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When an employer compels an employee to miss a key life event in order to demonstrate their power over the employee’s life and guarantee that they never question the importance of their work again, it is never a good thing. Such incidents are demeaning and toxically perpetuate the odd notion that our jobs are more essential than our families and health. It’s even more surprising to consider that a parent might do this to their own employee.
That’s exactly what happened in this thread, which was originally submitted to Reddit’s r/AITA community by a worker who was forced to miss his child’s birth. An indignant reader then crossposted his comments to the workplace forum r/antiwork, where it went viral, collecting over 20k upvotes and hitting Reddit’s top trending page, r/all. The title of the r/antiwork post exclaims, “Holy cow, this sh#t is much too prevalent.” Commenters on the original thread chastised the worker for not standing up to his father and leaving his job at his father’s business long ago. They felt he should have made the decision to stop things with his father and go be by his wife’s side right then and there. They have a valid point, but telling someone to leave their work with their parents from behind the safety of a computer screen is simple. The reality of executing something like that is far from ideal. If he left his parents’ restaurant, he would face unemployment as well as possible disownment from his entire family.
Yes, the minute his father encouraged him to stay should have been the moment he called it quits and went out, but it’s difficult to expect someone who has been abused their entire life to be able to walk away from their abusers.
What are your thoughts on this? Is the original posting also incorrect? Or does the burden fall fully on his father’s shoulders?
Via u/Alfredd6
Via u/Alfredd6
Share your thoughts on this in the comment section.
