CEO criticized after asking employees to donate paid holiday days to sick colleague instead of extending their leave
Jake Massey
Featured Image Credit: Khvoinatska Tetiana / Alamy Stock Photo/Reddit
A CEO has come under fire after they encouraged employees to donate their own paid holiday days to a sick colleague.
In a memo circulated at an unnamed company, the president and CEO implored staff to hand over their PTO (paid time off) to a long-serving colleague who had been hospitalized for several months.
They added that the time out of work had heaped financial pressure on the employee and her family.
The memo was shared on Reddit with the caption: "I am at a loss for words. This is pathetic…"
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The offending document reads: "We have a long-term employee of 17 years from our dietary department who has been in the hospital and rehab for several months.
"She has exhausted all her PTO days, and her benefits are running out. As you can imagine, this has been quite the drain on her family's income.
"If there is anyone who would like to donate one or more days of their PTO, please let [management] know in writing of your intent. Thank you for your consideration."
Presumably, when the CEO wrote this memo, they assumed the response would be something along the lines of: "N'awww, what a sweet and thoughtful idea from our benevolent boss. I would love to hand over the paid rest I am legally entitled to."
However, if their employees are anything like the people of Reddit, their response would not have been anything like this.
Commenting on the viral post, one Reddit user wrote: "Translation: 'Dear Dunces, Allow me to guilt trip you into doing something that would be cheaper for me in the end'."
Another wrote: "This is manipulation and disgusting they would do that. 'It's a drain on their family's income'. It's not the worker's responsibility to pay other coworkers."
While a third added: "The audacity to say President and CEO at the end what a f***ing loser."
Depressingly, others shared tales of similarly greedy and out of touch bosses.
"My old company was like this," one Reddit user wrote.
"I managed the accounting department and as a manger they wanted to make me walk around and ask employees to donate time. I refused. I said people can give their time if they so choose but I'm not asking anyone to do this.
"Oh and when the CEO found out that you don't get paid when you are on leave for FMLA [Family and Medical Leave Act] she made a rule that the c-suite [executives] would get full pay anytime they went on FMLA but this policy was only for them. I don't work there anymore."
But if these tales of bad bosses are getting you down, fear not, someone chimed up with a story that shows that not all bosses are b******s.
"I had a boss once, big multi-million dollar company," they wrote. "Maybe 100-150 employees.
"One of the programmers lost his child to SIDS [sudden infant death syndrome]. Horrible.
"The boss' secretary was asking in a meeting what type of flowers the company should send. He basically said f**k that. Pay for everything. Funeral, everything. And when he feels OK to come back to work he can. No loss in pay. Was about two months I think he was out."