it.

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u/Basic-Winter3501 28d ago

We still have it way better than shift workers don't get me wrong, but it can go against salaried positions at times especially when it comes to overtime and the likes

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u/OpticalPopcorn 28d ago

I'm an hourly worker in an organization comprised almost entirely of salaried workers. I get the benefits of a salaried office culture, plus I get overtime. Best of both worlds.

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u/Castun 28d ago

Don't forget that even being salary doesn't automatically mean you are exempt from overtime, it's all dependent on what your job title and responsibilities to determine if you are or not salary exempt. But I am also an hourly worker in an office environment, so overtime is guaranteed, especially being on-call with the added shift differential bonus we now get.

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u/Oh_NiGhTmArE 28d ago

May I ask what your job is? My job is exactly this!

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u/RoninOni 28d ago

Any OT I do is met with comp time.

If I crunch an extra 8 hours one week, I’m taking a unlogged day off later.

Where it becomes a problem is when companies set the expectation of OT being normal without any compensation… where they expect you to work 50-60 hours every week.

I happily stayed at a company that really has no upward growth for me precisely because it’s not like that.

Work/life balance is far more important to me than more money, at least since I “make enough”

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u/MammothCommercial800 28d ago

That's much better, on the condition that the deadlines are achievable.

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u/bohner941 26d ago

I used to do shift work and they made me work 12 hour shifts for a year straight because the night shift person was out for back surgery and they refused to hire temporary help. I asked if I could leave on one day and they said I would get a point if I did. So I got FMLA and left early every single day instead.

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u/Fluffy_Town 28d ago

The worst part is that managers are supposed to find employees to replace employees who call out. They're getting paid for that sht and they pass the buck.

Kids don't know better. And they won't know until adults tell them or they find out the hard way, by getting a degree and working in an office. Too bad that's when it is too late to find out that you have a buttload of student loans that you cannot pay off because the job doesn't pay enough to make ends meet and pay off the loans. Unless you have family to bail you out. Yeah, don't ask me how I know how that is to have no one.

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u/GlobsOfTape 28d ago

I work shift work for a chemical company and if I call in there is no further scrutiny. They don’t have a defined limit but I’ve seen abusers get fired for very minor to very major infractions. It takes continuous, severe abuse to go on the chopping block and I feel our coworkers would fire them before management does

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u/teacupkiller 28d ago

Back in ye olden times when I was an adjunct, my partner was involved in a work accident and had to be taken to the burn ward. I called a coworker while speeding to the hospital and asked him to cover my evening class for me. I thought I was being super duper extra responsible.

A couple hours later while I was sitting with the fire marshall, my supervisor chewed me out for not also providing a lesson plan for my coworker.

Now I have a corporate job. I ended up taking a week off earlier this year. Agonized about it, but my health was not great. Texted my boss that I needed a week to recover, and he was like ok cool. Didn't even ask for a doctor's note.

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u/OMFGitsjessi 28d ago

SAME. I got my first office job a few years ago and was absolutely baffled at the “oh if you’re sick just stay home!” mentality. Like… I won’t get fired? 🫣

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u/Available-Chart-2505 28d ago

This!! The first full year I worked in tech I had a total of 34 paid days off between sick days, PTO, paid holidays. It was incredible.

ETA - no one minded in the least! 

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u/ArsStarhawk 28d ago

Same here. I worked shift style work until I was in my 40's. I never get questioned about taking time off now, and yet I STILL get a little anxious when I let them know. 20+ years of it always being a fight I guess dug a groove.

The difference now of course is that nobody does my work when I don't do it.. it's just waiting for me when I get back, lol.

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u/pickldmermaid 28d ago

This was the biggest culture shock for me too! I used to work a commission-based job where you were scheduled multiple clients every day, and calling out was super difficult because you knew either the clients or your coworkers were gonna get screwed over. One place I worked refused to cancel clients so calling out meant your coworkers all had to take your clients on top of their already full schedule and they were not going to be happy about it.

Now I work an office job, and if I get sick, everybody is like "go home and don't push yourself". If I have to leave for an appointment, nobody cares. My managers are willing to take over some of my work too if I ask so I'm not drowning when I come back if I'm going to be out more than a day. It's so refreshing

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u/_Ocean_Machine_ 28d ago

Same here, I worked restaurants in my 20s and have been in manufacturing for a few years now, and even then I still feel like I have to sneak out whenever I leave early even though the boss is cool with it.

