A young employee’s candid post about work-life boundaries is striking a chord across social media, explaining growing frustrations with toxic after-hours expectations in corporate culture. In the now-viral message, the employee vents about being guilt-tripped by their manager for joining a bowling league and not answering work calls outside office hours. “Can’t even go bowling because my manager thinks he owns my evenings,” the post begins, capturing the crux of a wider conversation on burnout and unrealistic workplace demands.
Despite not being on-call or compensated for overtime, the employee says they are “expected to help” merely because they are the youngest on the team. The manager allegedly hinted that the employee should limit their bowling to weekends if they “care about performance and career growth.”
The employee pushed back in the post: “I am not going to glue myself on Slack 24/7 for a single-digit raise.” The post concludes with a larger question: “Why is it never enough no matter how much we give? Do I really have to give up my hobbies just to keep my job here?”
‘It’s the same everywhere right now’
The internet quickly reacted to the post. A user said, “It’s the same everywhere right now. Bad job market = brings out the worst in managers.” Another added, “At this stage in your career you should always be learning. Having said that you should set expectations on your availability. Nothing wrong with those conversations. It is actually a good thing that your manager is turning to you to solve problems. Make your manager successful and get what you want out of it. Looks like your manager sees potential in you.” “Welcome to the grown up life. They want your soul, not just your time,” noted another netizen.
“Similar here dude. I got into cycling and was chilling out on weekends and the manager suddenly asked me to join the meet out of nowhere. I joined through the phone, which he got offended I didn’t turn on video (I was literally riding alongside cars, but answered everything verbally). They later hawked at me for not turning on video, so I told him I was biking. He then starts rambling about how he thinks cyclists break laws and are either homeless or lazy spoiled bums, and how he is just an inch away from running them off of the road. Then he threatened me to never be seen with my bike or I will be written off as slacking,” added a user. “Feel free to ignore his messages, people like this will fire you later on anyway even if you wasted all your personal life slaving for them, you’ll feel a lot better knowing you didn’t let this dick push you around,” stated a netizen.