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Antiwork

What did your boss say to finally make you mentally check out?

My manager is one of those older guys that laments not being in the trenches with the grunts anymore and has to leave promptly at 5:00 PM every day to spend time with his kids or he will get nagged. About a year or so ago the team I was working with got quarantined and the only people left standing out of about thirty people were myself (I was out the week prior recovering from a minor surgery) and my boss (who sits in a private office). We had a huge deadline scheduled for the end of the week with higher ups from corporate stopping by for a demonstration. I am sweating bullets when I show up Monday and realize the situation. My boss is of course, nowhere to be found. Around 4:50 PM he shows up in the work area and ask me with a big smile on his…


My manager is one of those older guys that laments not being in the trenches with the grunts anymore and has to leave promptly at 5:00 PM every day to spend time with his kids or he will get nagged.

About a year or so ago the team I was working with got quarantined and the only people left standing out of about thirty people were myself (I was out the week prior recovering from a minor surgery) and my boss (who sits in a private office). We had a huge deadline scheduled for the end of the week with higher ups from corporate stopping by for a demonstration.

I am sweating bullets when I show up Monday and realize the situation. My boss is of course, nowhere to be found. Around 4:50 PM he shows up in the work area and ask me with a big smile on his face “Ready for your one man show?“. I tell him that I have been trying to get ahold of him all day and that he is going to have to push back the demo until the team is ready or he and I are in for a hellish week of all nighters to make it work.

He just laughs and says “Well, you are going to have much more fun working here all night than I will driving my kids to practice” with that used-car-salesman grin.

I am 100% sure that is when I mentally checked out. I got things into some kind of shape before the big meeting, but I started leaving every day promptly at 5:15 that Monday and haven't stayed an extra minute over since.

What was yours?

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