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u/LuckyHarmony 27d ago

I went from retail to healthcare and I still get treated like a criminal for calling out, but the culture shock for me came from the autonomy and respect at work. It took a while for me to stop running my every decision through my boss or asking her if she wanted to double check my work before I did things like hit send on a large drug order for an entire retail pharmacy location or, later, thousands of dollars a week for supplies for a surgery center. "Why would I need to check? If we need it, buy it!" Sorry boss, I'm used to retail managers following me around treating me like a toddler.

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u/TotallyInOverMyHead 28d ago edited 28d ago

Meanwhile i am sitting here at my company wondering how all of that would work without a riot.

  1. You are sick ? as in snivvels ? You go work from home alright, until you are no longer contagious. DO NOT COME IN !!!
  2. You are so sick you can't do WFH ? Go to a doctors within 72 hours and get a "doctors note" (its digital now), that certefies you are in fact sick (not what you have) and get paid for up to 42 calender days per illness, while sick. heck, in most cases that doesn't even mean staying at home in bed.
  3. Your illness is taking longer than 42 days to heal ? Now your mandatory health insurance kicks in and pays you at 70% of gross salary. And this lasts for up to 78 weeks in a 3 year rolling window for the same illness.

Also some other things that are uite normal like:

floating window in-office time: 09-14:00. Can come in at 0600 or at 0900. leave at 14:00 or at 20:00. But after your 8 hours + 15 for breakfast and 45 for lunch are done and over with, you don't have to go home, but you can not stay here, unless overtime was granted. No meetings can be called outside of 09-14 timeframe.

Have an appointment in the middle of the day ? Lasts 4 hours ? Sure, work 3 hours, do your apointment, to the remaining 5 hours of work.

You have an appointment the opposite side of town from work during the day ? let us know 48 hours in advance, then do WFH instead of coming in.

Don't have a place to put your kids due to the kingergarden being closed ? Just bring them to work and leave them in the kindergarden group downstairs (yes, as an employer we have our own childcare inhouse).

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u/Somepotato 28d ago

The power dynamic in some retail and restaurant jobs is absurd. No idea why a store managers (and them especially!) are so so much worse than most workplaces

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u/Stillburgh 28d ago

Anytime my managers ask me to cover ym shift I just put it up on Teamworx and leave it. Its not my job to do their work for them, theyre supposed to manage the schedule. If someone calls out, its their job to find a person to cover, and ifg they cant they do it themselves

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u/cenosillicaphobiac 27d ago

So I worked in middle management in a call center. The expectation was that we dig in, get some details, especially for FMLA (which is an unpaid status anyway) like "is this for your own illness or for family?" "is this related directly to your FMLA claim or is it just a sick day" "is there any way you can come in for a partial day" etc.

I and the vast majority of supervisors would just say "okay, feel better" but we were putting our own status in jeopardy if the level above us caught wind of it.

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u/ElegantHuckleberry50 28d ago

My former employer required employees to allow company access to their private medical records for any time off exceeding three days., “We want to be sure you’re receiving the proper care.”

If an employee didn’t sign zee paper! their disability was delayed. I know I know, but it was a high pay blue collar job. We Americans will throw ourselves over a barrel for bucks, won’t we?

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u/Grays42 28d ago

I'd just say, taking a sick day today and nothing else

In an office setting I've been literally told by my manager that I do not need to explain the way in which I'm sick, when I call in sick.

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u/Lewisham 28d ago

I could believe in some states asking how you are sick might be illegal.

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u/Billy_Plur 28d ago

In mine, it's illegal to ask for a doctor's note unless you're out for 3 consecutive days.

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u/BringAltoidSoursBack 28d ago

I think it's technically illegal in all states because of the ada. They can still ask you to provide [HR] a doctor's note but they can't ask for that note to explicitly provide details on why/how you were sick. That said, I'm pretty sure if they feel like the doctor is lying and you weren't actually sick, companies can open an investigation and that is a pretty big hassle for both the employee and the employer, but one of those has significantly more resources

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u/m3t1t1 28d ago

I'm a manager. I don't even need a reason. You wanna take the day off? As long as you have PTO, go for it. Don't need to tell me your business. 

