When someone builds up a successful company, they often want to hire on their children to run it once they get old enough. Sadly, the kids often do a bad job.

What would you do if you had a pre-approved vacation, but the manager (who was the owner’s son) texted you just before you left telling you that you had to come in and cover his shift?

That is what happened to a guy at the company in this story, so he refused, and the manager fired him. He still went on his vacation, and when he got back, he sued the company for wrongful termination.

Fired via text for not covering a shift during his already-approved vacation

At my last 9-to-5, the owners of my shop also owned a pre-owned sporting goods resale shop next door. The guys over there would hop next door and chat with us while it was slow, we were all on friendly terms.

Oh no, what happened to him?

I went away for vacation and when I came back, boy was there gossip. “Greg,” one of the friendliest and most helpful employees, had been fired.

Funny thing was, Greg had also been on vacation, out of state for a family reunion. He came back into our shop a couple months later and I got the whole story.

Why are these kids such bad managers.

You see, the store manager next door was Boss’ Son. Like many beneficiaries of nepotism, he practically got away with murder.

Showing up late or not showing up for shifts, opening shop late, disappearing for half the day, “borrowing” things for his rec softball team, all that good stuff. He also had a habit of calling his employees to cover shifts at the last minute — an hour or less of lead time.

He planned well ahead.

Greg, as I mentioned, had his vacation approved in advance, all the paperwork in order, tickets purchased, bags packed, everything was gravy.

The day he’s set to fly out, he gets a text from the boss’s son telling him he needs to get to the shop ASAP to cover his shift. (Not that he was sick or had some important business function to perform. He just had a date.)

There is no way he is doing that.

No can do, obviously — Greg isn’t going to reschedule a flight at the last minute just to cover a shift. So, Greg texts back and tells him that since the vacation was approved by him as of two months ago, he won’t be coming in.

The manager, being the mature and responsible manager he is, sucks it up and covers the shift himself.

What?!

… hahaha, just kidding. No. He fires Greg via text, instead.

Greg, he takes it in stride. Goes on vacation, gets back, and instead of heading to work, heads right to the unemployment office to file a claim for wrongful dismissal, paperwork and copies of texts in hand.

This is working out well for him.

Then he goes to a friend who worked for the city and gets a much more lucrative and rewarding job, same day.

Nice thing was, when all was said and done, he won his suit for wrongful dismissal, and still got awarded monthly unemployment payments despite already having another job.

This is unusual.

Apparently, in this state the unemployment office does a routine conference call with employees and employers when verifying claims, just to get both sides of the story at once.

The boss’s son was blatant and unashamed of his actions, proudly admitting his role in the matter. Of course it’s not like he was punished in any way.

As far as I know, he still manages that place… badly.

Why am I not surprised? People like this can just keep failing upwards it seems.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

This person had something similar happen.

Two firings from one boss.

Now that is a bad boss.

Why did he reply to the text at all.

Getting fired was the best thing that could happen to him.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.