Single mom has an apt response to toxic boss forcing her to prioritize work over her sick child

Not every company has an empathetic boss and a single mother unfortunately fell victim to one such boss' heartless behavior. TikTok user Chris Donnelly (@donnellycss) made a video and shared a baffling story through a series of text messages exchanged between an employee and her boss. The female employee who also happens to be a single mother, informed her boss that she would be unable to make it to work to tend to her sick child. But the boss chastised her for prioritizing her kid over work obligations.

“Very sorry for the short notice, but my son is ill and cannot go to school,” the employee wrote in her text message and also promised to call in for the 3 p.m. meeting that was already scheduled. But her boss wasn't pleased with that at all. “For heaven's sake, today of all days,” the boss responded, “This meeting is so important to the firm. My kids are ill all the time, it’s fine!” The meeting was important because the company was closing in on a deal with one of their clients, so they needed to put their "best foot forward."

“I know how important it is. I manage the account and I have been the one to pull it back from the brink of them leaving to a point where they are ready to spend more with us,” the woman wrote, “They are dialing in anyway, so I honestly do not see the problem.” The boss still wanted the woman to leave her son at home and show up at the office despite it being an hour-long commute. “I don’t want to get into the whole who has life worse competition,” the boss replied when the woman asked what she was supposed to do with her sick son, “The firm needs you to do this work.”

“I’ll be very honest with you now. I think you are being deeply inappropriate right now. I will take this up with you and HR afterward,” she wrote back after losing her patience, “You have accused me of exaggerating how sick my child is, tried to force me to work with a sick kid, told me to leave my kid for hours while sick, compared your life to mine even though I’m a single mother and told me the work is easy even though I did it all.”

"I know she’d never want me to come in with a sick kid,” she continued, making it clear that she knew the client better than the boss did. She informed her rude boss that after the meeting she would ask to get shifted to another team and would report her boss to HR as well. “Don’t be ridiculous. I just want us to do a good job so it reflects well on you,” the boss responded, “Nothing I have said here is bad and HR won’t even care that I try and get my team to work hard. HR knows people take far too much sick time off and therefore won’t care that I tried to manage the situation.”

“I want to be clear. This has nothing to do with a male-female relationship,” the woman wrote to HR later on with all the necessary proof and documents against her heartless boss, “I just simply think he is harsh, demeaning, micromanaging, aggressive and manipulative.” The single mother and frustrated employee concluded by writing how her boss was an awful manager who outsourced work to staff members and provided them with little to no support along with useless feedback.

The TikTok users who came across this video sided with the employee and left several comments on the post. @stairforce wrote: "The way the lady handled that was frankly very impressive. If HR there is sensible, they will move heaven and earth to retain her." @lipsyncmama shared: "I had to cancel my shift once because my child threw up in school, so I had to collect her. The boss said it was fine. When I went back to work, my boss gave me a disciplinary and said when I signed my contract, I was also agreeing that I had childcare and wouldn’t take any time off regarding my children. She would pretend to be nice and friendly, but everybody knew she was an absolute tyrant! I left about a month after."