Employee told to attend meeting on approved leave, boss threatens performance report; Reddit post goes viral

Everyone who works in an office wants to be left alone on a day off. People plan weeks ahead, arrange everything and only then take leave. But what is one to do when the boss calls them to work even after the leave has been approved? One such case is going viral on the internet.

A young man has described his predicament in a Reddit group called Toxic Workplace. He says he applied for leave several months ago and the company approved it. He had thought he would rest during the break and not worry about work.

A day or two before the leave, however, his boss messaged him. The boss said there was an important online meeting on the day of the leave and that he would have to attend. The employee replied politely that his leave had already been approved and that he wanted to stay away from work that day.

The boss's mood soured on hearing this. He called the employee aside and said he did not think about the team and did not cooperate. He also said that if the employee did not attend the meeting, he would record it in the performance report due next month. In effect, it was a direct threat.

The employee now feels completely trapped. He does not know what to do: if he skips the meeting, his work may suffer, and if he attends, there is no point in having taken leave. What, then, is the meaning of approved leave?

He wrote in the post that he feels very helpless. According to him, if he logs in during his leave, it will no longer be leave. He asked whether it is right to do so, whether a boss can behave this way, and whether anyone else has had such an experience.

Comments poured in as soon as the post went up. More than 2,200 people have viewed it. Many sided with the employee. Several said companies these days look only at work and do not think about employees' lives.

One user commented that he should email HR directly. He should write down everything the boss said, send it to HR and ask what the company's leave policy actually is. In an emergency it is fine, the user said, but if this happens during every leave, it is wrong.

Another user shared an experience, saying HR at their office would give such a boss a good talking-to. In a good company, HR takes decisions keeping both the employee and the company in mind.

A third person said they had asked for a change in working hours because of their mother's health. They had also shown willingness to work more, yet their manager was not happy. But when they copied HR on the email, the matter was settled immediately.

The question is not about one person alone. According to the post, in many offices employees are harassed with phone calls or summoned to meetings even after leave is approved. If the company has approved leave, the person should be left free that day. It is their right, but some bosses fail to understand this.