Leave cancelled at airport, employee still flies to Vietnam: ‘Bhaad me gayi company’
The video shows an employee named Simran saying her leave was cancelled by her boss at the last minute.
A video, purportedly shared by a Gen Z employee, has gone viral on social media and sparked a discussion on toxic workplaces, work-life balance and more. The video shows an employee named Simran saying her leave was cancelled by her boss at the last minute.

Simran said she had informed her manager of her travel plans weeks in advance. Despite this, her manager told her at the last minute that her leave had to be cancelled due to an urgent project requirement.
Simran, who was already at the airport when she received the message, refused to cancel her travel plans. In the now-viral video, she said that she had informed her boss in mid-December that she would be going on a holiday in February. In spite of this, on February 19, as she prepared to board her flight to Vietnam, Simran was told that her leave had been cancelled.
HT.com has not independently verified the authenticity of the video.
Gen Z employee’s viral response
The Gen Z employee called out her manager for his last-minute demands, noting that she would have carried her laptop to Vietnam had she been informed even that morning.
“Main issliye kamaati hun taaki main ghoom sakun… (I earn so I can travel),” she said.
She topped that off by saying that she would not cancel her holiday and check her work laptop only after returning to India. “What is the maximum he can do? Escalate the issue? Let him escalate, I will look for a new job,” she said.
“Main toh aa gayi hun airport pe. Main toh jaa rahi hun. Ab mujhe ghanta farak nahi padta. Jo hoga ab main dekhungi 10 din baad… tab main apna laptop kholungi (I’ve reached the airport and I’m going on my holiday. I don’t care what happens. Now I’ll check my laptop once I’m back after 10 days),” she continued.
“Bhaad mein gaya project, bhaad mein gayi company (To hell with the project, to hell with the company),” said Simran. (Also read: Employee claims company discontinued sick leave, internet says 'red flag'’)
The employee has been going viral for her devil-may-care attitude and for prioritizing work-life balance over corporate demands.
On X, where the video has gone viral, many praised the young employee for not bowing to work pressure.
“Simran is right...you can't ask someone to cancel the leave when she is about to depart for her vacation,” wrote one person. (Also read: Employee opens up about burnout after work hours and pressure to keep going: 'I'm always zoned out')
“If a 'critical task' only appears the moment an employee checks into their flight, it’s not a business emergency, it's a management failure,” another said.
“I hope her Boss doesn't act vindictive after this. In most of the offices management is like that only. With increasingly becoming grim jobs prospects in India employee torture is only going to increase. People have to take calculated risks wrt job responsibilities,” a user said.
(Disclaimer: This report is based on user-generated content from social media. HT.com has not independently verified the claims and does not endorse them.)
ABOUT THE AUTHORSanya JainSanya Jain is an Assistant Editor with Hindustan Times Digital. She has nearly a decade of experience in covering offbeat stories that speak to the everyday experience - from viral videos to human interest copies that spark conversation. Her interests stretch across business, pop culture, social media trends, entertainment and global affairs. Before joining Hindustan Times, Sanya spent two years with Moneycontrol and five years with NDTV. She holds an undergraduate degree in English literature from St Stephen’s College, Delhi, and a master’s in journalism from the Xavier Institute of Communications, Mumbai. Sanya has a sharp eye for spotting emerging trends and looking for newsworthy angles to elevate viral posts into meaningful narratives. She was the first one, for example, to cover Narayana Murthy’s remark on 70-hour work weeks that sparked a national conversation. She is equally at ease writing about business leaders as about the common man, about issues of national importance and memes that amuse social media. Sanya enjoys speaking with content creators, newsmakers and entrepreneurs to transform everyday moments into engaging, slice-of-life stories that resonate with readers. When she is not working, Sanya can be found curled up with a good book. Born and raised in Lucknow, she has spent the last several years in Delhi. She is deeply interested in animal welfare and now spends a lot of her time running after her destructive orange cat.Read More

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