Boss asked him to work on his day off, the internet is applauding the employee's response

The COVID-19 pandemic blurred the boundaries between work and personal life, triggering a spillover of stress that results from both. During this period, people often had to share workspaces with their spouses and attend Zoom calls with noisy kids in the background. It was just adding to the stress. In 2022, when the pandemic situation had begun to settle a bit, a man was in his house, sitting on a chair, relaxing on his holiday. Just then, his phone rang and his manager asked if he could be available for work. He posted a recording of the conversation with his boss on his TikTok profile (@thelovieshow) and it has since gone viral, with over 4 million views.

The 25-second clip shows the man, most likely Drake of Drake & Marie, the couple who manages the TikTok channel. In his interaction with his boss, the boss said that the workplace was suffering from employee shortages due to the pandemic. Hence, she was appealing to Drake to take up the extra work. While recording the clip, Drake put the call on speakerphone, so the conversation could be heard in the video.

"Yeah, unfortunately, we had some team members call out sick today due to COVID," said the boss. "Dang, you don't have anybody else?" Drake asked. "No, we actually don't," she replied, adding, "And I know you're not on the schedule, but we were actually wondering if you could come in anyway." Drake appeared slightly bemused as his boss continued, "We're a little short-staffed so we could really use your—." But before she could complete her sentence, Drake interrupted and simply said, "Yeah, no," and added, "Have a good night. Sorry." Next, as the boss’ pleaded, “No, wait,” Drake abruptly hung up the call.

After the call was disconnected, he turned around to face Marie, who had been recording the entire scene on camera. An exuberant Drake then asked her, "So, do you want to go to Target,” to which she replied with delight, "Hell yeah!" The caption read, “Did we buy anything at Target? Yes. Was it useful? No.”

People praised Drake for his blunt response, saying that boundaries are important to prevent work-life conflicts. @danimosnowman even went on to say, “I wouldn’t have even picked up. I’m not on call. Even at my IT job now. I clock out every day at the same time. I’ll answer texts and emails tomorrow.” @peeblydeebly said the same thing, “I don’t answer calls from work if I’m not working. It’s not poor work ethic it’s boundaries.” 

@sulfen reflected, “Companies can’t have it both ways. They should be prepared by scheduling slightly more people than they need but they only care about saving money.” Another TikToker, @cashcroft79, explained, “It is illegal in other countries to contact employees outside of work or after work hours. America is too comfortable with overworking its citizens.” 

You can follow Drake & Marie on TikTok for more video logs from their life.