I was working for a chain pizza restaurant - my favorite pizza place - back around 1986. I was a student at a small business school at the time. Some of us at the school had put together a softball team, and had scheduled a tournament against other branches of our school. Playing in the tournament would require going out of town, and so I requested that weekend off at work, three weeks in advance.
The manager approved my request. A week later I double-checked with him, and he assured me that I would have that weekend off.
The next week I checked the schedule for the week in question. Sure enough, I was scheduled off for those days.
As it happened, the tournament was cancelled at the last minute, and so I didn’t go out of town. Instead, I’m sitting at home, eating dinner with my family on Sunday evening, when the telephone rings. It’s the assistant manager, wanting to know why I’m not at work.
Me: “Um, well, because I asked for the weekend off, and <insert manager’s name> told me I could take it off?”
AsstMgr: (Indignantly) “Let me check with him.” (pause) “He says he said nothing of the sort.”
Me: “I’m afraid he did.” (Mind you, on top of the manager telling me twice that I’d have the days off, I also had a witness to the fact that the schedule originally showed that I was given the days off.)
AM: “So are you coming to work?”
Me: “No.”
AM: “Well, why don’t you come in tomorrow and we’ll have a little chat?”
Me: (Steaming by this time) “Fine. Talk to you later.”
I spent the evening laundering my uniforms and composing my letter of resignation, which I delivered to my managers the next day. Then I picked up a comment card on my way out - the card included the mailing address for corporate headquarters. At home, I composed a letter To Whom It May Concern at corporate headquarters. I had photocopied my letter of resignation, which listed a good number of reasons for my leaving (the day off thing was just the final straw), and in the letter to corporate, I fleshed those reasons out, providing the details that didn’t need spelling out for the managers.
I don’t know how much my letter had to do with it, but the managers were both fired a couple months later 
Incidentally, I strongly suspect that that assistant manager had something to do with the scheduling snafu that got me fired from a bartending job a couple years later. You see, his uncle bought the bar while I was working there, and the former AsstMgr came to work there. There was a “surprise” change to my schedule - as in “I was surprised that I wasn’t informed of this change until the uncle called me at home to ask why I wasn’t at work” - sound familiar? I hurried on down to work, where the uncle decided to fire me because I “couldn’t be at work when [I’m] supposed to be”. With his nephew, my former AsstMgr, smirking at me behind him. Guess who got my old shift once I was gone?
Anyway, here I am in the same general line of work 20 years later (hey, I like it). I finally have a job where I’m virtually guaranteed to have Sundays off. That’s important to me for two reasons: I play the bass guitar at church on Sunday mornings, and I like having one consistent night off so that I can schedule a regular gettogether with friends.
I’m working at the city convention center. I only work when there is an event scheduled. I’m the only person who does my job, and so if there’s an event, I’m there. If there’s no event, I’m not there. This means that I never again have to worry about somebody calling in sick and making me have to come in on my day off. Because if I have the day off, it means there’s no work to be done. I really, really like this situation. In the last ten years I’ve grown increasingly fed up with undependable people who are always calling in sick or asking for time off, because I’m always the guy who gets called to fill in. See, I’m Mr. Dependable. If I’m on the schedule, I show up. On time. Every day. And I’m fortunate enough that I can’t remember the last time I was sick enough to call in sick. I just don’t do that. And I rarely ask for time off.
The problem is this: My actual employer is the fancy hotel next door. The city contracts with the hotel to staff the convention center. The hotel restaurant has three or four people who do the same job I do at the convention center. And somehow, at least once a week, one or another of those guys can’t come to work. Guess what happens? My phone rings, and it’s the hotel restaurant chef wanting to know if I can come fill in, because he sees I’m not scheduled to work at the convention center today …
Oh, I said, “Sure” the first couple times. When I got called for the third Sunday in a row, I told the chef, “Sorry, I have plans for the evening”. When my cell phone rang on the fourth Sunday in a row, I saw who was calling and I ignored it. Now, I turn my cell phone ringer off on Sunday.
If I don’t go fill in on Sunday evening, then the guy who worked the morning shift has to pull a double. Oh boo-hoo-hoo. Did I mention I’m the only guy doing my job at the convention center? Events sometimes go on all day long. I regularly have to work 10-12-15 hour days, back to back to back to back. I worked a 17-hour shift once - practically nonstop. And came in the next day - a scheduled day off - and worked for six more hours to finish up what I couldn’t get done the night before. And I’m 40 years old. My back hurts. I’ve got bad knees. But I show up and do my job. I don’t want to hear about 18-22-year-olds who are too tired or sick (read: hung over) to come to work.
