Help me come up with a good parting shot to make my boss feel like a dick.

In My Humble Opinion
1

Short background: In the past 2 weeks, I’ve only worked 4 of 11 shifts because I’ve been very ill. At first the doctor thought it was scarlet fever because of the fever and rash, but it didn’t go away and kept getting worse. After 3 doctor’s visits (the last being a trip to the ER) they concluded it was a severe drug reaction to one of the medications I’d started taking about a month ago. Like, the kind where your skin can just fall off (not kidding). Well, today I got fired because my boss “doesn’t feel like she can count on me to be there when they need me.” I have to go pick up my last paycheck tomorrow, and I’d like to have something short and sweet in mind that says, “Fuck off” without actually saying fuck off.

I was thinking something along the lines of, "Sorry you don’t feel like you can count on me, but I guess you can’t really count on anyone to come in when they’ve got a fever of 103, are covered in a painful, itchy red rash, or have swollen purple legs that feel like they’re being stabbed with hot knives…But wait, I actually did come in and work despite feeling like I was dying. Hmmm. :dubious:

2

The best parting shot: saying nothing. You will need her as a reference.

3

No, no references here. It’s a cafe that just opened a few months ago, I’ve been there since they opened, but I wouldn’t want to put them on an application because it’s hard to explain that I only worked there for 2 months before getting fired for being really sick.

4

If it is a cafe wait until you are out in front of a bunch of customers and say, “I can’t believe you are firing me for not working while I was flaking huge pieces of skin and covered in a rash! I don’t want to give the customers leprosy but apparently their health isn’t important to you!”

5

If you don’t need a reference, why can’t you just tell him to fuck off?

6

I dunno, I just want to be a bit more dignified than, “Fuck off.”

7

So do you have a visible rash? Here’s my suggestion- come in looking as sick as possible: no makeup, hair messy, roll up the sleeves so the rash is showing, or whatever else to look as sick as possible. Then offer to give the boss a hug to say goodbye and show there’s no hard feelings. I’m guessing she would decline the offer of the hug, so then you say something like “Oh, you don’t want a hug? Is it because I’ve been horribly sick the last two weeks? So sick that I could hardly think straight, much less do any work?” Then you walk out as she’s sputtering a reply.

8

Sometimes there is no dignity in denying the truth of it.

“I want to thank you for firing me in the middle of a health crisis. You showed true class, character and compassion. I hope that one day, your concern for my health will be repaid. Jackass.”

9

Would it make your boss feel bad if you took the high road and left with a smile? If so, do that.

Otherwise, how about “The doctor doesn’t think I was contagious while I worked here, but just to be on the safe side, he’s called the Health Department. They’ll be inspecting the place later today. Oh, and cholera is spelled with a 'ch”, not a ‘k’."

10

Tell her what you have is potentially contagious and that the days you tried to be reliable will very likely result in customers getting sick. Tell her you are really conflicted about whether your loyalty is to the company or to the customers. Tell her your doctor has advised you to make sure customers know they are at risk so they can get early treatment to avoid potential serious side effects. Ask if the company has legal staff that you should talk to before you are off the payroll or if she thinks it would be a potential conflict of interest. Act concerned and try not to giggle.

11

Hmmm I see Auntie Pam and I are drifting in the same direction. You are contagious, right?

12

You’re in America. Sue her ass! Can you really be fired for illness?

13

Unfortunately, the rash is fading.

That’s what pisses me off more than anything, though, is that I was visibly ill. The few shifts that I did drag myself in (because I was worried that something like this might happen) my coworkers unanimously said, “Go HOME you look like hell!” I dragged myself in on Mothers’ Day, a HUGE day for us as we were having a brunch and the food critic had just written a glowing review. We were slammed, and they needed me. So I came in, despite the fact that for the past few days when I’d get out of bed I’d feel light-headed, dizzy, and nauseous. And I worked all day, until my legs started itching uncontrollably and feeling like I was walking through fire. I pulled up my pant leg, and instead of the splotchy red rash I had everywhere else, they were now lobster red, with big purple splotches, and really swollen. I showed all my coworkers, saying, “You wanna see something gross?” and showed my bosses too. I showed my coworkers just because I wanted to show off how gross I was, but even though I approached it light-heartedly with my bosses, I really just wanted them to see exactly how sick I was in case they were getting mad that I had been out sick so much.

And after work that day, I could barely walk because my legs were excruciatingly painful. I spent the next day in the ER, finally figuring out this was a drug reaction I was having. A potentially fatal one, where not just the top layer of skin cells flakes off but where the entire top layer of your skin separates from the lower layers and you’re left looking like a victim of severe burns (luckily, this did not happen, but based on the condition of my legs it was very close to happening). And I still showed up for work the next day!

So, I just really want to say something that makes my boss feel like a dick for firing me for being sick, and lets her know that she’s an idiot for firing me, because she can probably count on me to be there even more than her other employees, considering I dragged myself into work on legs that looked and felt like they needed to be amputated.

ETA: No, I’m not contagious, although we first thought I was contagious because it had been diagnosed as scarlet fever.

14

There are some people whom you just cannot make feel like a dick. That’s mainly because they’re a dick.

15

“Oh yeah? Well I had sex with your wife!”

16

Seriously though, pre-planned zingers rarely work out. The boss might not be around when you pick up your check, or you’ll have to contort the conversation to fit it in, or it won’t be as well received as it is in your mind’s eye. Et cetera. If you happen to come up with something off-the-cuff that’s witty and devastating, then go for it. Otherwise, I think your best bet is barely concealed contempt, shrouded by a thin layer of nominal politeness.

17

I suppose going postal would be out of the question.

18

Winner!

19

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been a boss who had to manage employees in a high-turnover type of situation…

I am not saying this boss is behaving defensibly, by any stretch of the imagination. It sounds like the OP’s condition is completely curable, given that it has been identified as resulting from as a medicine she shouldn’t take. So it would have been decent of the boss to realize that RedRoses’ behavior - missing as little work as possible despite being deathly ill - demonstrated that she’s a highly conscientious employee.

But, perhaps the boss hasn’t had time to get to know her (she says she’s been there just two months, and out sick for a lot of the past two weeks … that means only about 7 weeks on the job full-time, as far as I can tell). And perhaps said boss has managed a lot of staff in the past and realized that, on average, an employee who misses a lot of work when they are just starting a job is an employee who will continue to have high absentee rates in the future. Maybe she doesn’t understand that your problem will go away, RedRoses. Maybe she hears the word “medication” and thinks “okay, they’ll have this reaction thing under control, but what are her meds for? She must be really sick to be taking a medicine that causes that kind of reaction, so this situation is going to continue. Best to get out of it before she’s been here too long.”

I’m not saying that is fair, but I’ve managed staff enough to know that sometimes acting in the way that appears to be best for the company is not going to be very nice to the employee.

If that’s the case here, I think the boss only qualifies as a “dick” (setting aside the gender-bending nature of that formulation) if she was unkind to RedRoses when letting her go. If she did it nicely, I’d say she’s just misguided. Unfortunate, but not the same thing.

By the way RedRoses, I hope you can find replacement work without too much trouble?

20

Can you be fired for being absent from work on doctor’s orders? That doesn’t sound legal!