‘Is this normal?': Boss makes wild demand on a bank holiday
UK workplace expert Ben Askins has found his niche online by sharing anonymous but increasingly bizarre text message exchanges between workers and their bosses.
He recently shared a wild exchange after an employee sent him a heated work text exchange and asked him, 'Is this normal?'
It started normally enough.
A boss texted a worker and asked them to make some design changes because the client had been chasing the workplace about it.
Nothing out of the ordinary, right? Wrong. The boss made this demand when it was a public holiday, and the worker was completely entitled to the day off.
'Oh sorry I thought we had bank holidays off,' the worker texted back.
'Technically yes but US clients don't have the same ones and if they need something we need to jump on it,' the boss replied.
'I'm not sure I will be free. I just made plans today assuming it was a proper day-off,' the worker replied.
'You are going to have to cancel them I am afraid. Nothing we can do about it,' the boss wrote back.
The worker replied and went straight to bargaining asking if there was any possible wriggle room and if they could do the work in the afternoon or at night.
The boss responded and shared they'd been online all day and claimed the worker needed to be more 'responsive'.
'I am not asking for much here,' the boss claimed.
The worker continued to try to find a middle ground and suggested emailing the client on their day off to explain the situation and let them know they'd work on the design changes later on.
'Look I have said no. I need you on this now. I can't keep repeating myself,' the boss claimed.
'Okay I will take a look,' the worker fired back.
Mr Askins immediately called out the boss, claimed they were being 'ridiculous,' and claimed that most clients would be completely understanding.
'You're completely missing the point. It is your business, of course, you're going to care a lot more. If you want people to care about it during bank holidays you have to incentivise them,' he argued.
'Pay them more or give them some skin in the game.'
Mr Askins said that the boss needs to set up their business better and annoy employees on a public holiday.
'This is totally not okay and really poor,' he declared.
Naturally most people online weren't impressed with the boss making such demands.
'Why do people respond to work messages outside of working hours?' One asked.
'No. If it's my day off, I'm not working,' another declared.
'How about you pay people to work a public holiday,' someone else suggested.
'Normal? Probably. Acceptable? Absolutely not,' one raged.
'People need to touch grass. Unless someone is going to die over the delay, it can wait,' one claimed.
Someone else said it was 'bullying' the worker into working for free, and this exact behaviour was why they'd left their last job.
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