Boss mocked intern’s request for time off when her cat was dying — so, 24 employees did the unthinkable to teach him a lesson
An intern working at a company had asked to leave early, followed by a few days off, as her cat was dying. She had received a sudden call from her family and was informed to head straight to the vets. When she requested her boss, his brutal response to her tragic situation left many in the office irked. Soon, the office was hit by a storm of emails from dozens of employees calling the boss out for his inconsiderate actions and poor conduct at the workplace. A co-worker at the office revealed what triggered the united stance of the employees in a viral Reddit post with 11,000 votes, from an account that has since been deleted.
Irish Mirror reported that when the intern asked for some time off for her dying cat, the boss denied her the leave because cats were not humans. “The boss basically told her cats were animals and she wasn’t allowed to request time off unless it was a human dying,” the post stated. Moreover, the insensitive boss barely respected her privacy and discussed it in one corner of the office instead of speaking to her in his office. During the conversation, the co-worker, who posted on Reddit, and their team overheard it. The boss’s cruel response forced the young intern to quit immediately. “She was crying and grabbed her stuff and ran out of the office.”
This incident acted as the last nail in the coffin for the employee, who was already considering leaving the company. “I was done with the company as they cut our pay to ‘avoid laying off anyone,’ but then we posted record profits, but they didn’t increase our salaries or give us the 10% bonus everyone was promised,” the post detailed. A fair share of the department, 20% of them, had already quit. After the intern left, the co-worker decided to send a company-wide resignation email highlighting the cruel interaction with the intern as the main reason, without naming them.
Moments later, about ten employees inquired about the manager the co-worker was referring to in the email. “To avoid leaving a trace, I told them in person, and within a few days, most people knew.” Eventually, the co-worker found a new IT job within two weeks of quitting and was set to start soon. They later learned that more than 24 employees had been sending quitting emails that nearly cost the boss his job. To prevent the emails, the company had started shutting down the emails of people leaving the office days ahead. “The boss came to berate me as he was being disciplined and might lose his job. I don’t feel sorry for him,” the co-worker who initiated the mass walkout wrote.
Although they felt for the boss’s family, who might struggle due to his unemployment, they noted that he had no other “marketable skills” besides PowerPoint. The Reddit user asked for opinions online, questioning whether what they did was right. “I'd consider him a hero if anything. Nobody deserves to be lied to, robbed, and treated like crap, especially at work,” wrote a deleted user. “You did nothing to get him potentially fired. His own actions did that,” reassured u/yourlittlebirdie.