Classic Rant #651 (January 6, 2012): See You Later, I Guess

This may or may not be my last post on this blog for a while.

If you have been following my jury duty travails this week, you know that I was picked for a jury, but the trial I am on might last a full month.

My work refuses to pay for my time off, and I have asked the court to excuse me from the trial because of financial hardship.

My case is now in the hands of the judge. If the judge decides in my favor, that is fine. If not, I am sunk. I will have to do some things financially that I don't want to do in order to survive the month.

My work refuses to pay me past three days.

In their defense, I work for a small company, with about 30 employees. One person off for such a period of time puts a burden on everyone else.

I understand that, and let's face it, there is no law that says they have to pay past the three days.

But on the other hand, my company wears the American flag on their sleeves. We cover military matters, and quality of life of service members is one of the major things we look at here.

There is nothing more patriotic than serving your country, and while it certainly applies to service members, based on my company's stance, it doesn't apply to employees.

Yes, I am serving my country when I am a juror. I did not volunteer for this position, I was called upon to appear.

It is the patriotic thing to do.

So if you are going to wave the flag for service members, then it is wholly hypocritical that you won't wave the flag for me.

I have volunteered to do some work for the company on weekends via email. Since I am a writer, it would entail writing stories for the publication I work on.

Some of the days on the jury will be long days, but the court has said that some days might not be the regular 9 a.m.-5 a.m. timespan. If that happens, I could come into work after the court session for that particular day.

Of course, I am at the mercy of transportation, but I could get in some time at my place of business if that happens.

The bottom line is that I have alerted the court to my plight. I plan on speaking to some people at work today to plead my case.

There is nothing more I can do.

My question is this: If I were called to military duty, would my place be held until I got back?

Well, I have been called to duty, and my tour isn't for a year or two, just a month.

What's the difference?

I need my place of work to explain that to me.