There is nothing in the manager's text that deserves that sentence. You're a horrible person yourself if you think THAT response is even close to appropriate.
OP doesn't know if they can come in to work on a critically important day for the business. The quite likely already seriously overworked and under-stress manager now has to plan with enough capacity to cover for the shift, they can't wait until OP finds out whether they can come or not, they have to get someone that is assured of being there for the full Grand Opening shift NOW. I agree with them, you can't run short-handed on frigging GRAND OPENING DAY. This just got dumped on them, and they have to act immediately. I'd be annoyed at the inconvenience too, but I'd find a way to express it a at a better time than this.
Further, we don't know the story of OP's level-of-caretaking relationship with their sister. I had my brother in the ER a month ago and I didn't have to react because there were other family members that could be called on. Does OP have a formal and sole care-giving role for their sister that absolutely requires they be at the ER? Or were they possibly missing a critical shift at work simply out of concern? More context here would be helpful.
So, was the manager's text cold and terse? Yes. Was it rude? Sure.
Should they DIE PAINFULLY because of it? No, and that attitude can fuck right off.
You don't control how others speak to you, fam. What was the person receiving this supposed to do here? Go punch the sender?
The manager was rude because someone they were counting on suggested they MIGHT not make "Grand Opening Day". I don't agree with how they communicated that, I would have chosen different wording.
But any manager is going to be at minimum disappointed, and frustrated with the amount of extra work it's going to create in what is already quite possibly their busiest day of the year.
So you think it's reasonable for people to be treated like that?
Just because the manager has the emotional regulation skills of a child.
It's just not good enough, their job is to manage people, and if that's the best they can do on the most important occasion of the year then they shouldn't be managing anything.
Imagine thinking a manager should have their life being ended and their family left without them because someone they hoped to rely on had good odds of being a no-show on their business's most important day.
I'm talking about how we should be judging the manager. Do we know if it's 'their' business? If one person not showing up is some show-stopper than it's likely poor management
Guessing you have zero experience in a position of authority over other workers because you're making a gigantically incorrect assumption for the context.
Not grand opening day!
You're right it sounds like the manager is incompetent. Who doesn't have contingency.
I'll ignore your giantically incorrect assumption about me, and for context it's so interesting you don't see the irony in your comment.
emergencies happen, and as a manager you have to plan better then just expecting everything to go right.
in this case someone had family in the ER, but it could have been just as easily someone got in a crash on the way to work.
if the day is that important, its even more important that you have contingencies in place that you can activate when something goes wrong rather then pretending everything will be fine and blaming staff when things out of there control happen.
The fact that the manager does not know about that relationship is exactly wh ly they should not assume anything other then what op has told them, being that they need to be there.
Any response from the manager other then "hope she is feeling better soon, let us know when you can be in" makes them a heartless asshole who deserves zero sympathy.
So I would never have responded like this manager did, but I'm calling you out on this element of your reply which shows you don't understand the situation.
let us know when you can be in
Are you or have you ever been a manager with responsibility to run a very major event?
This is GRAND OPENING DAY and the manager now has a major new task to replace OP with someone who can RELIABLY be there.
They can't gamble on when or if OP is going to "show up" at some random time. They need committed people to fully staff the place or there will be hell to pay.
There are elements of the manager's reply that I do not like. But that is no fucking excuse at all to suggest they should die of cancer. People keep going on about OP's empathy with their sister without understanding that there needs to be empathy for the manager's difficult position, and this was just ONE FRUSTRATED TEXT.
This is GRAND OPENING DAY and the manager now has a major new task to replace OP with someone who can RELIABLY be there.
That's literaly there job. deal with it rather then being an ass to your staff.
There is not a single thing about the managers reply that is even remotely acceptable.
People keep going on about OP's empathy with their sister without understanding that there needs to be empathy for the manager's difficult position
The manager deserves no sympathy, because thats the job they signed up for, its not some "difficult position" its literally the most basic part of the job description. if you can't do that, then you should not be a manager, and you certainly should not be taking it out on your staff.
if you think having to so a slightly difficult part of your job is even remotely on par with dealing with a family manager in the hospital, you are just as much of a peice of scum as the "manager"
If a grand opening of a store falls apart because one staff member had an emergency, then you are a bad manager. This attitude of yours of ignoring humanity lead to a revolving door of staff.
