Dear Home Depot,

My dad has worked part-time for the Tullytown, PA  Home Depot for over 10 years. Today you officially rejected his request for FMLA to help care for my daughter, his granddaughter. Not only did you reject his request, but you told him he needs to use a full 20 hours of vacation/personal time per week. This despite the fact that he rarely is scheduled a full 20; in fact, his weekly average for 2012 was 12 hours.

The district HR manager — who was in the store today — didn’t even have the common decency to speak with him one on one. She made someone else deliver the news. You should be embarrassed to have this woman as an employee. Her job is HR, right?

My dad has won 9 Homer Badges (Home Depot’s version of a scout badge), one of which was for catching a potential thief with over $3,000 worth of merchandise. Customers will come in to the store when they know when he’s working, or they will leave and come back if he’s not working on a certain day. He’s helpful and funny. Knowledgable and smart. He actually likes his job. He enjoys working for the Home Depot. He bakes cookies for his coworkers for goodness sakes.

Yet, you’ve screwed him. Pants down. Over the sofa, screwed him. Why? Because he doesn’t have 8 weeks of vacation/personal time available.

My dad isn’t asking to be paid. He’s simply asking to have eight weeks of FMLA approved so that when he returns he still has a job and his seniority. That’s it. What’s more, my dad isn’t on a Home Depot health plan, so your cost for having him as an employee is even less. Yet, that’s too much to ask apparently for an employee with 10 years of dedicated service.

Your selfish corporate behavior is everything that is wrong with America right now. If a company can find a loophole to screw an employee they will.

My dad was told that when his vacation/personal time runs out they will start scheduling him. When he doesn’t show up he will most likely be fired. You’ll replace him with an 18-year old that knows nothing about electrical work (my dad’s department), hates his job and doesn’t enjoy the people. His replacement will be everything my dad is not and your company will be worse off for it.

But, you don’t care. You only care about the bottom line.

P.S. You also refused a general leave of absence request on top of the FMLA rejection.