Charlotte Foster
Legal

Boss slammed for demanding an employee complete work during annual leave

A boss has been dubbed an “abysmal manager” for demanding his employee join a video call for work, despite being on annual leave. 

Businessman Ben Askins, who has dedicated his TikTok account to calling out unacceptable workplace behaviour, read out the text exchange between the man and his boss, who quickly became unreasonable in his demands. 

The first message came from the man’s boss, who asked “Where are you? Haven’t seen you at your desk today? I need to run something by you.”

The employee responded, reminding his boss that he was off on pre-approved annual leave, and was enjoying a holiday abroad in Spain. 

Despite his holiday, the employee still offered to help, saying he could “probably jump on a quick call when I am on the bus from the airport if it is really urgent.”

Unhappy with the compromise, the demanding boss then asked if the employee would “jump on a Zoom call when you get to the hotel” as he would “prefer to do this in person”. 

“Sorry, not really possible, we have a really packed schedule,” the worker replied to his boss, to which the manager hit back with, “Damn, wish you had told me that you were on annual leave.”

The man reminded his boss he had signed off his leave two months prior and it was “in the system” but he came back saying, “Lol as if I would remember that. It is poor form for you to not remind me.”

As Ben continued to read the text exchange, he added his own commentary on the situation, saying, “It's your job to remember that, it's not his fault you're just being unbelievably shocking at yours.”

“This is so bad, this poor employee has done everything right; he's got it signed off two months in advance, he's done all the handover, he's done everything he could have done,' Ben ranted. 

“Because the manager is shocking, it's now impacting the employee's holiday. I just hate it when that happens.”

Ben, a self-described “champion of younger gens in the workplace” said the heated chat showed the boss's “really poor” form and “abysmal management”. 

“What are you doing being so unorganised? Because the problem when an unorganised manager happens it hits down to the team below him - what the hell he's playing at? I have no idea,” he said. 

Ben's clip was viewed more than 2.3million and had users fired up, with thousands of comments flooding in in support of the burnt out employee trying to enjoy his holiday. 

Image credits: Instagram 

 

Tags:
legal, travel trouble, annual leave, boss