A viral Reddit post showing a boss asking an employee to work on the weekend has reignited discussions around work-life balance. According to the post, it all started when the boss texted the employee on the weekend, asking him to prepare a report and join a call later that day. When the employee said he couldn’t because he didn’t have his laptop, the boss told him to head to the office and finish the task at hand.
The employee shared screenshots of the WhatsApp conversation on Reddit’s “Indian Workplace” community with the text, “Planning a weekend is a work discussion issue.”
‘Go to office and complete work’
Let us take a look at how it all unfolded. The viral WhatsApp chat, shared on Reddit, started with the boss assigning a task – a report needed for an upcoming meeting. The employee replied that he had left his laptop in the office.
The boss got furious over this and asked why he was not carrying the laptop. He also told him to go to the office and complete the work. “Why are you not carrying your laptop? Now, you need to go to the office and complete the work. Will connect at 12 pm,” the boss said.
The employee explained that he couldn’t go to the office because he was away from home and on his way to Dwarka for the weekend. The boss, however, pressed on, saying the task was urgent.
“You need to confirm with me yesterday, only then I should ask to complete, and then leave. I had spoken with sir. He required this. Need to discuss on Monday at 10 am. So, please reach the office at 9 am and prepare the details of exp variances between FY 24 and FY 25,” the boss’s angry message read.
The employee responded that he had already informed him about leaving early. “I am not in Mumbai. I will come Monday morning if I get the train on Sunday and do it. If not, I’ll have to take a leave on Monday and I’ll come to the office on Tuesday,” he further explained.
‘Why should I inform you about the weekend?’
The boss reiterated that he should have informed him earlier about his leave. That’s when the employee fired back, saying, “My plan is for the weekend, so why should I inform you about the weekend? We are trying to get tickets for tomorrow, but if I don’t get them, then I will take a leave on Monday… I’ll confirm about Monday by today.”
In the caption of the Reddit post, the employee revealed that he had informed his manager about leaving early on Friday. “It was Friday, and I wanted to leave early. I had informed my manager that I would leave at 7:30 PM (which is considered early for our team, as we usually work 10–12 hours),” he wrote in the post’s caption.
He further explained that the manager had received urgent work from the company’s CFO around 1 PM on Friday. Initially, he wasn’t involved, but the manager later asked for help with some financial data. “He had completed only half of the work when I was about to leave, and I left in front of him,” the employee claimed.
The Redditor, who goes by “preetrobot” online, later claimed that his boss escalated the issue to the CFO. “It turns out that after this conversation, his ego was hurt so much that he filed a complaint to the CFO on Monday,” he wrote in the post’s caption.
In the comments section of the post, the CA revealed, “I didn’t go on Monday. He gave me the silent treatment on Tuesday(best day so far in the office). CFO didn’t say anything to me. Now he just talks about work with me.”
How did Reddit users react to this?
“You are right with respect to the first part, but I feel you are in the wrong about the leave on Monday. Should have at least mentioned the possibility of a leave in advance,” read one comment.
In response to one Reddit comment, he explained, “But on Friday from 1 PM to 7:30 PM, he didn’t say that this was my task and whether I had to complete it or not. He asked for some data points, which I had shared with him on the same day. Now, as he was not able to complete the work (he said he had hundreds of other pending tasks), he messaged me on Saturday that I have to do it, which I think was wrong.”
“I just have 2 questions: Why are you even entertaining messages/calls from the workplace on weekends/holidays/leave days? Why are you having official communication on WhatsApp?” commented yet another social media user.
A third suggested, “You did right, but keep such things in email as well.”
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