I polite way to get the seriousness of this across?

[nuit93]

I also wanted to suggest you politely inquire when making appointments " Is there an opening on Wednesday or Thursday by any chance? Those days are much easier for me to get off work.", "No" or "no but we do have an opening Wednesday in 2 weeks" , "Then sure Monday is fine."/"wednesday in 2 weeks will be great.".     Many offices just start with their own preferred jumping off point when making appointments.  Try to note which days are available for office hours at all the different offices perhaps you find out all the offices have either Wednesday morning or Thursday afternoons in common.

This is a good idea too. Also, when selecting a specialist see if you can find one who dies have office hours on your standard days off. When referred by another doctor, the practice will try to get you in with the first available in most cases. But ask if another physician at that practice has hours more compatible.

I believe the OP has already stated why this is not a viable option for her.

[shhh its me]

I also wanted to suggest you politely inquire when making appointments " Is there an opening on Wednesday or Thursday by any chance? Those days are much easier for me to get off work.", "No" or "no but we do have an opening Wednesday in 2 weeks" , "Then sure Monday is fine."/"Wednesday in 2 weeks will be great.".     Many offices just start with their own preferred jumping off point when making appointments.  Try to note which days are available for office hours at all the different offices perhaps you find out all the offices have either Wednesday morning or Thursday afternoons in common.

This is a good idea too. Also, when selecting a specialist see if you can find one who dies have office hours on your standard days off. When referred by another doctor, the practice will try to get you in with the first available in most cases. But ask if another physician at that practice has hours more compatible.

I believe the OP has already stated why this is not a viable option for her.

I'm suggesting OP ask , if she hasn't and/or that she can ask follow up questions about available appointment times.  My son's orthodontist only offered Thursday after 4:30 appointments because they had noted that's when I was available.  Another doctors office simply offered appointments at the same time and day of week as your last appointment, once you were Tues at 10 am you were always offered Tues at 10 am , the second appointment they offered was Tues at 10:30. I had to ask "Do you have any other weekday mornings available" turns out they did both Mondays and Thursdays.  OP may find out that none of her doctors have office hours on Wednesdays , so she can at least try to switch her normal day off to any day other then Wednesday. 

[TurtleDove]

I get the sense that the OP wants her employer to change its policy or reaction to her requests for time off rather than look at ways that she can work with her employer to get her what she wants.  I POD the posters who say that the OP should at least try to find appointments that do not conflict with her work schedule.  Like first thing in the morning if her shift starts at 10.  Or last appointment of the day if her shift ends at 3.  Or.....you get the idea.  A blanket statement of "I have no power over my life so you must accomodate me" does not come across well.

[TootsNYC]

you should also stop caring if she rolls her eyes and ONLY worry about whether you get the time off.

I'm going to re-say what I said early on.

There may not be any "magic words" that can make this supervisor stop rolling her eyes, etc.

So stop trying to get her to agree. Just act professionally on your own, and worry only about whether you get the time you need.

[*inviteseller]

TurtleDove..as the OP said many posts ago, she can't pick and choose her appointments with the specialists.  My DD sees 5 different specialists and the appointments have to be pre approved by the insurance company (even for her numerous follow ups with cardiology).  What happens is, she has to go for a follow up in 3 months so the dr puts in a request with the insurance, the insurance ok's the visit, then the Dr's office calls me and tells me when they can schedule her.  I sometimes can get a pick of times, but not days..they tell me when she sees patients.  Sometimes I know right away it has been approved, sometimes it takes longer.  Specialists are much much harder to get into than a regular GP - between insurance ok'ing referrals and most specialists only seeing patients on certain days you work your life around them instead of the other way around.  Yeah, it is a royal pain and my last boss may have been alot of not very nice words, but she understood how these things get scheduled.  OP's job is not some high pressure, time sensitive job..she is an hourly employee and it would be nice if they would work with her Dr. appointments, but she doesn't seem like a caring individual to be able to work around an occasional appointment that OP has shown documentation of.

[MurPl1]

Actually it IS a time-sensitive job.  The OP is hired to work a certain schedule.  It might be a minimum wage, hourly job, but those jobs ARE the most likely to be the ones that actually require bodies at certain times.  Working short staffed puts additional pressure on everyone else.  And it is the boss' responsibility to ensure that those positions are filled.  There are ripple effects to one employee being out.  And this is not a one-off occurrence they have to work around.  Many employers of hourly workers don't actually care why you can't work your shift, they just expect you to find your own substitute or work the shift.

