Boss knew her dad died 1.5 weeks ago — still DM'd asking her to 'adjust the funeral date' around the team schedule

The death of a loved one is a painful experience, and it takes time to process this kind of grief and mourn the loss. That’s why corporations provide bereavement leave to give employees an adequate window of time to grieve without added pressure. However, when one employee asked for bereavement leave for their father's funeral, their manager crossed a line and asked them to "adjust" the timeline to suit the company’s schedule. On May 8, 2026, the employee (u/Replaceableuser) shared the incident on Reddit, where it has gained 13,000 upvotes so far.

A tone-deaf request

The employee's boss was aware that their father had passed away about 1.5 weeks earlier. They had applied for 2 days of bereavement leave around that time and had later quoted the exact dates verbally in a recent team meeting. This time, they applied for a 2-week leave, partly for the funeral and partly for miscellaneous tasks such as court proceedings, sorting out finances, and cleaning out the house. 

Coincidentally, two other employees applied for leave around the same time. After the team meeting, their boss sent them a message saying their role directly impacts the "revenue process" at year-end, and so they must limit the duration of this 2-week leave to just one week, wrapping it up by July 1st. “Please can you consider limiting your time off during the window of the last week of June through the first week of July, to only a week, and possibly take the second week off later,” read the boss’s message. 

Bringing up the past

She told the employee that when they were on leave the previous year, around the same time, “it was an undue stress on the team.” This time, especially, they are already down on one key resource with another employee going on leave. The employee was left confused because when they applied for leave last year, it “was not a problem at all” when they checked with the team later. Wrangling with this “mildly infuriating” instance, the employee reached out to Reddit for suggestions. 

Support helps employees function

This may seem like an isolated case, but it happens with many employees in America. A research report by TalentLMS and Culture Amp indicated that 42% of employees surveyed report that managers are frequently inconsiderate and disrespectful of their needs, which negatively affects their mental health. In this case, the employee is being forced to speed up their mourning, which is practically impossible.

Research by Empathy's 2026 Workplace Benefits Report, cited by Fortune, found that while 95% of employees value bereavement benefits, 40% of employees did not receive any bereavement benefits. Scenarios like these leave the employees in disenfranchised grief, where they are compelled to return to work before they are ready, per the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.

Readers were divided

Reddit readers called out this behavior “extremely unprofessional.” Some suggested that the employee contact the HR department of their organization. In a comment on the thread, they replied by saying they already did, but it’s their boss who is “problematic: aggressive, passive-aggressive, gossipy, retaliatory.” u/strangerthingssteve sarcastically suggested what the employee could have said, "'This is extremely unprofessional. I will be there for my father's funeral. I will not move the date. I'm shocked you would ask such a request.'" 

On the flip side, some people defended the boss. u/Lookenpeeper, for instance, said, “In no way does your boss suggest moving the funeral? They're asking you to consider only taking one week off for the funeral, instead of two.”

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