'I was just fired': 17-year-old worker fired for taking sick leave leaving them frustrated and confused

It's safe to say that we're given PTO for a reason; it's just a part of the whole deal that is working. You work, you accumulate time off to use when you need it most or just need to get away from the grind for a while. Of course, ideally, part of the whole scenario involves you planning and notifying your employer that you're going to be away so that they can plan to maintain business continuity… but the ideal isn't real, and it's impossible to anticipate all of life's inevitabilities. It's important for employers to treat each situation individually and not rely on some bell curve statistics like a "Bradford score" to make these decisions. Still, let's be honest: disingenuous HR practices like this are used only for the expressed purpose of getting rid of people. The real truth is that the simple fact that you have the leave doesn't prevent employers from pressuring you not to take it, whether it's a rogue manager or a systemic issue of the organization.

Still, all this being said, working with a consistently absent team member has it's trying times. We had a guy at a shop I worked at who would call out every single one of his first shifts of the week. He always had some excuse as to why this was, with illness being a common one… It certainly didn't have anything to do with the fact that he'd spend his weekends (sometimes even the night before that shift) partying. This consistent and continued absence made things pretty difficult for the rest of us. This alone wasn't enough to do him in, but he was eventually caught committing fraud and fired.

See the original thread below shared by this young worker, along with the advice and reactions their post received in that original thread's comments.