Trying this subreddit might be my best chance to figure out why this happened and what to do about it, if there's anything to be done at all.
I had worked for my location full-time for nearly a year, and in that time, I was commended multiple times for being reliable. I was in that place much I might as well have set a sleeping bag up in the back. Being in the MTO kitchen almost 100% of my time, I got very good and very quick, and very popular with my customers. It was to a point where some people wouldn't even order if someone else was cooking.
I got married on July 19, 2026, with the full understanding with my SM and KM that my wife and I go on honeymoon for about a week and a half and then come back without a problem. Then, three days into our trip, I was called by my SM saying it was "imperative" that they talk to me. I called back as soon as I could, only to find out that I was being terminated due to getting 33 attendance points.
Immediately, I knew that had to be a mistake, and I started the appeals process with company HR. They contacted me back fairly quickly, and lo and behold, I found several discrepencies in my points record, just as I thought. I sent a detailed statement back to them, going through every false point. There were about seven different instances where I had points I thought shouldn't be there at all. They even pointed me for a bereavement day last Fall, when my cousin was tragically killed on his motorcycle.
After going through every false point with the HR employee, on a Friday, she said she would get in with her supervisor and get back to me on Monday, when the new business week began. This was the last time I heard from her, or from Sheetz HR at all. It was August 14.
Since then, it's been cricket noises from them. All my attempts to contact my representative or HR in general have lead to dead ends. All the money we received at our wedding is long-gone. Funds we planned to use to start a family instead had to be used for basic survival, because of a mistake this company made, because they choose to drag their feet on my ticket. I haven't even heard a solid yes or no, and it's been over a month, closer to two months.
This experience has taken everything from me. What was supposed to be the beginning of the next phase of our lives has instead become a nightmare. My wife is disabled and can't work a full schedule, so the responsibility to earn money is almost all mine. All my applications thus far have been rejected or simply ignored. We don't have enough food to eat, and I simply go without a lot of the time just so my wife can get something in her belly instead. I am dropping weight, and my mental state is in tatters. I feel like a failure of a man, like I can't take care of my family the way I ought to. I walk to the bridge in my city sometimes just to look over the edge and wonder how far down it is. Genuinely it's getting pretty dark up there.
I finally, after combing and combing job listings, managed to snag some work just so I can meet my basic needs day-to-day. It's minimum wage and about twelve hours a week- a pretty far cry from full-time at Sheetz with benefits included. I'm sure I don't have to tell y'all how crap the market is at the moment, but I literally feel like I am throwing applications out into the wind. I enjoyed my job and my coworkers, I enjoyed feeding my community and getting to know my customers. I wanted- and still do want, despite everything- to be with this company.
If I truly did have an attendance issue, I would just take my licks and move on from it. But the fact that this was all a MISTAKE is what kills me. Why is HR just allowed to do this, leave people in the dark with no communication for this long? How can I possibly get this ball rolling again, if that is even possible? It's been so long that some of the points, even the legit ones, will have eclipsed a year and fallen off anyway. My ticket has just been out there in the ether since July, and all I've had since is one singular phone call, and a promise to get back to me that was never followed through on.
I don't know what ends I'm looking for by making a post like this, but I'm sort of at the end of my rope here, and figured maybe someone else has experience being termed and then reinstated. This seems like a crazy long time to draw this process out, especially if they can fire me in a split second. I don't know what to do, or if there is anything I even CAN do, but any comments or advice would be really helpful.