Child-free employee's sudden notice disrupts co-worker's paternity leave, sparking intense debate

Leaving a workspace for a better opportunity is nothing new. However, some co-workers and employers take the resignation personally instead of wishing their exiting employees well. The same happened with a woman facing the fury of a colleague who was soon expecting to become a father. The colleague went ballistic at his teammate—who goes by u/MotherSlice on Reddit—for the sudden notice period amid his upcoming paternity leave.

In the post, the child-free employee took potshots at her colleague for expecting to put his career above her own. After an extensive hunt for better work, she accepted a job offer with a higher title and $20,000 extra pay before serving the two weeks’ notice. “I work in a very small team at a fabrication plant. The pay is s*** and my boss refuses to give me a promotion,” informed the disgruntled employee.

However, her sudden announcement put her co-worker off as he was pissed that the small team of three would need to work extra. Additionally, the company usually takes at least two to three months to hire new people. The soon-to-be father, who has been working with the business for less than a year, convinced the staff that her quitting the company amid his paternity leave would make things messy. In the aftermath of the baby’s birth, their team’s strength and volume were already expected to drop to merely two members. However, the woman firmly admitted that she didn’t care about the situation.

“I’m sorry for not staying at the s***** job so you can leave. It was selfish of me to put my career first over my co-workers. Now he keeps saying s*** to me like, ‘This job is so easy, no other company will give you such a cushy office job,’ and ‘Do you have a new job,’” she added. The woman leaving before the holiday season wanted to reply to her co-worker, saying, “Yeah, dude, I do have a new job and it pays more than what you’re making here.” However, she chose not to give her colleagues another reason to be pissed at her in the forthcoming weeks. Notably, the employee expecting to become a father holds a higher title and more experience than his co-worker, yet he gets paid less. Moreover, he is expected in the future to work ten-hour shifts for four days every week.

Despite the company’s lack of a policy for paternity leave, the boss had a “lenient approach” toward the employees to prevent them from leaving. “If he’s lucky, maybe the CFO will give my co-worker an extra week or two to spend with his new family, but that’s it. Did he not plan for this when he took this job? I agree that parents should have time off to spend with their new children, but unfortunately, capitalism does not,” she added. “He should be angry at the company, not me. I told him I’m quitting because this is what’s best for me and he rolled his eyes,” she concluded the post, inviting a variety of reactions.

“From the co-worker’s point of view, there is probably nothing that could be going on in your life that is more important than him bringing a new baby into the world,” u/FrankaGrimes commented. “Why would you even blame the coworker? Blame the company you work for. They’re the ones who need to hire more people and have an effective method for when their employees need to take leave,” u/FileDoesntExist remarked. “Tell the coworker they better get cracking on training someone new. Congrats on moving up and moving out,” u/LesleyMarina suggested.