Man Wants His Girlfriend To Leave Job She's Still Working Out Of Guilt After Boss Ignored Her 2-Week Notice
Work to live or live to work?
Ron Lach / Pexels A man posted to Reddit because he was concerned about his girlfriend’s mental health in relation to her job.
He wrote into the subreddit r/antiwork, describing his girlfriend’s struggle to leave her toxic work environment.
He is concerned that his girlfriend is still working a job she quit because her boss ignored her two-week notice.
His girlfriend works at a fast food restaurant that’s “painfully understaffed,” because her boss, who he called M, “decided it was a good idea to fire a bunch of employees for ‘having [a] bad work ethic’ before hiring any new ones.”
While her boss claimed she would fix the situation, months have passed, and she has yet to actually do so. According to the man’s account, “some employees are working over 60 hours a week.”
He explained that his girlfriend had previously been working reasonable hours; now, she’s “overworked to the point that it affects her mental health.” He described his girlfriend as “a morning person but working [from] 4pm-2am, usually with one day off a week.”
The man was extremely concerned about the toll that overworking had on his girlfriend’s mental health and encouraged her to quit.
“It's so bad that I've texted her during shifts to talk her out of hurting herself more than once,” he said. “She's depressed, tired every single day from overwork, and often gets called in on her days off.”
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He said that his girlfriend is “a very kind and empathetic person, sometimes to her own detriment. She can't say no. She has a guilt problem. She has episodes when people are mad at her, and it's very difficult for her to put herself before anyone. Naturally, I feel like her coworkers use this to their advantage.”
His girlfriend put in her two-week notice, lining up an interview for another job once those two weeks are over — but her boss ignored it.
He explained that the boss “paid it no mind,” and scheduled her to work past her designated stop date. The man said that his girlfriend is “grappling with guilt because the restaurant will still be understaffed and she feels that she will be screwing people over.”
“She says she feels bad because it could be worse and M has been nice and patient with her,” he said. “I've told her she doesn't need to return after the next week is up, but I fear that she will get called in anyways and give in because that's the way she is.”
He ended by explaining he asked his girlfriend for her consent to post about her predicament and asked for “words of advice [or] encouragement that will let her know she can do this and that she’s making the right choice.”
After his post received a number of harmful comments, his girlfriend gave her own explanation, stating that she made the decision to not go back to work past her two-week notice and her boyfriend’s post was “more about feeling more confident in [her] decision.”
She felt unsure about leaving her job because “a number of coworkers, some of whom I consider friends, have tried discouraging me from quitting, which made me doubt my decision.” She said, “ I've been at this job for a long time and have grown close to the people I've worked with… including M, so this hasn't been an ‘easy out’ situation.”
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She illustrated her plan to attend therapy, as she’s struggled with “anxiety, people-pleasing, and self-worth” since childhood. “I'm hoping to be able to discuss and improve them with the help of a professional,” she said.
The comments on her post were completely supportive of her quitting.
One person argued that for M to keep the restaurant understaffed while ignoring her two-week notice was “a deliberate, manipulative act.” According to their point of view, “M has already ignored the need to hire more staff because exploiting the few remaining ones is working well for M.”
Someone else made the entirely valid point that “a resignation isn't a discussion or something the boss can agree or disagree with. A resignation is an employee informing the boss when they will be leaving… Regardless of what your boss thinks of it or how they handle it.”
Another person attempted to assuage the girlfriend’s feelings of guilt, telling her “If your workplace is short staffed, it is not you screwing over your coworkers by leaving. Your boss is the one screwing people over.”
“Jobs come and go,” they wisely stated. “Your mental health is more important than producing profit for some a–hole who can’t respect you enough to acknowledge your resignation.”
Leaving a job is a difficult decision, even when the job has proven toxic to one's mental health.
It's an entirely common experience to feel guilty for quitting; as the BBC noted in a 2021 article on the stigma of quitting work, there are often "negative connotations, both from the people around us and from ourselves, even if we have good cause" for leaving a job.
Prioritizing the ways we take care of ourselves holds value in itself. Often, moving on means letting something go, especially when it no longer serves us.
Alexandra Blogier is a writer on YourTango's news and entertainment team. She covers relationship issues, pop culture analysis and all things to do with the entertainment industry.