I never ghosted at a job but I came close once- and it would have happened on Christmas Day. Let me explain.
I had moved to WA months earlier and the large grocery store chain I had been working for didn’t have an immediate opening in the division I was moving to so I took a job as a pharmacist at one of the large national chains while I waited for an opportunity at my previous employer.
It doesn’t matter which large pharmacy chain- trust me from a pharmacy employee’s perspective they are all terrible.
I was getting fed up with this chain because we were extremely short staffed despite the fact that they kept opening new stores in my area. The scheduler would routinely call you 1-2 hours before your scheduled shift was supposed to end to tell you “we don’t have anyone to come in for you so you’re going to have to stay.” In some cases I was working 14 hour days on my feet with no lunch break.
I walk in to start my shift on the morning of 5 days before Christmas. My tech immediately says “the scheduler is on line 1 for you.” I remember mumbling “oh this can’t be good.” It was never good when the scheduler called you at the store.
Here is how the phone conversation went as best I can remember:
Scheduler: “I have bad news RxMan, you’re going to have to work Christmas Day.” (Keep in mind this is only 5 days prior to Christmas and I’m not scheduled to work.)
Me: “Can’t do it- you’ll have to find someone else.”
Scheduler: “There is no one else- your going to have to work.”
Me: “Let me be clear- I’m not working Christmas Day. Whether or not I still have a job on December 26th is up to the company but I guarantee you I will not be working on the 25th.”
Scheduler: “Well let me make some calls and see what I can do but I’m not optimistic this last minute.”
Me: “Why don’t you call the executives that thought it was such a great idea to have so many stores open on Christmas Day in the same division and make them work it.”
Scheduler: “That’s no fair!”
Me: “Exactly!”
Scheduler: “I’ll make some calls and get back to you.”
A couple of hours later she called back to tell me she found someone else to cover our store on Christmas Day. I resented the fact she called and tried to tell me I was working rather than asking me if I could work.
A couple of weeks later I heard from my old employer. They had an opening for me. I put in my two weeks notice immediately after getting off the phone with the job offer from my new DM.
Two weeks exactly was on a Monday and I didn’t want to work one extra day for this company so my last day was a Monday which is kind of strange. They called me several times in those two weeks begging me to stay the rest of that week. No sale after the way this company had treated me (I have plenty of stories). I told the new boss I couldn’t start until the following Monday- I was taking the rest of the week off!
After I left I later heard that the pharmacy I used to work at had to close at 3PM two days that week and didn’t open at all another day because nobody was available to work. We were normally opened until 10PM on weekdays. Ridiculous that they were closing early and on one day never opening and it’s something I hardly ever hear happening but that’s how short staffed that district was at the time.
I moved on and never looked back. Technically this counts as a close call rather than actually ghosting a job but I would have done it- on Christmas Day!
Edit: Forgot to mention that I had worked every holiday since starting with the company. That was part of the source of my frustration.