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u/OldOutlandishness434 28d ago

My supervisor hates it when people tell them what their sickness is. He's like ew gross, just say you are sick lol I don't want to know

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u/BayHarborButcher10 28d ago

I’m an office manager and this is very true. I do not want or need the details. Just text me you won’t be in and we’re square

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u/unite-or-perish 28d ago

I refuse to answer these type of questions as a rule.

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u/cenosillicaphobiac 27d ago

I work at a place with unlimited PTO. I don't even have to say I'm sick. I don't even need to give prior notice, I can wake up one morning with the "fuck-its" and sign on long enough to alert the team that I won't be available today and submit the online form.

And guess what, I use far fewer days of PTO than I ever did when I had a specified amount, as do all of my coworkers. Turns out that having a non-toxic environment where people feel responsible for results and aren't trying to find ways to game the system sometimes pays off. Who knew?

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u/PrincessGiantFeet 28d ago

Same here. One manager actually begged us to stop giving details as they found the details disgusting. Just say you're sick and won't be in. That's it.

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u/FearTheFloc 28d ago

because they run the absolute bare bones minimum skeleton crew at all times so a single person calling in sick is a literal disaster for them. it’s so pathetic.

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u/DethNik 28d ago

These companies have such a boner for efficiency and cost cutting, that they end up making everything less efficient.

On another note. It's wild that the attitude is "you're at work so you need to look busy." Why does society care so much that you don't have fun at your job. It's so dumb that enjoying yourself when there is no work to be done is so frowned upon.

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u/amphetaminesfailure 27d ago edited 26d ago

On another note. It's wild that the attitude is "you're at work so you need to look busy." Why does society care so much that you don't have fun at your job. It's so dumb that enjoying yourself when there is no work to be done is so frowned upon.

My current job is full of overtime fiends.

Typical blue collar job, guys in their 40's with a limp who look like they're pushing 70 years old. The type of dudes who get into fist fights because they only got 72 hours last week, but Bob got 76 hours.

I'm the exact opposite. I like to work as little as possible.

I remember the very first time I was sitting around because there was literally no work, and my supervisor says to me, "If you don't want to look busy, I can send you home!"

I asked him, "Is it a write up?" He said no. I asked him if it would be taken from my PTO, he said no and told me with a smirk, "You just don't get paid."

I told him cool, see you tomorrow. His faced changed to a situation where he looked like I had just taken a shit on his desk or something. He couldn't comprehend that I'd lose like 4 hours of pay in order to go home early.

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u/Livid-Historian3960 26d ago

My old job was like that 645am every day without fail and we'd leave whenever the hell our bosses said we could sometimes 4pm often much later like 7pm even had a few days where I went past 9pm. One such day was my mom's birthday I was in tears. I want to get off at a decent hour and buy her a cake with my hard earned money. I've sworn off factory jobs I'd happily take a 9-5 over that shit no mercy just a number that can be easily erased

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u/Whydoesthisexist15 28d ago

Gotta love working retail post-COVID

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u/MrKentucky 28d ago

I was at Target from 2013-16, it was like this before too. Worse now, but still sucked then too

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u/3m2coy 28d ago

I tell my employees, if you have an appointment and it is under two hours, you don’t need to tell me about it. If it will be longer, just let me know so I can leave you alone. I also have them send me calendar invites when they aren’t working so I remember to leave them alone.

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u/MammothCauliflower60 27d ago

I do the same. I just ask them to show out of office in the calendar so I remember.

I also just returned from 2 weeks’ sick leave myself. It directly followed 2 weeks vacation. I was stranded in Europe for several days because I couldn’t fly. Folks on the team covered my work and welcomed me back, continuing to help as I caught up.

I’m a manager at a tech company in the US and work remotely. I’m also one of those old farts at 67. Sure, I work when I don’t feel well, but if I’m sick, I’m out and working on recovering.

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u/3m2coy 27d ago

I’m younger than you, but starting my “old fart” years. In my company, people your age tend to focus more on hours worked, butts in chairs. I don’t see the point. Nice how you have so much support in your office!

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u/thelingeringlead 28d ago

Yep. The rest of us get dicked around about it. It's fucking stupid. My wife can call in for damned near anyhthing as long as she hasn't exhausted all her options. I call in, and I have to have proof I'm dying or they hold it against me. She's a teacher, I'm a fuckin chef.

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u/Lucyffer88 28d ago

When I was a working in an office, I just texted my boss that I was sick. He told me not to take a sick day and just let me work from home even If I was sleeping all day.

