Work

for everyone telling me I should have grabbed a new set of gloves, believe me, I tried. I searched the entire house and asked my brother for gloves too. there were no others. I also had a date in 3 hours with my girlfriend and needed to get this done and get showered before it was time to leave. i didn't have money to run to the store to buy new gloves. And grandma wasn't home to loan me the money. Nor would she be home until about 30 minutes before I had to leave. So I just had to suck it up and clean them then. I also live pretty far from my grandma's house and wouldn't be able to see her again until Christmas. so this was my last chance to clean them before they were frozen solid.

OP here. I was actually a 1099 'contractor' so there's very little recourse, HR wise. My boss had recently restructured pay to where I was making way less money...so I was suggesting other ways for me to go about my job so it was more efficient/profitable. He got pissy, I didn't back down, he said ' Whatever, I'm down with this, good luck to you' and I was offered another job that's $5/hr more, like, 30 min later.

OP here! So, details. First of all, yes, of course I know that a verbal confirmation isn't binding. We have an online system where you have to 'book' it and then your scheduler will approve it when they find cover (someone has to physically be in the office always). I had spoken to my scheduler almost 2 months ago how if I did this and swapped that etc., I could fly home slightly earlier which would save me literally hundreds of pounds in tickets. I put the request in about a month ago (so giving an additional month of notice). Never in my time here have any of my requests been denied, I gave lots of notice and we'd had a discussion about why this is a slightly special occasion, and I've helped them out loads with last minute covers etc., so I had no reason to think she wouldn't eventually cover it. She has managed to cover 2/3 days and this one is right in the middle. The reason there is no cover is because they haven't managed to fill the whole team in a YEAR which means that my side of the shift is always covered with freelancers, so these shifts were covered first. There are also some people who freelance in multiple departments in the same company and because my scheduler left it too late, they're already snatched up by those teams. So, basically, if they'd covered the vacant shifts sooner, this situation wouldn't have happened.