Photo: Alex Green / Pexels; Reddit via Canva Pro
They were trapped in the mountains behind a jack-knifed semi, but that didn't phase their boss.
By John Sundholm — Written on Mar 03, 2023
Any of us who've had a job for any length of time know that it's common practice to call and let your boss know if you're going to be late or miss work.
But sometimes there are situations when you just aren't able to do so — like life-or-death emergencies.
Most bosses are understanding of these sorts of things, but certainly not all, as a worker on Reddit recently shared in a post to the "r/antiwork" subReddit, where people go to gripe about job-related annoyances.
Their supervisor seemed to be gunning for the bad boss's hall of fame with their response to the dangerous situation their employee got caught in during California's recent snow storms.
When a worker got trapped in the recent California blizzard, their boss reprimanded them for not calling into work.
Suffice it to say that the person had far bigger concerns — you know, like their personal safety — than keeping their boss up to date, but that didn't seem to matter much to their supervisor.
The person got into a terrifying car accident during the California blizzard and had no cell service, and had to spend the entire night in their car.
The Redditor shared screenshots of the conversation they had with their boss after they finally made it out of the mountains.
Photo: Reddit
The situation the worker found themself in is nothing short of terrifying.
They texted their boss that they were "okay now," but had gotten into a terrifying accident.
"There was a car under a tree with a semi parked in front of it," they texted. "I slid on black ice into the semi and ended up with my car resting on the guard rail."
At first, the boss seemed concerned. "Gosh, glad you're okay and sorry about your car," they texted back, but then, things took a major turn.
The worker's boss demanded to know why they hadn't shown up to work because they were uninjured.
Never mind that the worker was lucky to be alive — imagine if the guard rail hadn't been there!
As the worker pointed out in the title of their Reddit post, they were "stranded overnight in snow, no cell service."
But their boss was only concerned with figuring out why they didn't follow standard workplace procedure — and why they didn't just come to work anyway.
"Did you have to seek medical care? If you’re okay now, how come you didn’t report to work or make contact prior to your shift? Also if you’re okay where are you now?"
Even if the worker had not provided details, it's not like the situation was a mystery.
The recent snowfall in California has been called a 'once in a generation' event.
California's weather has made international news in recent days as the usually balmy state got hit with feet of snow in some mountain areas and accumulation even in low-lying areas like Pasadena near Los Angeles.
California's mountainous high elevations are of course used to snow, but even they have struggled to deal with the magnitude of the storms — even national parks in the snowy Sierra Nevada have had to shut down.
In the rest of the state, snow is all but unheard of — the last time Southern California had a blizzard warning like the one it had recently was in 1989.
It hasn't snowed in downtown Los Angeles since 1962 or in San Francisco since 1976 — not exactly a mystery why this worker couldn't make it to their job.
Commenters on Reddit were in disbelief at the boss's response.
"Every boss should assume that if someone gets into a car accident, they aren't coming in for work that day," one person wrote.
"'Seeing as how you're alive, you're 2 hours late into a no call no show,'" another person joked, while another Reddit user sarcastically commented, "'Gee, I hope you're okay what the f--k is wrong with you?'"
Sarcasm was the tenor of most Redditors' takes on the boss's callous response. As another person put it, "Oh s--t my bad, I always forget to report to work before an accident happens!"
"Look man, you need to get written permission at least 3 weeks in advance before having any accidents or emergencies," another person quipped.
And several said that if their boss had responded this way to them, they would simply have said nothing.
"I wouldn’t even respond at that point," one person said. "Boss doesn’t even recognize [you] as a human being."
Obviously, a person can't run a business when their employees just disappear. Still, a little bit of empathy, especially in extenuating circumstances, isn't asking that much.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.