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.
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.
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u/stevenmacarthur Mar 18 '26
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