Overworked employee takes day off to show boss he's irreplaceable

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

Too many companies overwork their employees without fair compensation. One employee had enough after being left to cover for others. The company hired workers who weren't fit for the labor-intensive job and then fired them without replacements. They told him to cover the second shift, but he decided to maliciously comply with the rules in a way that made his point clear. On Reddit, the employee shared how he made his company realize his value.

"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 asked his higher-ups to hire more people, but they told him to do as instructed. The overwork started taking a toll on him, and he ended up causing $5,000 in damages after backing a trailer out without unhooking it first. He was asked to take a drug test, given the previous recruits 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."