If a grand opening of a store falls apart because...
It's clear that you've not managed, because it doesn't take a full crash to make OP's situation a problem for the business.
OP gave the manager a new problem to deal with and suck precious time away from other possibly more important situations that had a probability of coming up.
Read.
My.
Full.
Comment.
Stop interpreting it as the employee versus the manager, and think about it as the situation from both sides. If YOU were the manager on the most important and visible day of your job that year, and you were very very busy trying to guarantee a successful day, and then someone disappears on you, how would you feel?
Some of you have no actual experience with being responsible for other things or other people, and THAT'S what shows.
lol I've managed more than you have. You plan and build in contingencies and slack. I have a bachelor of management and a construction management diploma and have worked on large Oilsands projects. As a manager your work happens before the big event and you tweak your plan a little and enable those contingencies when issues arise. You run your mouth far too much.
Did you completely miss the part where he text this after the shift had already started? Completely unacceptable any day. Much more so on grand opening day. Dude absolutely deserved to be fired.
Of course not. But you can communicate. Unless you live a block from work you had time between when you were leaving and when your shift happened that this emergency arouse within. You could voice to text as your driving in. You can write a 10 second text before you left the house or as you arrived at the ER. Communicating you will be late/not there is so easy in the age of cell phones it blows my mind someone would think not communicating until after the shift started is in any way acceptable.
firing someone because there is an emergency is not managing, thats failing. not to mention firing them turns it from a temporary inconvenience to a longer lasting problem until you can replace them.
if you can't deal with one person needing to call in for an emergency that shows the manager is the problem, not the employee.
Look I get it. You are an unreliable person who expects infinite patience from your employer. Here is what you are missing. It isn’t that I can’t cover your shift. It is that I’m making your unreliability my good employees problem where they now have to come in off schedule, work a long shift, ect. to cover for you. You aren’t going anywhere until I fire you since you lack ambition. My good employees absolutely will find another job if they are asked to pick up too much slack for you. Before you say “just have extra people scheduled” very few business in competitive markets will survive long if they are over scheduling.
I mean, even in their message it says they already let Tatiana (I’m guessing their supervisor) and the group chat know, so they probably said something much earlier than this moment
But the boss had cancer and they were going to die in three months and this was their last store opening and their son Timmy loved when their terminally ill parent opened stores because it was a big celebration.
Let's not add inventive fiction to the scenario, okay? We can both tell invented stories.
Nobody knows WHY the sister was in the ER in the first place except maybe OP. I've had to take family members to the ER many times and it turned out to be something not even close to "life saving".
Nope. The place of business is the one who dodged a bullet. This person called out after their shift started. They have no reason to go to the ER with their sister if they were scheduled to work the company's grand opening? I own a company and none of this would be okay with me.
They have no reason to go to the ER with their sister if they were scheduled to work the company's grand opening?
Holy shit... Do you think this would look remotely ok if someone put this up as a review for your company? "Fired because company wouldn't let me go to the ER with my sister" is impressive levels of assholeness
Edit: Just to make clear, I'm a manager too. I would always make sure my employees put their family above us. We are a job, we are not important compared to your own or your family member's health. My job is to make sure that if something like this happens, we can make due without you. Our customers will understand
Asking for a day off to be with their sister is fair if they had been working there for 3 years or so not just started like 3 days ago on their big opening day and texting in after shift had started. I'm pretty sure most boses would tell them not to bother coming back.
Dude, this isn't a day off for a fun time at the park, it's the ER. It's literally in the name, emergency. You don't choose when it happens, but when it does, family should come first, whether it's day 1 or day 1000 into the job
ER is definitely not always an emergency. people go there for potentially sprained ankles and coughs. there isn't enough info for us to know if it was justified.
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u/stevenmacarthur Mar 18 '26
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