Viral Thread: Manager Tells Worker to Find Cover or Delay Putting Their Dog Down, Worker Quits

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Aug 1, 2022 11:00 AM EDT

A worker has put their employer on blast for telling them they needed to find cover or change the date that they were going to put their dog down.

This thread was posted to Reddit's r/antiwork subreddit by Redditor u/lailette. The thread was posted with the title "Put in my notice because my boss asked me if I could change the day I put my dog to sleep." and contains screenshots of a text conversation that was allegedly between them and their manager.

"This was what I received from my boss after asking for help regarding having to put my dog to sleep and not being able to make my 5 AM shift because of it," explained the poster in a caption that accompanied the screenshots. "I worked at Starbucks for over 2.5 years and called out/was out sick a total of three or four times."

The more you think about it, the more bizarre the idea of "finding your own cover" gets. The practice arises from most retailers' insistence on saving labor costs by eternally understaffing their stores. Owners and middle managers alike reason that if you're running on bare minimum staff at all times, you ensure that you're never "wasting money" by being overstaffed. What this really means is that you, the retail manager, and your staff are always balancing on a knife's blade of preparedness. Constantly one overly busy rush or sick employee away from having the entire operation go off the rails and fail.

When the manager then tries to go to middle-management to get more staff because rostered staff are missing shifts, they're often told to "figure it out" or directly told that the company policy is that 'staff need to find their own cover if they're missing a shift.' Thus, the policy arises.

This is especially bad at places where a manager's most important KPI is how low they are keeping their labor costs.

Commenters were dissatisfied with the manager's response and suggested a course of action. They had this advice for those who found themselves in the same situation.

"NEVER explain your situation to a boss," suggested GetMad24. "Only say family emergency and that's it. They will hold it against you."

"This is a LPT! Stop telling them!" replied judyvi. "They don't need to know! And stop expecting them to act like normal human beings with empathy. Most people only give a sh*t about themselves."