You got two choices…and neither of them are very good.
Ouch…no one ever wants to hear that.
But this business owner decided to take drastic acton when they told an employee they could either be demoted or fired.
Did they go too far?
Read on and tell us what you think.
AITA for telling an employee she can choose between demotion or termination?
“I own a vape shop. We’re a small business, only 12 employees.
One of my employees, Peggy, was supposed to open yesterday. Peggy has recently been promoted to Manager, after 2 solid years of good work as a cashier. I really thought she could handle the responsibility.
So, I wake up, 3 hours after the place should be open, and I have 22 notifications on the store Facebook page. Customers have been trying to come shop, but the store is closed. Employees are showing up to work, but they’re locked out.
I call Peggy, and get no response. I text her, same thing. So I go in and open the store. An hour before her shift was supposed to be over, she calls me back.
I ask her if she’s ok, and she says she needed to “take a mental health day and do some self-care”. I’m still pretty pi**ed at this point, but I’m trying to be understanding, as I know how important mental health can be. So I ask her why she didn’t call me as soon as she knew she needed the day off. Her response: “I didn’t have enough spoons in my drawer for that.”.
Frankly, IDK what that means. But it seems to me like she’s saying she cannot be trusted to handle the responsibility of opening the store in the AM.
So I told her that she had two choices:
Go back to her old position, with her old pay.
I fire her completely.
She’s calling me all sorts of “-ist” now, and says I’m discriminating against her due to her poor mental health and her gender.
None of this would have been a problem if she simply took 2 minutes to call out. I would have got up and opened the store on time. But this no-call/no-show s**t is not the way to run a successful business.
I think I might be the AH here, because I am taking away her promotion over something she really had no control over.
But at the same time, she really could have called me.
So, Reddit, I leave it to you: Am I the a**hole?”
Reddit users shared their thoughts about what happened.
This reader said this person did not act like an a**hole.
Photo Credit: Reddit
And this reader said she was given an opportunity and she didn’t do a good job.
Photo Credit: Reddit
And this person said her behavior was unacceptable.
Photo Credit: Reddit
What do you think?
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