'Sounds optional to me': Employee declines optional training course, boss reprimands her, claims it was mandatory to attend

Look, if a work event is mandatory, then employers need to be transparent about it. Time is valuable for everyone, and saying that employees are "strongly encouraged" to participate in an extracurricular activity does not exactly mean that it's required. The only way in which employers could possibly think those concepts mean the same thing is if they have a backward sense of authority and control over their subordinates.

Here, we have an employee who received an email about a training course from HR that she was "strongly encouraged" to attend. Unfortunately, that week, they were swamped with other work-related obligations and opted not to attend to do her regular job. Well, after the meeting, her boss suddenly decided to claim it was mandatory for her to go and reprimanded her for ignoring the event. As one can imagine, the employee quickly began looking for other job opportunities soon thereafter.

Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from folks in the comments section. For more, check out this post about a new hire whose hours and requests were not honored.

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