She Skipped An Optional Work Party — Her Boss Got Mad And Tried To Guilt Her Into Going
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Imagine being told that your workday is going to be cut in half, and you are only going to be paid for half a day’s work. The reason for this is that there’s a work party later. You won’t be paid to attend the party, and it’s also not mandatory.
Do you go to the party?
In this story, one employee was in this situation and decided not to go to the party. When her boss found out, she got pretty upset and tried to guilt her into attending the party.
Should she go to the party, or is her boss out of line?
Let’s read the whole story to decide.
AIO if I email my boss and tell her her actions were inappropriate?
I (27F) work at a company I have been at for about 8 months.
It’s a small staff, about 10 staff.
The staff are all great, occasionally we will disagree (mostly women) but that’s a given in the work environment.
One coworker is pretty annoying.
A bit of backstory, recently our lead, Florence, randomly started having an issue with myself and a different coworker we’ll call Stacy.
Stacy and I were friends before this job and still hang out outside of work.
Florence has started micromanaging our tasks and reporting back to our supervisor that we are not doing our job. Resulting in multiple individual staff meetings.
Regardless, we have continued to be nice and cordial towards Florence.
She doesn’t feel like going to a work party.
Today, there is a work anniversary party, after work, not mandatory.
Our work day will be cut in half and we will not be compensated for this cut in hours.
I have chosen not to attend, I’ve been tired and my social battery is empty.
I emailed my boss last week to let her know. My friend Stacy also emailed she would not be attending, due to other reasons.
But it wasn’t that easy.
Today, my boss pulled Stacy, myself, and Florence into the office and made us have a conversation.
Stacy and I both communicated we have no tension with Florence but feel as though she has tension with us, which she denied.
Our boss then began to tear up and say she spent thousands of dollars on this work party and it hurts her feelings that we have chosen not to come.
I communicated my reasons, reiterated that the party was not said to be mandatory.
The argument continued.
My boss stated she spends a lot of effort to make this a family work environment.
I communicated we are coworkers, not a family.
My lead stepped in then and disagreed.
This ended with our boss basically continuing to guilt us into coming to the party and we dispersed.
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AIO with how she approached this? I’m considering emailing a follow up that it was not appropriate for her to communicate this way.
Not paying employees to attend a work party that is also not mandatory to attend but getting mad at them for not wanting to attend is pretty messed up. Have the party during work hours and pay them for their time. Then, they’ll all happily go.
Let’s see if Reddit agrees.
This person offers some advice.
Another person agrees that it’s time to look for a different job.
This person seems to think she should just drop it.
This is a good point.
The boss was completely out of line. If she wanted everyone to go to the party, she should’ve made it mandatory and paid them to go. She surely can’t think that her employees want to spend all their time with their coworkers. Surely, she realizes that her employees have lives outside work and might actually look forward to going home.
It’s clearly time for her to look for a different job.
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