Employee explains why his boss and co-worker texting his wife over his leaves is inappropriate

Having boundaries is extremely important as it can help us have a healthy work and life balance. But what can we do if our co-workers and boss violate our boundaries? u/OKC2023champs asked this question in his elaborate post on Reddit that discussed how his co-workers texted his wife after they could not reach him on text during a leave. The employee started his post, "I’ve been at this job for about 7 months now, it’s a very small warehouse/office space, only 3 people including me. Outside of this incident, I have several other problems with the job (hours being cut, pay) but that’s a different story. I was out of work last week due to a family emergency on Wednesday and Thursday and had to leave early on Friday. On Friday I told them I would be back Monday. However, that didn’t go as planned and on Saturday I realized I wouldn’t be back until Monday night."

He added, "I sent an email, and then Monday morning before work I texted my boss just to give an extra heads up since I haven’t gotten an email response, it is our work email so it’s not too uncommon for those to go unread on the weekends. ‘I’m sorry, I am still out of town dealing with my mom, I will be back tonight, and will be in the office tomorrow morning’ I thought that was sufficient enough, so I went back into the hospital and turned my ringer off. This was at 6:00 am." 

After informing his office about his situation and dealing with the medical emergency, when the man headed back home, he found out, "I leave the hospital around 2:00 pm and check my phone. I don’t see any texts from my boss but my wife has sent me several screenshots of them texting her. They blew up her phone at work, asking where I was, am I going to be in tomorrow, what’s going on, I can’t call out 2 hours before work and they’re going to have to have a talk with me." Then his office colleague and boss decided to call their wife. Then the OP decided to have a word with their boss but the boss' response made them turn to Reddit, "I called my boss afterward and he said I needed to be more communicative, which is fine and I understand. But that is something that could’ve been talked about in person. Was it inappropriate for them to text my wife? Or am I overreacting?" He also revealed that his wife is their emergency contact but this was not a case of emergency and they felt that it was inappropriate to text their wife.

People could relate to OP and even rallied for how he reacted. The post has received 7.5K upvotes and Reddit users were also quick to comment on the post. u/Guybeardmane commented, "It's completely inappropriate and they owe your wife and you an apology. Your boss can shove the 'be more communicative' statement right up his a**." u/88808o wrote, "Seriously, they have no right to be doing this. Talk about boundaries being crossed!" u/jacobysmadre shared, "I had a boss call me to do a well check when I was off one day. I texted her because she said that was ok… I literally had to fucking explain myself to a cop at my door for one day."