Asklemmy

Bad case of anal glaucoma. I just can't see my ass going in to work today.

Exactly. I'm a manager and literally never ask the reason unless it's longer than a week. They like to tell me anyway even though I've told them I don't care.

Could go into great detail about significant health issues, becoming more and more emotional as you go on, and tearfully asking "why would you make me talk about this? I wanted to keep this private! I haven't even told my family yet!".

I'm not sure it would be legal if they were forced to reveal medical information.

Correct, non sick leave is usually considered discretionary time off; meaning, it’s at the discretion of the manager to approve it.

That said, this manager sounds like a nut job. It’s legal to be a hard ass, but people don’t have to remain working for you.

Despite the fact that, as another user pointed out, restaurants rarely have an HR department, it is important to remember that HR exists solely to protect the company. They are not there to advocate for your rights as an employee. If you think your rights have been violated at work, you should contact your state's labor department (assuming you are US based). My state even has a nice website that outlines your rights as an employee and a form you can submit if your rights have been violated.

I don’t know if you were addressing the specific case mentioned, but if someone has a softball game they want to go to, and they say they have a medical procedure to take care of, that could easily be grounds for termination.

Best answer I can think of is to unionize and negotiate a CA that includes shift trade rights. Short term, I don’t think there’s much you can do if the company wants to be a dick.

In my experience most restaurants dont even have HR lmao. My mileage obviously varies but I have worked a few food industry jobs, and exactly 0 had any HR person other than the managers and assistant managers themselves

As a manager, I don't give a flying fuck why my team wants to take time off. Wanna sit on your ass and play video games for a week straight, cool all good by me : just let me know the dates, check their PTO balance, and ensure it doesn't conflict with key deliverables and if so either work out a plan for coverage or suggest they look for a different time to take off if possible

Yeah, I don't know what Colorado's laws are on this in general, but even if it's technically legal it seems like a huge risk that someone is going to plausibly allege that given the specific facts denying them time off was race/religion/family status/... discrimination. It might be legal (don't know), but it's a stupid policy for a number of reasons.

"Good morning boss, I need two weeks off for gynecology-related activities".

I need a leave for my pap exam.

Denied.

Why?

You're a man.

Gender discrimination reported to corporate headquarters.

Maybe if all the employees presented a united front. Like a sort of joint group of just the employees. Together in a union of sorts.

Everyone should always say 'its because I'm on my period.' Men and post menopausal women too. It could be great, if the first few times the younger women use the line it works. Then whenever someone who doesn't have menses uses it, everyone unites together and puts a little bit of their labor to helping a coworker. It'd be nice if there was a name for something like that.

If this is in the US employment contracts are virtually nonexistent.

If a policy doesn’t discriminate against a protected class, it’s pretty much legal. Your recourse is to find another job.

"special labour rules"

Seems every industry has their own... I work in IT and we get shafted as well

Of course it’s legal. Why wouldn’t it be?

I'm assuming you're USian?

The question almost anywhere else in the wealthy world is why would it be legal? The manager does not need to know therefore the manager has no right to ask.