Overworked employee knows he’s irreplaceable, so he takes a day off to make the boss realize it the hard way

Editor's Note: This article was originally published on January 13, 2022. It has since been updated.

Far too many companies are running their employees into the ground and getting away with it. Not to mention, their pay doesn't increase even as the workload increases and they're left to put out fires all over the place for a pittance. One employee had enough at his work after he was left covering for other employees. After hiring substance-abusing poor physical fitness for a labor-intensive job, the company fired them and simply refused to replace them. The company told the employee to cover for the second shift as well, but he wasn't having it. He maliciously complied with the rules, leaving the company in no man's land. On Reddit, the employee explained how he made his company pay for it.

"Company thought of having only one person per shift trained to properly do a labor-intensive job in a closed, humid building pumping 190° water through liquid truck trailers," he wrote. After firing two substance-abusing workers, he was left to work for both the first and second shifts. "One of the companies we delivered to tripled their order and the job worked me to the absolute bone with 90-110 hour weeks during hot summer months," he wrote. Originally, he was told his shift would be 7 AM to 3 PM, but now, he was told to work both shifts as he was the only person who knew the job. "At first, it wasn't too bad, I could get 4 trailers done in an hour, so 32 in an 8-hour shift if I'm busting a$$," he wrote. But soon, the number of trailers tripled.

He repeatedly told his higher-ups to hire other people, but they notified him to do as told. Being worked into the ground started eating into him and he ended up causing $5,000 in damages after he backed a trailer out without unhooking it first. He was asked to take a drug test, especially considering the two previous recruits who had tested positive for substance abuse. "On the drive there, my manager asked me if I was going to fail. I said it depends on what they test for. He said they test for everything. I asked if that included caffeine and exhaustion. He just kinda blankly looked at me, then turned back to the road," he recalled, making it clear the workload was getting to him. He passed the drug test.

"Monday, I come in, almost falling asleep on the drive. I pulled my manager aside, the plant manager aside and the owner's son aside... They all said, just gotta do 'do the job I was hired to do, do what I'm told,'" he recalled. "So Tuesday, that's what I did. When I was hired I was told my schedule was 7 AM to 3 PM, so I clocked out at 3 PM. I shut my phone off and took my girlfriend to the fair," he wrote.

His bosses were left scrambling, unable to reach his phone. "The next morning, the owner's son proceeded to chew me out for a solid 45 minutes. I just sat there and let him rant. Turns out, once I left, my supervisor and plant manager had to do my job. They managed to do 4 trailers from 5 PM when they realized I left, until midnight... This is the same amount I could do in 1 hour," he wrote.

"So once his rant was over, I said, 'well, clearly you're not going to fire me.' He was taken aback. I continued, 'you have no one who can do my job, you didn't take me seriously when I said I couldn't do it alone anymore and so I decided I'd show you how important I was. I've got a kid and a life outside this job. The pay is great, but I'm not going to kill myself to get it and put in 90-110 hour weeks in the dead of summer,'" he recalled before stating his demands to continue in the job. "Here's what's going to happen, you're going to give me a raise and 3 weeks paid vacation and you're going to let me pick the guy who takes 2nd shift. He looked at me like I just robbed him, but then, after a solid 5 silent minutes, he agreed," he recalled. He concluded, "Companies suck your soul out via blood sweat and tears if you let them, so don't."