Employee boldly declines when manager demands he and his wife paint the office after working hours

We have all heard stories of employers making unreasonable demands on their employees. In most cases, employees do not have much of a choice but to comply and get the job done. u/samuraijak1337 took a different route with their boss who tried to force them to paint the office. The post titled, "Boss tries to make me work overtime to paint the office, even offered to let my wife help" has got 3.5K upvotes and 250 comments. The individual kicks off the post by saying that they were playing video games with their wife on a Sunday morning when they got a text from their boss.

Their wife also worked at the same place they did. They share how their job had nothing to do with painting and was mostly related to "tooling" in a plastics factory. The text from their boss read, "Just a heads up tomorrow and Tuesday they are going to need help painting so they are asking that if you could stay from 315 to 6. You can have the OT and help them paint before the owners come. If your wife wants to paint and get overtime as well she can do that so she's not just waiting around on you."

They replied saying, "I don't really need the overtime, so no thanks." At this point, their boss's tone changed from a request to forcing them to do it. He states how it wasn't an "option" and how they needed the individual's help to finish the work before the owners of the establishment arrived. The individual did not even bother to respond to the final text as they had made their stance on the issue clear.

The individual arrived at work the next day and they asked again if they would be willing to stay back for painting by the manager. They firmly replied that they would not be staying back to paint. At which point, the manager asked, "What about tomorrow and Wednesday?" The individual clarified, "I will not be staying to paint at all this week." When the manager asked them why they didn't want to stay, they simply stated that they did not want to.

Their manager was naturally frustrated with the conversation and his face got "all red." But he cannot yell at the individual because they should have never been asked to do the thing in the first place. The individual writes, "They waited until the last minute to try to get the shop clean and painted before the owners showed up. You guys screwed around and found out, deal with it." Other people on the platform expressed their support for the individual's stance in the comments section.

u/otacon444 said, "As a former soldier, this is hilarious. We just do whatever we are told. Once I entered the civilian world, it never occurred to me (and it still doesn’t make sense to me), to just say no. This is hilarious and I think what you did was f****** awesome." u/dsdvbguutres said, "Could have gotten as many painters from the temp agency as he needed instead of paying a machinist overtime. Not the sharpest bulb in the shed."