I’m going to try to write something of substance but, I am wiped out. So, this might be short and more like a prelude to a better description of events.

Sunday my car payment was due. I knew I wasn’t going to have it because of the low rent HR company Sprouts uses to handle things like leaves of absence (LOA), etc, The name of that company is Unum, and they suck. I know because I had to deal with those people after my four car accident in August 2021.

This time around, I submitted my application for a leave of absence for my knee surgery to begin on 5/14. Well, apparently whoever read my application read a 5 for a 4. And sometime around 4/14, in the middle of my lunch break at work, Unum put me on LOA. Thus, I couldn’t even clock back in when my lunch ended, The time clock said I was inactive or on leave.

This was laughable because I’d submitted the application two days prior. That they put me on leave already made zero sense since the first item listed in the steps to applying for LOA is to give them THIRTY DAYS NOTICE. It had been TWO. So, why did someone at Unum put me on leave 28 days early???? WHY didn’t someone from Unum call to me to check the facts?

Because their snafu didn’t get resolved before the next work schedule was created and posted, the Sprouts computers thought I was on LOA, and thus, ineligible to be scheduled for work (there are actual federal laws against scheduling employees who are LOA, it’s related to the Family Leave Act). I got no shifts, no hours. Nuttin.’ My immediate boss did manage to get me on one shift and then later I got an offer to work a shift at a different store—the one in Oviedo. That shift ended up not working out because they didn’t need me, but I didn’t find that out till I’d arrived in Oviedo. That shift was supposed to happen on Saturday 5/4. The financial effect was felt must dramatically this week when my $90 paycheck for that one shift had run out. This emphasized the fact that it was going to be tight after I made my car payment.

In preparation for my knee surgery that was to happen yesterday, my last day until August, was Thursday 5/9. Friday I was given a regular day off and I requested to use 10.5 hours of my vacation pay for Saturday and Sunday, and another five hours of vacation for the first day of the week, Monday 5/13. That pretty much vaporized all the vacation time I had. the LOA time would begin on 5/14.

So, we are up to the current week. I didn’t make the car payment, but I was counting on having just barely any money to make it very early on the 16th. Again, that was the day my surgery was supposed to happen at 9 am at HCA Oviedo Medical Center.

Monday came and everything changed, and the obstacles popped up like mushrooms in a cow pasture.

……To be continued…..

Sorry, it’s 8 pm. I’m going upstairs for a shower.