[*inviteseller]

Actually it IS a time-sensitive job.  The OP is hired to work a certain schedule.  It might be a minimum wage, hourly job, but those jobs ARE the most likely to be the ones that actually require bodies at certain times.  Working short staffed puts additional pressure on everyone else.  And it is the boss' responsibility to ensure that those positions are filled.  There are ripple effects to one employee being out.  And this is not a one-off occurrence they have to work around.  Many employers of hourly workers don't actually care why you can't work your shift, they just expect you to find your own substitute or work the shift.

Which is why OP is requesting time off, with documentation as early as she can.  I have been in retail/retail management since the wheel was invented and I know how much of a pain staffing can be, but OP isn't calling off, which makes everyone scramble to cover, but she is attempting to request time off which in a shift based job is something managers deal with all the time.  Others request off for their personal things, why is the manager being such a witch about OP asking?  Yes, manager can say "Hey, too many people have requested that off so it can't be done" then OP can try to reschedule or work around, but if she is outright saying no to some people's requests and yes to others it doesn't make for a harmonious work enviroment for anyone.  And if 2 employees requested a day off..one for a dr's appointment, one for a day at the beach, honestly the dr's appointment (as long as there is documentation) would come first. 

[camlan]

Do we even know if the OP has a regular day off every week? Given the nature of her job, that may or may not be a possibility. I'd imagine that she rarely knows her schedule more than one or two weeks ahead of time.

And since she sometimes has to schedule appointments months ahead of time, she most likely has no idea of whether or not she'll be scheduled to work at that time.

Which is part of what must be so frustrating for her. She knows she has a doctor's appointment in two months, but it doesn't seem as if her supervisor is willing to schedule around it. I can understand a supervisor not wanting to make a lot of changes to an already made schedule, but the OP can give a fair amount of advance warning for some of her appointments, but the supervisor still won't give her the time off.

[mrkitty]

OP, I know you previously said that in terms of disability services, all you qualify for is to be "shadowed" while at work. I apologize if I have my facts wrong or if this is a stupid idea because I am not well-versed in this, but have you considered going to Social Security/Disability and speaking with a vocational rehabilitation counselor? That is a division within social security/disability in which their whole purpose is to help people with disabilities and/or medical limitations find work that fits with their skills/education/interests AND in which the employer works with the agency to accommodate the needs of the employee. Employers who participate in the program, to my understanding, receive tax benefits and other incentives as well as assistance to accommodate the employee. I apologize if you've already tried this, but if you haven't, I would urge you to call and make an appointment with your local office.

I hope things work out for you and wish you great success.

ETA: Also, who knows? Since you're already employed, maybe there's a chance they can contact your employer and intervene for you and help work out this issue? I can't guarantee it, but maybe there's something they can do. And if not, maybe they can help place you in another job where the employer is prepared/able to work with you around your medical appointments. It sounds like you do want to work and be gainfully employed, which is wonderful, especially considering your medical limitations. This government agency's whole purpose is to ensure that individuals such as yourself are able to work and NOT have to leave work to collect disability. AND if you do run into a problem such as you're having while working at a company with whom they have have placed you, you call them, and their job is to FIX IT for you.

[JeseC]

POD to this. Also miranova has some good points. Someone said, "Don't compare yourself to other employees, compare yourself to company policy." I know it can be terribly frustrating to look around and see that other people are, or appear to be, getting accommodations or accolades that are denied to you. It's very unlikely that pointing this out to anyone is going to change anything, though. I think the professional thing to do is focus on what the company must, or can, do for you, and what you are willing to do in return.

As a person I would be sympathetic to someone else's medical needs, but as an employer it would be troubling to have an employee who was, functionally, unreliable. If the employee was good when they did work (as your performance reviews attest) and they were willing to suggest and implement solutions (like unpopular or last-minute shifts), I would feel like I could be a lot more accommodating without compromising my business, and all the other employees who depend on me.

Unfortunately that isn't always the case.  Some employers will by sympathetic to an otherwise good employee.  Unfortunately, there are also a fair few people out there who play favorites, or who simply are bigoted.  I've seen the "why can't we just get a normal person instead?" attitude far too often, even if the person is completely competent at what they're doing.  And I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's going on - the manager just doesn't like the OP for some reason, possibly disability-related, possibly not.

