Restaurant manager laughs at employee when he asks for 2 consecutive days off after working 6 day weeks since starting: 'He literally laughed in his face'

Brad Dickson • Managing Editor

Jan 1, 2026 12:00 PM EST

It's as important to take time off as it is to do productive work. It's a vital part of letting your mind recover and filter through what's important. Your mind subconsciously processes problems when you're resting, even if you're not actively working on them

This is something that employers and managers often forget. They often seem to think that they'll be able to milk the most productivity out of work by holding their nose to the grindstone. Beyond that, by creating a culture where one simply doesn't take time off, managers openly brag about how "hard" they're working, and workers are forced to follow suit.

This almost always stems from ownership, who are, of course, happy to pour their lives into a company from which they see every bit of reward. They don't understand, or perhaps they do, that requiring their staff to commit their lives to something for diminishing returns is both stifling and horrifically demotivating.

It's no secret that working in the service industry is especially hard work. Desperate owners scraping by with razor-thin margins often turn to mistreatment of their staff, cultivating toxic environments in order to try and squeeze a little bit more profit out of their restaurants. To make things worse, when you're the new starter in these places, you get stuck with the worst schedule, starting early and then late and then early again, making your life and sleeping schedule like whiplash that you simply cannot adjust to.

As a result, burnout becomes the norm, and employees desperately float around trying out different places in the hopes of finally finding that gem of an employer who makes working for them a joy rather than a chore.

This is a bit of what this employee encountered when he asked for time off, a mere two days, only to have his boss throw it back in his face by actually going as far as to laugh at the request.

Outside of being a hostile power play, it's difficult to see what the boss was hoping to accomplish here. The "fall in step" attitude only works for so long after all, before burnout, and growing dissatisfaction leads to turnover and a downturn in the company's profits and shifting of its market position.

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"Boss Laughed In Husband’s Face When He Asked For 2 Days Off"

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