‘Frightening’: Boss explodes at worker on the weekend

A text message exchange between a boss and his employee quickly turned ugly after the latter pushed back when asked to complete a task on a weekend.

A boss is going viral for revealing the wild things he expects from his employees – even on a weekend.

UK workplace expert Ben Askins has found his niche online, sharing anonymous text message exchanges between employees and their bosses, as well as offering advice.

The workplace expert shared a recent exchange that quickly turned ugly after an employee told his boss that he wouldn’t be replying to an email sent over the weekend until Monday.

“I wouldn’t send an email on the weekend that wasn’t important. I do expect a quick response to things like this regardless of the day,” the boss fired back.

The employee tried to reason with the boss, explaining that they wanted to separate their professional and personal lives.

“Sorry, it has been a long week. I could really do with keeping my weekends separate, if that is okay? I’m out at the moment. Is there any way I can look at it on Monday?” the worker asked.

The boss didn’t take such a suggestion kindly.

“Honestly I’m so bored of hearing lines like this from your generation. Like seriously? What happened to people putting in a bit of effort and taking their career seriously?” The boss wrote back.

“It is just take, take, take, with you lot! I am fed-up. Men used to work every day of the hour, 7 days a week. I need a response today on that email.”

The boss blew up at the worker … even though it was the weekend and the employee wasn’t rostered on. Picture: Supplied

The employee replied, arguing that he was “exhausted” from work and would try and look at the email that evening if he could.

“This is beyond disappointing. We are talking about one small email response. It isn’t like I’m asking for the world. We will talk on Monday,” the boss warned.

Mr Askins said the exchange was ridiculous and that the employee fighting to maintain work-life balance was absolutely fair enough.

“The amount of red flags in this one tiny message is absolutely mind-blowing,” he said on TiTok.

“What I really hate about this is he has ruined his employee’s weekend. That will just be niggling in the back of their mind.”

The employee just wanted to enjoy their weekend. Picture: iStock

Mr Askins also argued that setting work and home life boundaries actually is focusing on your career and shouldn’t be seen as a negative.

“You have to work 30 to 40, 50 years of your life right? If you burn out in three to four years and cause yourself to completely fall apart you’re not going to make it. It is a marathon not a sprint!” he said.

“I would argue looking after yourself is taking your career seriously.”

Mr Askins blasted the boss and pointed out workers are allowed to enjoy their weekends. Picture: TikTok/BenAskins

He argued your career is not a sprint and you should focus on taking care of yourself. Picture: TikTok/BenAskins

Online people were stunned by the wild text exchange.

“It is frightening how common this actually is,” one said.

“I wouldn’t even reply,” another advised.

 “Manufactured urgency is the biggest scam,” someone else claimed.

“Boomer Bosses be like ‘it’s an emergency!’ And then follow up with ‘can you show me how to open a PDF?,” one joked.

“That’s an awful situation! No one should be expected to work on weekends like that,” another said.

“Realistically, older generations didn’t have email or mobiles, so they couldn’t be harassed in this way, so it’s not a decent comparison,” someone argued.