Woman denied off at work for daughter's graduation stands up for herself and decides to go anyway

Parents never want to miss out on the milestone days of their children. Events like weddings, winning awards or graduating from school and college are some of the instances when a person anticipates the presence of their guardian figures. But what if your workplace is unwilling to understand how important these days are for you? You might not get your requested holidays and things might take a wrong turn at work as well. u/grxinnef shared a story with the Reddit community about an ugly incident that their mother's coworker had to go through.

"Not me, but it's about my mum's coworker. Her daughter is graduating from university tomorrow and she was told today that she didn't get the day off or even a half day for it," the post mentioned, "She requested the day off on the 3rd of January, the first day after the Christmas holidays, along with a half day for yesterday for a mammogram." The employee got a full day off for the mammogram.

But her request for a leave to attend her daughter's graduation ceremony was turned down by the company. "Her daughter started to cry when she told her. She decided to just call her workplace the next morning and tell them she wasn't coming in until the afternoon after attending the graduation, which was about 90 minutes away," the post continued, "The fact that they expected her to skip her daughter's graduation is just absolutely cruel and sociopathic to me."

The individual who shared this story also admitted that their own mother also faced a similar situation a while ago when they were receiving a scholarship and there was a "graduation-style ceremony." "She couldn't attend because they denied her request for a day off. None of my family were there as a result and I was just the photographer for my friends' families. It was horrible. When she told me this today, it just really resonated with me and made me so angry," the post concluded.

The Reddit community was fuming at the situation this mother and daughter had to face because of the inconsiderate workplace rules. @kingwiz4rdz wrote: "Yeah, I know it doesn’t always work this way, but I’m getting to the point where, within reason, notify my employer if I won’t be in (if I have an appointment or something I deem genuinely important to me). It’s supposed to be a professional relationship between an employer and employee, not a parent/child relationship. Just wanted to add that I always try to give as much notice as possible (typically a couple of weeks), but we are human and things come up. That’s life. If I need to take care of something, I will go take care of it with or without approval."

@kissyb commented: "PTO or a call out for me is not a request; it's advanced notice, even if it's one hour before my shift starts. Workers are humans and not robots." @DadGames99 remarked: "This is why I never 'request' off. I tell them when I won't be there and if they have a problem with it, then tough luck. I've never had a problem getting days off when I approach it like this." @Grimmelda joked: "Well, just so you know, I'm gonna be sick that day. Sick and tired of you valuing me as less than a human being and then I will moonwalk away and flip them off."