Sorry folks, it's a work related one.
So, little bit of background. We run a small, independent family business, employing 10 people (including ourselves) across 2 sites.Everybody earns the same, has the same entitlement to annual leave etc. There's no hierarchy, other than obviously us as owners (although we too take the same wage, do the same job etc.)
Anyway, we have a general rule/policy that no more than 2 members of staff can be on annual leave at any time, due to the lack over cover as we're such a small business. This generally works out well, and on the odd occasion that we've had to decline a leave request for this reason, it's been accepted with good grace. If something was to come up as an emergency, we'd do all we could to be flexible of course, as it's far better for us to have a happy team than not.
One member of staff mentioned a while ago that they wanted some time off for a family wedding, but didn't give any dates - we asked them to let us know the dates ASAP so we could get them in the diary. Over 2 months passed before we were given the dates (4 working days) and unfortunately during that time 2 other members of staff had booked 2 of the days off, so we had to explain that we could honour the midweek dates but the weekend wasn't available. So far as we were aware, this was accepted.
Fast forward to 2 weeks ago, and on their last day before the agreed period of leave, employee asks "You have sorted cover for next week, haven't you? I'll be back a week on Tuesday."
Erm, no, we hadn't of course. We'd sorted cover for the agreed weekdays, but explained yet again that unfortunately the Saturday we couldn't cover so he would be required to work. As the Sunday was also his normal working day, and he hadn't asked for this, we'd had no prior notice to either approve or decline this, nor to look at arranging cover.
We left it that he was expected back in work on the Saturday, and wished him a good holiday. Of course, when the Saturday came around, he didn't turn up - leaving us well and truly in the brown sticky stuff. Nor did he come in on the Sunday. He wasn't contactable, we tried.
On the Monday (not a day he is scheduled to work) he contacted us by text message asking "Is everything ok?", and we responded to the effect that he had left us in an incredibly difficult position, costing us lots of money and damage to our reputation as we'd been able to fulfil our obligations over the weekend due to him not turning up. He was warned that if he did that again, he would be dismissed, however we're reasonable people (probably too reasonable) so we were prepared to give him a chance, and would say no more about it.
He well and truly threw his toys out of the pram at being warned, and told us he would not be returning to work after we had "threatened" him. This left us in an ever worse position, as he was due to work on the Tuesday and again we had commitments we had to cancel due to him quitting.
We've managed to find somebody else to fill the role now, although will have to invest in training them, and it will have an impact on the business for a while as we get them up to speed.
The (former) employee has now contacted us again today, basically asking for his job back, although no sign of any apology, just "I had things on my mind". Well don't we all! Some of us now have the added worry of repairing our damaged business, and making sure we can still pay the rest of the staff this week.
Are we being unreasonable in any way? I certainly don't think so, but he clearly does.