Scientists have been unable to determine if only people who are already assholes become managers or if managers just become assholes over time – but, for whatever reason, it’s a fact of life that managers are usually assholes (not my manager though, if you’re reading this: please don’t fire me).
Even if your boss is the actual King Of The Assholes, they probably don’t come anywhere close to being as bad as this clueless-bordering-on-sociopathic dipstick who wrote into managerial advice column Ask A Manager.
The title (“My best employee quit on the spot because I wouldn’t let her go to her college graduation“) is a perfect summary of the extreme dickheadishness of the question, but the true depths of the fuckfacery here are breathtakingly immense.
The anonymous reader wrote that, due to some product launch, they were asking people to come in on their off days. Because no one volunteered, they chose staff to do it based on reverse order of superiority (read: shitkickers first).
On one of those days, one of the employees (who was rostered on even though it was their day off) was due to go to her college graduation ceremony, accordingly she asked if she could come in 2 hours late.
The employee in question (who apparently comes from a background of homelessness) had been doing night courses to put herself through college, so, obviously, as you would expect, because duh, the manager said ‘no’:
“I told this team member that she could not start two hours late and that she would have to skip the ceremony. An hour later, she handed me her work ID and a list of all the times she had worked late/come in early/worked overtime for each and every one of her coworkers. Then she quit on the spot.“I’m a bit upset because she was my best employee by far. Her work was excellent, she never missed a day of work in the six years she worked here, and she was my go-to person for weekends and holidays.”
Oh poor guy, that must have been really hard for you, dealing with the extremely reasonable consequences of your super fucked actions.
But don’t worry, it gets worse:
“Even though she doesn’t work here any longer, I want to reach out and tell her that quitting without notice because she didn’t get her way isn’t exactly professional. I only want to do this because she was an otherwise great employee, and I don’t want her to derail her career by doing this again and thinking it is okay.“She was raised in a few dozen different foster homes and has no living family. She was homeless for a bit after she turned 18 and besides us she doesn’t have anyone in her life that has ever had professional employment. This is the only job she has had. Since she’s never had anyone to teach her professional norms, I want to help her so she doesn’t make the same mistake again. What do you think is the best way for me to do this?”
So because she’s possibly one of the most miraculous people alive and you just completely fucked her over, you’d like to make sure she doesn’t repeat the same mistake?
Unbelievable that the response wasn’t just a picture of a middle finger, but it was more or less the same thing in more polite terms:
“What?! No, under no circumstances should you do that.“If anything, you should consider reaching out to her, apologizing for how you handled the situation, and offering her the job back if she wants it. … And you note that she was your “best employee by far”! She never missed a day of work in six years, she was your go-to person, she covered for every other person there, and she was all-around excellent … and yet when she needed you to help her out with something that was important to her, you refused.“There’s a lesson to be learned here, but it’s not for her.”
Understandably, the internet is bloody furious at this wildly out-of-touch dingus, hopefully some of it sinks in.
Personal note: one time I had a boss make me come in and do my shift anyway even though I had crashed my car on the way to work. This doesn’t add anything to the story, but fuck you, Steve.
Source: Ask A Manager.