Actually it IS a time-sensitive job.  The OP is hired to work a certain schedule.  It might be a minimum wage, hourly job, but those jobs ARE the most likely to be the ones that actually require bodies at certain times.  Working short staffed puts additional pressure on everyone else.  And it is the boss' responsibility to ensure that those positions are filled.  There are ripple effects to one employee being out.  And this is not a one-off occurrence they have to work around.  Many employers of hourly workers don't actually care why you can't work your shift, they just expect you to find your own substitute or work the shift.

I don't see any reason why the OP has to work that particular shift, though.  In my experience, we only got a schedule for shift-work a week in advance, and you were expected to let the manager know in advance when you needed time off and it would be scheduled in.  Given how unpredictable the schedule could be, there really was no way to schedule appointments around the job.  And fitting the schedule around people's time off was just part of the job of whoever did the schedule.

[Lynn2000]

POD to this. Also miranova has some good points. Someone said, "Don't compare yourself to other employees, compare yourself to company policy." I know it can be terribly frustrating to look around and see that other people are, or appear to be, getting accommodations or accolades that are denied to you. It's very unlikely that pointing this out to anyone is going to change anything, though. I think the professional thing to do is focus on what the company must, or can, do for you, and what you are willing to do in return.

As a person I would be sympathetic to someone else's medical needs, but as an employer it would be troubling to have an employee who was, functionally, unreliable. If the employee was good when they did work (as your performance reviews attest) and they were willing to suggest and implement solutions (like unpopular or last-minute shifts), I would feel like I could be a lot more accommodating without compromising my business, and all the other employees who depend on me.

Unfortunately that isn't always the case.  Some employers will by sympathetic to an otherwise good employee.  Unfortunately, there are also a fair few people out there who play favorites, or who simply are bigoted.  I've seen the "why can't we just get a normal person instead?" attitude far too often, even if the person is completely competent at what they're doing.  And I wouldn't be surprised if that's what's going on - the manager just doesn't like the OP for some reason, possibly disability-related, possibly not.

Oh sure, of course. Good boss + good employee = hopefully they can work things out. But just because the boss is bad, doesn't mean the employee should slip into being "bad" as well--they should be doing everything they can to be "good" anyway, because that's 1) professional behavior and 2) the only way anything is going to get done, if there's a chance of it getting done at all. In other words they will know they did everything they reasonably could, whether it works out or not (though I know it would be incredibly frustrating to do so much work and have it not work out). Just speaking generally here.

[TurtleDove]

Unless I missed it, no one addressed my suggestion from pages ago - has the OP tried to work with management regarding appointment times?  Unless I am missing something, most appointments - especially with specialists - are not lengthy appointments.  Presumably a doctor's appointment would not require the OP to take an entire day off.  What are the shifts, and can she break it up so that she can still cover most of the scheduled shift while also getting to her appointment?  It seems like the OP could suggest ways to make the scheduling work better aside from, "I can't be there at all next Tuesday because I have a doctor's appointment at 3:00."  It seems to me she could work a shift from 6 am until 2 pm that day, for example, and still make the appointment. Of from 5 pm to midnight.

[Tabby Uprising]

Forgive me if this has already been suggested.  If you can't control the times of your doctors appointments, can you try to get all evening/weekend shifts?  Is your store open late enough for decent evening shifts?  Are those shifts high demand and hard to obtain?  I've never really worked retail so I don't know how shift assignments are made and what criteria goes into the decision process.

Your doctors appointments won't be scheduled for nights or weekends and then you wouldn't have to worry about the work conflict.  I don't know if you've talked to your boss yet, but maybe that's a solution you could present to him.  You get to attend all doctors appointments without worrying about time off and the store has a reliable shift worker on nights and weekends. 

[delabela]

Forgive me if this has already been suggested.  If you can't control the times of your doctors appointments, can you try to get all evening/weekend shifts?  Is your store open late enough for decent evening shifts?  Are those shifts high demand and hard to obtain?  I've never really worked retail so I don't know how shift assignments are made and what criteria goes into the decision process.

Your doctors appointments won't be scheduled for nights or weekends and then you wouldn't have to worry about the work conflict.  I don't know if you've talked to your boss yet, but maybe that's a solution you could present to him.  You get to attend all doctors appointments without worrying about time off and the store has a reliable shift worker on nights and weekends.

This might be a good idea for the appointments - I suppose it depends on the store hours, but when I worked retail they would have happily given me all evening shifts if I asked.  Maybe if the appointments aren't an issue, they will be more accommodating of the sick leave.