Woman shares boss’ heartless response after she texts in sick to help friend who was victim of domestic violence

Danny Jones

Beyond callous

A woman has revealed the response her former boss gave her when she said she couldn’t come to work as she needed to support a friend who had been subjected to domestic violence the night before.

Reddit user, ‘Every_inu_heart’ shared the text messages she received on the popular r/anti-work subreddit on Sunday, explaining how her company requires staff to inform their employer of an absence at least two hours in advance.

Having been up all night looking after her friend, who reportedly had her “jaw broken” and underwent “surgery to be wired shut” following an attack from her abusive partner, the woman called in around 6am but her boss was still unhappy with the amount of notice given and her explanation in general.

Boss cruel response to text about domestic violence

The boss has little concern for the woman’s situation, saying in response that she holds a “position of responsibility” rather than being empathetic, and suggested the company “won’t be in business for very long” if it operates around emergencies involving friends and family.

In addition to other sacrifices she claims to have made, like skipping her honeymoon and continuing to work around her father’s sudden death, the woman insists that she had always turned up on time and was still managing to help in her role as a manager with next to no training. She also says she worked ten hours a day, six days a week while in the job.

Nevertheless, the man identified only as Terry, remains relatively unmoved, encouraging her to find an alternative plan and maintaining that “this is not an excused absence”.

He does, however, take time to congratulate the woman on her on marriage, but not in the way you’d expect: “I didn’t even realise that you are old enough to marry. For some reason I thought you were just finishing high school?”

The final message runs on: “Please figure out what you can do to get your friend help through another friend or by picking her up later or whatever is reasonable and then either cover until lunches are done or get there to help with lunches or whatever they need you to arrange.”

Unsurprisingly, aside from expressing sympathy and shock, many of those in the comments insisted they would have “quit right there and then”, as well as advised others to take a more no-nonsense approach and prioritise themselves in the future.

One person wrote: “I don’t understand all these people texting their bosses big paragraphs about what’s happening in their lives? ‘I will not be in today, I have a personal issue I need to deal with’. Full stop.”