the rules about your job.

I work in retail (especially Sears from 2002-2018). The last few years, I worked in the back room unloading trucks and whatnot. During most of November and all of December we can not take time off unless it’s a MAJOR emergency like your parents dying. My mother wanted us to take a cruise the week before Thanksgiving. I asked if I can take time off and when I was denied, I said it was no problem. I would work. When I told my parents this, they were thinking about writing a letter to Sears since I was going to comeback Thanksgiving week. I talked them out of it. This didn’t stop my mother who said that as a retired schoolteacher, she would have been allowed to take off. I think I responded by saying that they wouldn’t allow it during exams and two it’s, two different institutions. She also responded by saying that I could help out with the trucks that I missed during the Monday-Wednesday before thanksgiving. I said that I couldn’t because I didn’t know when that weeks trucks were coming since they usually arrived on Thursday and Friday.

Also, there was one time a couple years later when I arrived for work for a 12-8 shift or so. I arrived early. I usually took my lunch break during the middle portion of the day but since it was truck day, I decided to take a risk and take it one half hour before the truck arrived. Bad move. The truck arrived early and I for whatever reason, didn’t take my lunch with me to the dock. Since we are timed on that truck, we can’t take breaks except for bathroom breaks. So after the truck was done, I had to help out customers by bringing a Craftsman tool chest into their car and by time I was done, I took my break at 5p. When I told my parents about this, they said that that’s too late. My parents asked if I am the only one emptying the truck (despite the fact I told them that the team empty’s trucks), I said no. My Dad asked “You mean you can’t take a lunch break during the emptying?” I said no.

When a friend of mine asked if I can go to NJ to attend his wedding on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I said I couldn’t.

What are your experiences?

I worked for a nationwide commercial real estate company that kept transferring me from one city to another, over a period of 20 years. Each time it was "wrapped up" as a promotion, with expanded responsibilities and increases in pay to go along with it.

But it also meant that 7 times over that 20 years, I had to rip up all my roots, abandon most of the friends I had made, and start fresh at the bottom socially each time I moved into a new city.

Hey, it was great in the sense that I got to see a lot of cool things. But it takes a toll on you as far as what you leave behind.

You also get a kind of warped perspective having to train your own replacement, time after time, even when you really don't want to move in the first place, but you understand that refusing the promotion would be suicide for your career.

What I can offer is this: I worked for 40 some yrs for probably 10 or more businesses and "they are the bosses" and if you don't agree with their rules and regs, find another job.

Back in my working life and MOST was long before the tech explosion, I could quit a job on a Monday and have a new job on Wed....jobs were plentiful...

Do a start up business where you are the boss and you can come and go as you please.