Boss Demands Employee Use Paid Time off to Work from Home During Massive Floods

A whopping 57 percent of people who quit their jobs ultimately leave them because they can't stand their managers, according to studies cited by Better Works. In a 2018 post penned by The Wall Street Journal, the outlet referenced a company that allows its employees to rate the performance of their bosses.

Once management accountability became a factor in the workforce, the company in question began experiencing higher levels of satisfaction among the majority of employees regardless of their position. Who would've thought that direct accountability would be so effective?

Unfortunately, whenever we hear stories of bosses online, they're rarely ever good.

Like this one from Redditor u/dangerous-cat. They penned a viral post on r/antiwork sub discussing their grievances with their employer. As of this writing, their gripe has received over 4,000 upvotes with 511 folks chiming in with comments of their own.

In the title of their post, dangerous-cat writes, "Boss is trying to make me use paid time off for a work day."

They asked other users on the site for advice as to the best way to possibly combat this, as they were unable to make it to the office due to extreme flooding.

They go on to explain that since the majority of their work day is zoom calls, they thought it would probably be best if they just work from home since it was dangerous for them to leave and they'd be on meetings all day anyway. So they asked their boss if that was a possibility.

Turns out their supervisor wasn't a fan of that idea and instead used it as a moment to try and shame dangerous-cat in front of their co-workers on an email thread. Even though the Redditor had every intention of working from home and "pulling [their] weight" for their team, their boss said that they needed to dig into their paid time off if they weren't going to physically be at the office.

They went on to say that they didn't feel as if their boss' demand was fair, given the fact that they were still going to be working anyway and that they wanted to help out their department. They also added that they didn't feel as if they'd have any incentive to be productive if they were effectively using their vacation time to work.

A majority of Redditors sympathized with dangerous-cat, stating that they felt sorry they were going through such a contentious situation with their boss, but many of them all said the same thing: They should enjoy their paid time off and not feel any obligation to help out the team that day.

Others added that because their boss put it in writing that they should be taking their paid time off on the day instead of working from home because they couldn't make it into the office due to flooding, that this only helps their case down the line should any problems arise.

There were some Redditors who remarked that if a boss felt the need to send a department-wide email blasting one of their workers then they shouldn't be the type of person running an entire company or be in any position of power.

Redditor ztravir pointed out how serious weather conditions can be for employees who are being forced into the office when natural elements prevent folks from doing so safely, highlighting the recent tragedies in Buffalo.

They wrote: "Thankfully we only have water. NY Buffalo had snowstorm and people died in the car trying to go work but got stuck. Their bosses told them to go to work that morning."

As of this writing, there have been 39 reported deaths in the Buffalo area/Erie County that were directly attributed to the snowstorm that occurred around Christmas Day 2022. The Redditor didn't specify which individuals who perished in the snowstorm were being asked to go to work.