Boss Slammed Online for 'Insane' Email After Employees Quit

An email received by an employee has shocked the internet after gaining viral attention online this week.

Posted on Wednesday on Reddit's popular forum r/antiwork, user notsatans shared a screenshot of the email with the caption: "I laughed out loud at this email. Holy s***. Luckily I have 3 jobs and can afford to give my effective immediately notice when I show up tomorrow. Lol."

With more than 35,000 upvotes, the content of the email has caused uproar online, with Reddit users branding it "insane."

The email, which can be read in full here, said: "Hello all, Happy Wednesday. I'm not so happy this morning. Yesterday 3 of you submitted your two weeks notice, all 3 of you claimed it was because of a 'better opportunity not even thinking about the fact that some of your coworkers have lives outside of this job and CHILDREN."

After suggesting that it was doubtful the employees had found better opportunities because "we pay you all fair wages," the employer wrote: "I myself have children and instead of being at their band recital this week I will have to be sitting at work posting job offers on Indeed instead. This is outrageous. You all need to speak amongst yourselves and plan these things out so you don't leave a company high and dry all at once."

"I honestly thought that email message was a script from The Office," said one commenter on Reddit. While another wrote: "Time for everyone else to leave too. Nobody is obligated to work to support your children."

'New Rule'

Later in the email, the employer shared a new rule for employees looking to give notice: "The new rule in our employee handbook will be updated to now requiring 3 months notice since that's how long it took to train you. You will give 3 months' notice, and your 3 months' notice will serve as your consent for your base pay to be lowered by $6/hour. Since you will be leaving your reduction in pay should be no issue. This is how it works from now on. You can thank your insubordinates for this. You can also thank them for the extra 30 hours of overtime per week you will be assigned until I find new hires and they are fully trained."

Multiple resignations should come as little surprise to employers. Since the beginning of 2021, the United States has been in the midst of a movement dubbed The Great Resignation – seeing employees resigning from their jobs en masse. According to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just under 4.3 million people in the U.S. quit their jobs in January 2022 – this comes following a record walkout of over 4.5 million employees in November last year.

In today's candidate-driven market, the recently concluded Willis Towers Watson's 2022 Global Benefits Attitudes Survey asked more than 9,600 employees about their feelings in the workplace. The survey found that 44 percent of employees would label themselves as job seekers, while 33 percent were actively looking for new work at the end of 2022.

Some 56 percent of respondents cited pay as the top reason they would look for a new job, while other important factors included health benefits, job security and flexible working arrangements.

"This reads like a boomer Ambien tweet," said one commenter on the Reddit post. Another person wrote: "The person who sent me that email would straight-up never see me ever again for the rest of their life."

"Cutting employees' pay by $6/hr. is not the incentive to give ample notice this person thinks it is," wrote another Redditor.

In a later comment, the Redditor said: "[The] funny part is, I'm not even one of the 3 employees that he was referring to. Tomorrow I will make 4."

Newsweek has reached out to notsatans for comment.