A single mother from East Texas was left shocked after receiving a message from her boss late on Saturday night. She claimed that in a “drunk” text, she was notified that she was fired from her job.
Real estate agent Kristin McCarley shared a video on TikTok claiming that she received the “drunk” message from her boss at 10:36 pm. It read, “Do not come in Monday.” The message continued, “I’ve mage (sic) changes to the office.” He eventually informed her, “I have to let you go.”
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However, that’s not all. McCarley said that after receiving the first text, she received another bizarre message from her boss at 1:07 am. The East Texan said that this time, the boss simply shared a screenshot of a picture from her social media account. It showed McCarley and a friend of hers smiling.
How did social media react?
The video prompted a series of responses from people, with many asking McCarley to escalate the issue to the company’s HR department. A few also suggested suing.
{{/usCountry}}The video prompted a series of responses from people, with many asking McCarley to escalate the issue to the company’s HR department. A few also suggested suing.
{{/usCountry}}An individual wrote, “What???? OMG! Getting fired over a drunk text. This can’t be legal.” Another added, “You about to get a Christmas blessing in the form of a lawsuit.”
A third expressed, “I thought he was giving you a day off.” A fourth commented, “That’s so insanely unprofessional.”
Expert weighs in:
Workplace expert Roxanne Calder weighed in on the matter in a conversation with news.com.au. She shared that firing someone over a text message is “impersonal” and also indicates a cultural shift.
“Technology I think has become a bit of a shield – I don’t think people are intending to be unprofessional or cruel. We’re seeing what psychologists call avoidant communication, where the fear of confrontation overrides our professional responsibility and duty,” she told the outlet.
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Calder explained that this shift or the distance has been normalised since the pandemic. “Managers are probably treating a termination in the way they treat any other task, you send a message and that’s ticked (off), done, when in actual fact that’s a human we’re dealing with and it’s their livelihood, not to mention all the other emotional and psychological factors that come into play when people lose their job.”