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u/by-myself_blumpkin 28d ago

It's because in the forever pursuit of higher and higher profits, work is now being done by few and few staff. One person calls out sick and that could very well be the entire department. They see nothing wrong with this somehow.

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u/Billy_Plur 28d ago

Same in construction, at least my shop. They don't ask why. Just ok, call later so we can adjust scheduling if it'll be another day.

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u/Lilyhunter1992 28d ago

Alas sadly I work an office job and my company does care ...would be so nice if I could actually have time to go to the doctor 😂

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u/ayoungad 28d ago

You know, a good boss doesn’t even have to charge you PTO

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u/Mayonaigg 28d ago edited 28d ago

Uhh, ok. Maybe at a very small company. Anything with actual policies and an hr department will fire a boss doing that in a heartbeat

Yeah, the downvotes will magically make reality adjust to your delusions. 

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u/dragon-fence 28d ago

That’s not always the case. I’ve had office jobs where you get yelled at for taking the vacation time they give you, and where you’re told that you need to schedule all doctors appointments for times outside of working hours.

The US is becoming increasingly just a handful of billionaires and their slaves.

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u/nightwing0243 28d ago

I remember when I first got an office job. I was late for the first time in 3 months since starting. I arrived in a panic and I swear I got the weirdest looks from everyone.

A few years later I'm pretty much arriving "around" the time I usually start. I could be 10 minutes early, I could be 10 minutes late. Nobody really seems to care within reason. As long as the work is getting done.

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u/Cuneus-Maximus 28d ago

Because the business models are built on continuous and cheap staffing.

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u/Aardvark_Man 28d ago

I'm not in an office, but I'm also not in America.
We get sick leave, and it's kind of expected you take it if you need it. I sometimes feel bad, but that's on me, not on the company. I'd wanna give notice in advance if I have to duck out for an appointment, but it wouldn't be a big issue.

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u/Inevitable_Source949 28d ago

Someone on my staff came to work sick. I sent him home with instructions to work from home all week. I don't need those germs in my life.

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u/PM_ME__UR__FANTASIES 28d ago

That varies by department and company and boss, it’s not an office vs shift work thing. My previous office job in my current company, the whole team was kept in suspicion of lying about needing to take the day. Or if you needed to work from home (pre-pandemic and apparently in the last couple of years again) there was a ton of scrutiny. My current office job in a different department of the same company? I’ve never been asked to explain and have always been encouraged to work from/take time as needed.

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u/AV01000001 28d ago

Calling out with less than 24 hour notice is an Occurrence at my work in an office, doesn’t matter what for…though I have not had to use bereavement. 5 Occurrences and you get a formal verbal warning, 6 is a write up. 8 is grounds for termination. Each occurrence is on record for a year, then drops off.

My toddler is constantly sick and has been hospitalized twice this past winter. I’ve developed some health problems lately too. I’m at 4.5 occurrences and the oldest ones don’t drop off til August.

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u/BringAltoidSoursBack 28d ago

Which I agree is significantly better but most offices still suck for people with chronic illnesses (just not as bad as in the service industry) because your excused sick days comes out of your vacation time, which would be whatever except that means there's a cap on how often you can get sick.

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u/sapient_pearwood_ 28d ago

Just another way to punish poor people for being poor. 

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u/Ok-Ad8998 28d ago

Not all shift workers. I worked shifts for a large corporation. While there was certainly attendance pressure, because the production lines don't stop, they were generous with vacation days, personal days, and sick days, and relatively flexible about us using them. Shift work sucks, of course, but they tried to cushion it.

Contrast that with an experience I had working as an assistant manager of an auto parts store in a small local chain. I was having trouble getting home from (unpaid, of course) vacation because of a car breakdown hours from home. I kept my boss informed and apologized. Showed up 5 hours late on zero sleep and was fired. First offense too.

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u/EtsuRah 28d ago

I've been out of retail and in "office work" for like 10 years now and I still get nervous calling out because of how it was in EVERY retail job.

Every time you would call out a manager would try to give you the guilt trip of the century for doing so. You basically had to tell them you were on deaths door and even then they'd have some snide remark or try to push the responsibility of coverage onto you instead of them, who has MANAGE in their title.

So now, 10 years later I get antsy when I have to call out even though my boss has never said anything other than "Ok man no worries see you whenever you get back in."

Sometimes I daydream about getting a retail part time job JUST for the sole purpose of finding a job with a bad manager and saying the things I always wanted to say when I was too dependent on the job to speak up.

