My boss keeps basically forcing me to work Wednesday evening shifts. The one girl can't because she's already working 6 days. Another girl can't because she has something she has to do Wednesday nights. We haven't hired a fourth person yet because my boss is dragging her feet on that. She says we can't use someone from another department, but she won't say why.

Apparently it doesn't matter that I have a commitment on Wednesday evenings. Mine isn't important, like the other girl's, even though I've been here almost four years and she just started a month or less ago. I volunteer at the humane society every Wednesday evening. It's a standing thing, you know, a commitment that I made. My boss basically said that because it's not a paying job, it's not important. I disagree. When I tell someone I'm going to be somewhere and do something, I'm going to do it. I feel like a volunteer position is just as important as a paid one. Am I crazy for thinking that? I don't think I am. I want to keep my volunteer job at the humane society because I love it, because I feel the work is important, because I really care about it. But they're not going to let me stay if I keep cancelling for my paid job. And I should not have to worry about that.

I don't know how I'm going to get this through my boss' thick skull that I can't. fucking. work. Wednesday evenings. I have the set schedule that I have (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, 8-4) because those are the days that I can work. That's my fucking availability. Because of my anxiety, I can only handle 30 hours a week and it has to be split with a day off in the middle and the weekends off. That's the only thing I've found that doesn't spiral me down into an awful depression. Luckily, 30 hours counts as full time here. So I keep my Wednesday for my doctor appointments in the mornings, the evenings for the humane society, and my weekends, I have doctor's appointments on Saturday, and I have Sunday as the only day all week I actually get to see my friends.

tl;dr: My boss doesn't understand the meaning of 'availability' and it's fucking pissing me the fuck off.

Nah you're not crazy. It's not unusual that your boss would treat anything outside of work as less important because it doesn't pay, cause of course a boss would think that, but quite frankly I think everything besides work is probably more important precisely for that reason??

Like, your volunteer position is an enriching part of your life that not only helps you, but helps other people AND animals. It may not reward you monetarily, but emotionally, psychologically, socially, and like every other way that matters? Totally! Of course you wanna make time for activities that enrich your life and, you know, make it worth living.

And anyway, even if you didn't have prior commitments and a medical condition (your anxiety) that affected your availability, it's still your boss's responsibility to make sure that your place of work is fully and properly staffed, which includes accommodating existing employee's schedules - especially since you've worked there for so long.

You're not crazy! I'm sorry this is happening!

;; you're not crazy or wrong, i had a boss similar to that and it was the worst. the instance that made me leave was when i asked for the weekend before Black Friday off because i was supposed to housesit for my parents while they were out of town. granted, i live with them, but we had 3 dogs that needed to be cared for and i didn't want them kenneled all day while i was at work. he told me he had to wait and see what the workload was for the holiday bc i was one of the managers. cool.

so it rolls around and he lets me know the week before "hey, we can't do it. i just have too much stuff we need to get done." i figured. retail Black Friday in america is W I L D. i told him ok it's fine and he said i could take a different weekend off to eat up my PTO. after looking, we realize not only is there no available weekend after that point, the boss's PTO week would interfere with the store move we had planned. so what does he do? take off the entire week i had asked for just the weekend on. so needless to say that was all she wrote and i was gone within 6 months.

if you can find another job that pays the same and offers the same availability i would seek that option, because typically bosses with that mentality keep that mentality and you'll be penalized if you don't show up because of it. (again, had that happen.) if not, maybe try contacting HR or his boss to try and get him to let you keep your availability. you've been doing it long enough now that you really should be the only one allowed to maintain their availability and the new people need to step up.