Another day, another truly brain-melting viral story about a boss who not only doesn’t understand the basic rudiments of being a good manager but also seems to be missing a chip for basic human empathy.
While most of these stories are audaciously annoying, this one is downright disturbing in its callousness, and it’s spurred many people online to share their own stories about their out-of-touch bosses.
The boss told a worker their horrifically totaled car was an inexcusable reason for missing work.
Most of us have been in a fender bender or two in our lives, but there’s a vast difference between a little scrape or bump and a wreck that leaves a car mangled in the kind of way that makes you wonder about the driver’s condition.
The situation this worker encountered was definitely the latter. The origins of the post aren’t known, but the visuals, taken from screenshots of text message between a worker and their boss, have been kicking around the internet for a couple of years now and recently went viral again after being posted by X user @kirawontmiss.
The screenshot shows a car with its front end completely bashed in; the hood buckled to a sharp angle. Beyond it, the windshield is seriously cracked, and it appears that the airbags deployed. But evidently, the workers ‘ boss could not have cared less.
The worker’s boss only asked what time they would be at work.
With all due respect to whoever this manager is, a normal human being would see a photo of someone’s car like that and immediately ask if they were OK. For all this manager knew, the worker took this photo of their car out of the back of an ambulance!
However, the boss did not even so much as mention the accident or the worker’s condition. In response to the harrowing picture, they simply wrote, “Keep me updated on what time you’re expecting to be here.”
Ground Picture | Shutterstock
That’s appalling enough, but it got worse from there. “It’s understandable why you would be late,” they went on to say after receiving no response, “but regardless anything that prevents you from being at the workplace other than a death in the family is unexcused at any company.”
I don’t know about you, but I spent a good 15 years as a young person working at some of the most thankless and abusive food service and retail institutions in the entire universe, and not a single one of them had such an absurd and inhumane rule. The person almost died, for God’s sake!
People were outright disturbed by the boss’s response — and had some choice words for them.
“What would y’all respond with if your manager says this?” @kirawontmiss asked in their tweet reposting the exchange, and boy, did people online have some responses.
The one that probably cut closest to the heart of the matter was a user who responded, “Managers like this scare me.” Which is really the only reasonable response to such a shockingly inhuman exchange.
Others were far more pointed, however. Many said they would quit on the spot — often in the most profane ways possible. Another tweeted that they “would crash into their car next,” while one man identified a clever loophole in the boss’s idiotic response, saying they would have replied with, “OK then my dad died too.”
Sadly, LOTS of people had stories about similarly sociopathic managers. One described how when their KFC manager had a similar response to their car crash, their dad loaded their wrecked car on a trailer and parked it across from the KFC until their boss apologized.
Another described being seriously injured in their car wreck, including cuts and bruised ribs — and being demanded to still show up for work.
This shouldn’t even need to be said, but it is so, so easy to be a decent boss. Like, it could not be easier! Just act like a human being instead of a brow-nosing pick-me sociopath cartoon villain! That’s really it!
If you can’t manage that, you frankly deserve what one man said he’d do in this situation: “I’ll take an Uber to curse his stupid (behind) out spitting on the floor and quitting while also calling a labor lawyer.” Actually, never mind — that’s too lenient by half!
John Sundholm is a writer, editor, and video personality with 20 years of experience in media and entertainment. He covers culture, mental health, and human interest topics.
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