I started working part-time on a 0-hour contract (=I only need to do the shifts I myself take) on my last year of high school. The spring/summer was a pretty hectic time because I was convinced I wouldn’t get into university, yet alas I did. I got a student apartment that I confirmed 2 ½ months before moving out. For some reason, it never occured to me to inform my boss about this. Part of this was probably because I was still unsure how packed my life would be in university + I only moved a 40 min car drive away so I didn’t know if I could keep taking shifts (which I of course would have preferred because I’d now have to support myself financially).
My boss confronted me about this 3 weeks before I moved out. I confirmed it, and while I am pretty sure I mentioned coming back for holidays, I can’t 100% be sure about this. I at least definitely said I didn’t need to terminate the contract. But yes, I admit I should’ve informed my boss I was moving and potentially taking less shifts because of it as soon as it got confirmed.
The month after I left, we didn’t have enough workers for shifts and hired a lot of new extras. That was also the month for retaking exams, so regardless of if I got the study place or not, I would’ve been busy. That month, there were 21 shifts without a worker. My average shift take count is around 8 shifts per month. The fact is that regardless of how things turned out, they would have needed to hire more people.
Fast forward, I didn’t take any shifts for 3 months because of how busy university was. I got 9 shifts out of 55. 3 people had taken more than me, and the rest were new hires that only took 1-4 shifts. My boss sent me a passive-aggressive message where she told me she has been "uninformed of my return and wondering why I’m suddenly taking so many shifts, since now the extras they had had to hire because of my absence didn’t get many shifts."
From the POV of the new hires, I see how this looks unfair. But I haven’t violated company policy. The shift taking has always been a competitive battle. It’s how our system is. I’ve had to swallow down some times when I was unprepared and didn’t get many shifts myself. Our system encourages thinking selfishly to ensure we get enough shifts before they run out. The matter of the fact is and always has been that the shifts get released on the x-th of the previous month, always at the same time of day with a first come first served -policy. There have been problems with shift distribution previously as well.
I explained to her that I took the shifts because I’m free then. I didn’t want to hold onto my anger though, and I don’t want to go to work thinking everyone despises me now, so I tried to mediate by giving out 3 shifts, and asked if she wanted me to inform her of my shift-taking plans from now on. She never replied, but she did take those shifts off of me…
This system sounds like a mess. If they want everyone to be working a set number of shifts, they need to assign them. You gave them 3 weeks notice. That is more than fair.
NTA.