The other.... OTHER F word... Fired.

I can honestly say I never thought I would ever be in this position. Zaq is a superstar among his peers when it comes to work. I have watched him come in and flip stores with Guitar Center... we traveled the country... the found our ticket back to Minneapolis with an awesome job offer from Best Buy... Perfect timing too, because we were DONE with California... Best Buy started out as such a great opportunity. But like most things, "all that shimmers in this world is sure to fade". All was manageable up until recently. Zaq had started talking about taking 3 weeks off when Ms. Rozzlyn makes her appearance... He had his sick time saved up... and we had some savings... so we were fine... and if something came up where we needed more time, thats why laws like FMLA exist... why not spend some time with baby as a family before the grueling 60 hour work weeks of the holidays begin... poor guy would blink and have a 3 month old before things get back to normal if he didn't. Well, I guess we should have taken some joking a little more seriously... Zaq did the right thing... He started talking to people who had been through maternity leave with Best Buy... One person - "its career suicide"... another person - "I had to take 10 weeks FMLA because of complications and when I came back it was never the same..." and another person... laughed and said, "I wouldn't do that if you want to keep your job." Well - Zaq came home and we talked about it and in the end said - there are laws that protect us from that, Im sure everyone was being dramatic... and if I had anything to say about it... I needed him home that 3 weeks to help with the baby so I could get RockerByeBaby back into a routine with a little baby mixed in. So it was done, 2 months ahead of time he went to his boss and the talked about all the details. Where he got a smart ass giggling comment of "well, then I'd have to replace ya"... shrugged it off, and the boss scheduled in his 3 week baby-cation. No big deal... so we thought. Almost immediately following this, everything started to change. His boss was being short & rude... negative... and constantly bringing Zaq down as if anything he did wasn't good enough. Now let me rewind for a second... Zaq is a "numbers guy" when it comes to stores... its always been his JOB to walk into an underperforming store and make it awesome... and he has been doing the same since he started with Best Buy... Bringing departments like MI & Geek Squad bigger and better than ever before. He hasn't had a single write up since starting with Best Buy... never a bad performance review... no reason to think that he should be being treated that way... To pile it all on, with all the holiday fun slowly creeping its way in to the store, it seemed like more than ever he had been coming home talking about all the crazy customer stories that were going on... Like the guy demanding to return a printer over a year old... and calling zaq a f*cking @$$hole because he wouldn't return it. Well, duh. The guy was holding the receipt in his hands that clearly stated 30 days to return... or the kid that wanted to return a lap top... the one that he "had no receipt for and paid cash for" but demanded a full refund... then told Zaq he would be waiting outside with his "boys" when he got off work. OOOH OOH OOOOOOH!! Or how about the time that some kid came and sat in the aisles of the store for over an hour... after being asked to move multiple times (all while ignoring everyone around him)... finally got up to leave when he friend came... then as Zaq was following them out... he stopped quick and lifted his fist as if he were going to punch Zaq... That was a fun story to hear too. There are OOOOH so many fun stories of where Zaq is getting harassed and poked and cussed at and demeaned... and never... ever... has he lost his cool with a customer, never cursed back, never raised a finger in a threatening face... with so many witnesses to stand behind him to say that... because he was always the guy to get called when a heated customer came in. Zaq was the guy to stand his ground for the company, but keep his cool. Apparently, until a 10 year old their walked into the store last week... The security cameras had picked up a young kid walking around with a PS game, then wandering into random departments... then all of a sudden - no game. A couple guys went and found the empty case, meaning the game was likely in his pocket... Zaq and a couple others went to talk to the kid and talk him into giving up the game. They said things like "give up the game and we won't call your parents. If you walk out with the game, we have to call the cops, your parents, and its gunna be way worse off" The worked on the kid for awhile, then his brother came over... *smacked him upside the head* and said "give them the game stupid!" and that was the end of it. Minimal drama, recovered game... success! Or not... that was just the beginning. Somewhere lost in translation... in the back office of BB, someone had asked how he got the game back... to which he laughed and said "I said give me the f*cking game"... aka - *Im in the protection of my office that I have heard WAY worse and more inappropriate things come out than the f-Bomb... And I am  not going over a 20 minute story about how i recovered a stolen game from a kid* Within a few days someone had filed a complaint with HR stating that Zaq had cursed at a customer... a child... and was now under investigation... two signed statements from witnesses there said he didn't... he wouldn't... and no way were the accusations true. Multiple other people stood up and said I have seen him in WAY worse, more heated customer arguments and he had never cursed... in my head - I was thinking about all the times he has yelled at me for slipping up in front of the kids... there was no way he would throw the f-Bomb around someone else's kid, let-alone in a threatening way. I along with many others, were sure the situation would be squashed, that was HR's job... to protect their company and employees after all, right? Well, I guess not. On Tuesday Zaq got a text from his boss to go into work at 1pm instead of 10am because there were 4 managers on, and they didn't need all that coverage... he said ok, great. "Have you heard anything from HR about the case" to which boss man sad no, not yet. On Wednesday, at 12:30 he left for his shift... at 1:10 my phone rang... it was Zaq. He had gotten fired... *crushed* Boss lied to him, he had found out he was being let go on Monday, and told him NO on Tuesday... Boss lied and said come in late because of coverage, but he had him come in late because they needed another Manager to be there to give him his paperwork and take his keys... Somehow... on a he said/she said case - with witnesses proving that Zaq didn't curse... he was fired. I couldn't believe it... there was no way this was happening. His "baby-cation" was supposed to start in 2 weeks. Our insurance now runs out at the end of the month... and oh yeah, MONEY!! We're gonna need that too. Why didn't we listen to all these people saying don't take the time off, you will get fired/replaced/canned/demoted/etc... WHY didn't we just say "hey, who needs baby time, keep working" I would be willing to personally stand behind that fact that my husband would still have his job right now. And, instead of watching him apply for jobs, I would be watching him get ready for work. I truly, honestly feel like they were just waiting for an opportunity to get him out of the way to have someone new trained in for Thanksgiving/Christmas. Watching my husband in all his years of retail management, I know how hard it is to fire someone. It takes statements, facts, write ups, performance reviews, etc. to put the wheels in motion to fire someone. And even then, they usually end up with written warnings and a slap on the wrist. After all, there was no CUSTOMER complaint... *because it didn't happen* but some pissed off employee gets to hold the lives of our family in their hands?  How is it possible that knowing all of this, he is fired. I have no idea...

So here we are... 3 days later, and its all starting to sink in... Im back to slaving away at the sewing machine, freaking about every order that I have to pass up because my baby will be here any day... I was supposed to get a break... I was supposed to get time home NOT WORKING with my new addition to our family... Now instead I get to work until I pop, then come home, and hand over my baby girl to my husband and get back to work to help keep our family afloat while Zaq looks for a new job. If you want to help out, please just share this post... tweet it, facebook it, whatever... We are not going down without a fight, thats for sure... and the more people that hear this story, hopefully more will stand up. This is unacceptable, and unfair... Best Buy, you'll be hearing from us. You don't mess with my family.