Employees wear party hats at an after-hours office gathering, like the mandatory event in the story.
Licensed media supplied as editorial context.
As much as modern corporate organizational culture has tried to remove all things feeling and personal from the office, we're still human. (They haven't replaced us with AI yet.) And, being human, we are inherently feeling. We can't simply sever our personal experiences from our professional ones. That's one heck of a concept, though. (I wonder if anyone has ever made a TV show about it?) Whether it's uncaring or unfeeling, or just plain clueless. It is a fact that having an employer simply demand that you sever your grief for the sake of your work is just never going to happen.
Don't get me wrong. Compartmentalizing your personal life from your professional life is an important skill. It's just good mental practice not to let issues live in your mind at all hours. Especially when you can't do anything about them. You're also always going to have personal things going on in life. And if you want to keep your job, you are going to need to learn how to get on with your work in spite of them.
But there are some things you can't simply forget about and get on with your day. Even with a lot of practice. Grief is a major one. The loss of a loved one is a significant life event with well-documented psychological effects.
No two people are going to handle grief the same. Some will let it wash over them. But some might want to dive further into their work to hide from it. But, still, in those initial days, there is a lot to process. Both psychologically and with actual admin too.
There's a reason why bereavement leave is, specifically, a named type of leave. Although there is no Federal mandate in the USA, the standard statutory leave ranges globally from 3-5 paid days for immediate family and 1-3 days for extended family. An acknowledgement of the fact that you are, quite simply, unfit to work.
Even this short length is laughable. Who is going to get over the loss of a parent in 3 days? But it is in acknowledgement of the fact that bereavement is a significant event.
There are many issues with how this manager handled the situation. Unpaid working hours and creating a toxic workplace culture are among them. See the original story below, as it was shared with this online community. Followed by some key responses from readers of the original thread.
This happened at my last job, a mid-size retail company, and I still think about it.
My grandmother passed away in March. I asked for two days off to travel for the funeral, which was about six hours away. My manager told me the company's bereavement policy only covered immediate family, and grandparents technically fell under a separate, unpaid category that still required approval from her boss, which she said she'd look into but couldn't promise anything before the funeral date.
I ended up using two of my very limited PTO days instead because I couldn't get an answer in time and wasn't going to miss it regardless. When I came back, tired and honestly still processing everything, there was a calendar invite waiting in my inbox for a mandatory team bonding night scheduled for that same week, an evening trivia event at a restaurant thirty minutes from the store, unpaid, off the clock, but required attendance or it would be noted in our file.
I asked my manager directly if grief counseling or an extra floating day might be available given the week I'd just had, since corporate had sent an email a few months back about an "employee wellness initiative." She said that program was mainly for "burnout related to workload," not personal situations, and reminded me attendance at trivia night was still expected.
I went, mostly because I didn't want anything noted against me while I was already exhausted. I sat through two hours of forced enthusiasm about a job that couldn't spare an extra unpaid day for my grandmother's funeral but could absolutely spare my personal time for a trivia night with zero compensation.
I ended up leaving that job about four months later for unrelated reasons, but that week has stuck with me as one of the clearest examples of how backwards priorities can get.
Has anyone else had a job that couldn't accommodate real personal circumstances but somehow always found room for optional mandatory extras?
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