Boss Cancels Staff's Health Insurance To Save The Company Money—Then Shows Up In A Lamborghini
And bosses wonder why "nobody wants to work these days."
Kiselev Andrey Valerevich / Shutterstock We appear to be in a golden age of bad bosses, with a new story seemingly every day of yet another boss or CEO calling workers lazy and entitled for wanting basics like fair pay. But one boss on Reddit who canceled his staff's health insurance pretty much takes the cake.
An employee took to the r/antiwork subReddit to express their shock at the move — especially how the boss handled things afterward.
The boss said he canceled his staff's health insurance to avoid shutting the company down.
It definitely seems like things are tough in the business world at the moment. Despite how good the economy supposedly is, layoffs and closures keep happening even as corporate profits rise to record levels.
You'd be forgiven for thinking that, much like the high prices we're forced to continue enduring, it's all an elaborate scam to simply consolidate profits in the hands of business leaders and shareholders by getting rid of employees — because, in many cases, that's exactly what it is.
This Redditor's boss seems to have done some similar math. He recently gave his staff an ultimatum — either get rid of health insurance or shut down entirely.
"My employer recently took away our health insurance due to budget cuts," the Redditor wrote in their post. "He gave us a choice: either we agree to no health insurance, or he shutters the doors permanently, and we would be out of a job."
The boss then showed up to work the next day in a $200,000 Lamborghini SUV.
For obvious reasons, the staff at the company chose the lesser of two evils — go without health insurance rather than go without a job at all. "It was a take it or leave it kind of choice."
Still, it's a terrible option and one likely, at least in part, borne of the inflation issues we've seen in recent years. Health insurance premiums have increased 8.5% from 2023 to 2024, double what they increased in the year prior.
A business owner is obviously going to feel that pinch. But in this case, it turned out that the business owner wasn't so worried about his business, he's just wildly greedy, and incredibly self-centered.
"Monday morning, he pulls up in a black Lamborghini SUV and parks it in his spot," the worker wrote. The latest model of Lamborghini's Urus SUV starts — STARTS — at $245,000. Boy, this boss must have really been struggling, huh?
People were appalled by this Redditor's story — and experts say it is almost certain to blow up in the boss's face.
"Myself and a bunch of others feel like we were just punched in the gut and that he's basically spitting in our face," the worker wrote of their boss's manipulative and unconscionable move. Fellow Redditors were just as disgusted.
"That is one surefire way to make people do the absolute bare minimum," one Redditor wrote. But many others said not to bother doing the minimum — and to quit instead.
"If your company is bleeding money to the point where y'all are losing healthcare, and your employer is buying new, very expensive cars, your company … will continue to bleed money until it's completely under," one user commented. "I would start looking at fleeing that sinking ship before it's too late, IMHO."
And of course, experts basically say the same thing. Drama like this is debilitating to employee morale, which undercuts productivity and eventually leads to turnover.
Even when leadership isn't brazenly playing in employees' faces the way this guy is, experts also say that draconian moves like canceling insurance or large rounds of layoffs make employees so anxious and suspicious that they tend to jump ship as a precaution.
Turnover is wildly expensive — on average, the total process of recruiting, interviewing, onboarding, and training an employee costs a company 50-60% of the position's salary — and sometimes far more.
So enjoy that Lamborghini, sir, wherever you are, because it might not be too long till you're shutting your company down after all. And to think all this could have been avoided with just a tiny drop of basic human decency and empathy. You hate to see it.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.