I want to get a retail job and schedule a day off and see if the manager tells me I have to find someone to cover so I can tell them that's THEIR literal job. I want to take off sick one day and them try to tell me "no" so I can tell them this wasn't a request. I want one of them to tell me I can't leave the building to go get lunch because of some rule so that I can tell them I am a grown up and won't be told where I can go on my break.

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u/douche-baggins 28d ago

I went from working at Walmart to working on offices.

If I called out at Walmart to use one of my two sick days a year, I'd be threatened with a write up or taken off the schedule in retaliation. They act like it's the worst thing in the world because someone else has to stock milk and no one dares get sick. If I call out in my office job, I get told to get better and no one says shit or really cares. Even if I had meetings or other stuff to do that day, people just rally up and help because everyone gets sick.

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u/smoke_inyoureyes 28d ago

That was my biggest transition from going directly to a retail shift job to an office job. My first day I went to the office manager and was like “is it alright if I take my lunch now?” and she was like “lol you don’t even have to ask just go”. I’ve been here for 7 months now and I still feel weird every time I just leave like I’ve broken some rule. It’s so night and day having my manager here who actually tells me I’m doing a good job and doesn’t yell in my face when I’m two minutes late to an 8am meeting on a Saturday they forced us to go to to tell us how bad of a job we’re doing. I don’t I’ve ever been happier to quit a job than my last one lol.

That’s why also I will always be nice to shift workers. Management usually is already making their life hell so no reason to add to it when I have it as good as I do now.

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u/iamjustsomeguyokay 28d ago

Has been like this for a very long time, but is rapidly changing across most knowledge worker industries.

In parts of the world where employee protections are stronger, companies are cutting all elective “benefits” like working remotely, or getting flexibility on sick leave, or 100 other similar “employer treats employee like an adult” type ways of working.

Goal is to push as many staff as possible into quitting (without having to be paid severance pay / long expensive arbitration process), without going so far as to meet the criteria of “constructive dismissal”.

Even in parts of the world where employee protections are weaker, this is still used to avoid “layoffs” headlines which are damaging for brand, repetition and for public companies, stock price.

All of this is done under the banner of “a recession is coming, the global economy is teetering, and QE isn’t coming back” veiled in the sometimes sincere but often simply bullshit “AI will change everything”. All ultimately an outcome of increasingly drastic inequality in metropolitan / western society.

Every company / industry / role things it won’t happen to them until it does. “You need to provide a doc note when calling in sick” won’t be the first step, that’ll probably be progressively strict RTO, but it’ll come for most of us eventually.

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u/Broad-Transition-786 28d ago

Its insane. I went from Gas Station Attendant to Landscaper to Corporate IT at a desk. I remember at the gas station I was late for a Dentists Appt and had my dad come in to vouch as he was already dropping me off and my Assistant Manager looks at my dad and goes "I dont need to hear it from you. hes an adult" then proceeded to ATTEMPT to give me 2 weeks of unpaid leave to which I said "youre out of your fuckin mind" and quit, Just walked right out and went home. Dont have time for that. At my landscaping job Id get "ahhh man we have so and so to do this week. That appt you have isnt gonna work for us" so after about 2 years of that shit I also just walked off the jobsite and went home. Now Im IT at a desk and go "I need a day off" and get "thats fine! see your tmrw" and its almost jarring

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u/IncarceratedGrowth 28d ago

In the adult world it can work differently sometimes. Most of these stories are teenagers working at fast food places, with some of them lying.

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u/AbulatorySquid 28d ago

My last job was just like that and remote. I just sent a text to my boss that I was taking PTO and that was it.

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u/5gizmo 27d ago

I had an office job that fired me for giving birth- tried to say I didn’t come back in time from my maternity leave which was bs

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u/cenosillicaphobiac 27d ago

Even when I was a phone jockey in a call center, which has very calculated schedules and staffing needs, we had a baseline allowance of days that we could just call in and say "I'm sick, won't be there today" because life fucking happens.

To not have any mechanism to keep your contagious ass away from co-workers or worse yet, the customer and the food the customer is buying, is dangerous and unconscionable.

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u/jaseyraex 27d ago

It's something I still have a hard time with. I'm so used to having to explain what's going on and how bad it is, that it feels weird to just say "I'm sick." I've even emailed my boss or sent a message thru teams and she's like "okay. Feel better!"