A pestering boss begging a worker to come in on their day off has left the internet stunned.
UK workplace expert Ben Askins often goes viral for sharing anonymous text messages between workers and their bosses.
Askins reads out the exchanges and then offers his advice, and 9 times out of 10, he is usually on the worker’s side.
The workplace expert seemed stunned as he read out a wild exchange between a boss and a worker who was being hounded to come to work on their day off.
It started innocently enough: The boss texted and said the workplace was “slammed” and asked if the worker was free.
“I really need you to come in today,” the boss pressed.
The worker replied politely and explained they were with family and couldn’t come in at the last minute.
“I would if I could but I’m out with the family,” the worker wrote back.
The boss fobbed off the worker’s excuse and said someone had called in sick, calling them a “bastard” and explaining again that they really needed the worker to come in on their day off to cover for their co-worker.
The worker responded, “I literally can’t come in today,” and added that it’d take them a couple of hours to even get to work anyway.
The boss jumped on that and said, “Two hours is fine; I can cover you until then,” which prompted the worker to once again say it wasn’t really a time factor; they just couldn’t come to work.
“I can’t come in,” the worker said.
The boss then ramped things up a notch.
“Come on! You can’t bail on me like this,” the boss raged.
@Ben.askins / TikTok
“How am I bailing? It is my day off and I never said I could do it,” the worker reasoned.
The boss didn’t relent and claimed the worker said they could be in with two hours and then threatened to tell someone else in the company about their refusal to work.
The worker didn’t give in and simply said the boss could tell whoever he wanted but they wouldn’t be working today.
“I am still not coming in,” the worker said.
Askins said the worker had remained “fair” throughout the exchange, but the boss was being ridiculous.
The workplace expert pointed out that obvious: at no point in the exchange did the worker agree to come in within two hours and slammed the boss for deliberately misunderstanding him.
“You’re not that dumb. That is absolutely ridiculous. If you can cover the first two hours why can’t you cover the rest of it?” He asked.
Askins said that it is “okay to ask people to come in” and cover a shift and earn extra money if they want to, but it is never okay to threaten workers.
“If they say no, you have to accept that, it is your job to find another solution, not just hammer them and deliberately misunderstand what they’re saying,” he said.
Online people were stunned by the boss.
Someone said they “couldn’t believe these kinds of people are out there”, another said it was “weird gaslighting” by the boss, and another said they’d “report” the boss to HR.
In general, though, the exchange prompted workers to point out that they shouldn’t feel obliged to respond to their boss outside of ours.
“Let’s normalize not responding to workplace texts on our days off,” one said.
“Remember. Don’t answer work stuff after work; nothing good has ever happened,” another advised.
“Here’s a wild concept: It is your day off, so don’t answer the message,” someone else said.
Last year, Australia introduced a new workplace law, the Right to Disconnect, which gives staff working at a business with 15 or more employees the right to refuse contact outside of their working hours.
These rules will also apply to small businesses starting on August 26, 2025.
