After a family emergency, Mandy asked to work remotely for two weeks—but HR denied the request, citing her in-office contract, forcing her to take unpaid leave. Weeks later, the same HR department asked her to handle urgent weekend calls from home, and she refused by pointing out she wasn’t allowed to work remotely.
HR responded by rolling out a strict new policy requiring all employees to be available for remote work on weekends, leaving Mandy blamed by coworkers for the backlash. Now she’s questioning whether she was wrong—or simply held the company to its own rules.
