Employee stands up to unkind bosses after being criticized for mourning his baby on company time

It is common for people to experience moments of gains and losses and they have the right to celebrate or mourn them. But one Reddit user, u/TheThinker42, shared a tragic incident that left a scar on his life because his bosses weren't sympathetic to his situation at all. The title of the post read: "Tip – Don’t cry on company time." For some initial context, the man revealed how his wife gave birth to a stillborn baby in September and his work and management team was pretty supportive during that time.

Since the company offered 40 hours of bereavement leave, the man got approval to take an additional 40 hours of leave to mourn, grieve and find some semblance of normal in his life. After a leave of two weeks, the employee returned to the office and everything seemed fine. "On the morning of October 31st, I began my day by reviewing my work email and reading through one titled 'Utilization.' My director explained that my current utilization rate was below my (read: corporate’s) utilization goal," the post read.

He explained that the utilization rate is a ratio of time billed to clients over the total number of hours he could work. "My director asked if I was aware of this deficiency and if I had a plan to meet the utilization goal by the end of the calendar year. In my response, I noted, that before my bereavement leave, I was comfortably above my utilization goal, and I asked if the current utilization rate erroneously included my bereavement. The director’s response blew me away saying that, 'No, the bereavement leave is included intentionally; it negatively impacts utilization because it is treated as if it were vacation time'," the post continued.

"Fast forward to last week, I’m sitting in a team meeting with my manager and director to discuss my performance and corporate goals progress. I dance around my lack of goals progress (expected parental leave and actual bereavement leave ruined any chance of achieving the goals management made me put together back at the start of the year). The conversation came back to the dreaded utilization conversation. I explained I was still under the utilization goal but I had a plan to hit the utilization goal by year-end," the Reddit post further revealed.

He decided to tell the management that the way they were calculating his "utilization goal" was upsetting and it basically communicated that he could "mourn and recover from a traumatic event, but just make sure to make up his time and not cry while the clock is on!" The employee added: "Neither the manager nor the director said anything for half a minute before clumsily shuffling onto the next topic on their checklist. Management may not care, but thanks for reading and listening to my frustrations." People on the platform collectively supported the employee who was wronged by his company and left meaningful comments for him.

u/Aggressive-Name-1783 remarked, "This is one of those rare situations where when you interview for new jobs, you can specifically trash your old employer. 'Why are you looking for a new job?' Well, I was one of the top performers in my position within the company, but after I took some time off to mourn the loss of my dead kid my performance reviews criticized my time off as having negatively impacted my rates. I feel as a top performer for my company, I should be able to take a bit of time off to mourn my dead child without it being held against me. No reasonable manager is going to think that’s crazy."

u/walk_through_this wrote, "I am sorry that this happened to you. This is a garbage policy because it suggests that they want emotionless drones working there instead of actual people. People have lives, they don't simply return to regeneration pods when not at work. Also, It's not like you went out of your way to abuse the policy, you had a massive disaster hit your life."