Well, if I had any qualms about quitting, I don't anymore...

Hi Abba. I know I keep coming to You on this whole work situation. I knew the answer last time that you were telling me it was time for me to be home again. Then, I tried to do things on my own and stick it out at work and now I'm faced with this. Now, I definitely know it is time.

I'm sticking around for the next month or two to get my bonus and then I'm out of there. I came home last night all upset as they're giving me a hard time about missing work since Deidra was sick. I had gone into work on Monday and was there an hour and a half to get a call from Andy saying that Deidra was sick at school and needed to be picked up. I told them, I had to go and left about a half an hour later. The operations manager had a meeting with all the head cashiers and one point that was brought up (and we'll all be going over it on Sunday at the store meeting) was on attendance. Anyone who gets to 10 points is out the door, no ands, ifs, or buts. You miss a day during the week it's 3 points...you miss a day on the weekend or a holiday and it's 5 points. You bring in a doctor's note, they'll bring it down a point making it 2 points, and 4 points. Andy and I always take turns staying home with her when she's sick. I've missed 6 days now in 8 months, so I'm already past 10 points. I've brought in doctor's notes whenever I could, but I'm not bringing her in over every little thing when all the doctor is going to tell me is "yup, she's got a cold. I can't really put her on anything, it's just going to run it's course." I was told yesterday that I better find a back-up babysitter or I could risk losing my job. Ummm, the babysitter isn't the problem, they're there all the time...it's the fact that she's sick and nobody is going to take her like that or should they be expected too. Then, I was asked if I had family that could help, "umm, they all work and hello...she's sick she doesn't need to make everyone else sick too." I flat out told one of my head cashiers, "this family claims to be so family oriented and they're not, so if you need to let me go because my daughter's sick then fine. It's not like I'm missing work because I just don't feel like working and I work through being sick myself, so that I can have my sick time for when my daughter is sick. There isn't a time (except for once) that I haven't had the personal time to take when she's been sick. Andy's attendance policy at his work is a whole lot more strict than mine too and we get hit extra hard when he has to miss as he makes a little more than I do." I was informed that she had to quit many a job when her kids were little because of them being sick. So I told her that I guess if I had to do that, then that's what I would do and she spent the rest of the day trying to get me to see if I could find a back-up sitter cause they'd hate to lose me. I'm sick of the stresses...I'm going to bring in the policy for Kindercare with sick children and give a copy to Corey (my direct boss) and to Paige (the HR manager) although I really don't think it's going to help.

Deidra's here with a 103 fever, a little cough, and a sore throat. She's been really tired. I missed work on Monday, Andy stayed home with her Tuesday since I had today off. She's still running a fever, so it looks like I'll have to call in tomorrow as well. I honestly don't know what they expect me to do. I was told to switch my day shift to a night shift and come in from 12-9 and I just looked at them and said that Andy doesn't get home until between 4 and 5 and I couldn't come in until after that if I were to do it that way and I'd still get points for that anyway. I can't deal with it anymore. All I can do is hope that she'll feel better and the fever will break by the end of the day.

I understand that they're trying to run a company, but there's a lot of people that are constantly late or missing work and these people are single and don't have kids and I've missed a lot less work than them. Yeah, I work when I'm sick so that I can use my sick time for when she's sick and she does get sick a lot due to her age and being around all the other kids at daycare. I guess I just thought they'd cut me some slack.