I received a text from my boss half way through my holiday and it totally ruined my time – is this EVER okay?

A boss has been criticised for texting an employee about a non-essential work-related issue while he was on holiday.

Tom immediately felt stressed when he read the message from his boss, explaining that the regional manager was not impressed with the team’s performance.

British career expert Ben Askins received the text messages and read out the conversation in a video.

“Hi Tom, I hope you have a great holiday. I don’t have to respond now but I just wanted to give you an update,” the boss wrote.

“We’ve had a visit from the Area Manager and he’s upset about our numbers. I think we’re going to have some really tough meetings when you get back.”

Tom felt confused and replied, “I just saw this [sic] and it makes me a little worried. Should we call?’

But the boss refused and encouraged him not to think about it.

“Like I said, I don’t want to worry you while you’re on break. There’s nothing you can do about it except wait until you get back. But it’s a real shitshow, he’s in a bad mood and I really don’t know what it’s going to be like when you get back,” the boss replied.

“Again, there’s nothing you and I can do right now, I just wanted to warn you. Relax and enjoy your time off,” the boss continued.

Ben was shocked by the text exchange, calling it “bad boss behavior.”

“The most depressing thing is that he thinks he’s doing the right thing,” Ben said.

“He’s like, ‘Okay, I’m just going to warn you,’ but he’s on vacation! All you did was ruin his vacation.”

However, Ben said that if the situation was an emergency, it might be justified.

‘Seriously, all you’ve done is [made him] “He’s going to be panicking for the rest of the week and then he’s got to deal with this shitshow on top of that,” Ben continued.

“What the hell were you playing there? That’s just not good enough.”

The short film has now been viewed more than 66,000 times and others agreed.

“He really wanted him to worry and he’s a bad boss for that,” one person wrote.

Another agreed, saying, “He just wanted to ruin that guy’s vacation.”

“Start applying for new positions and scheduling interviews now,” wrote a third.

Someone else said: ‘He may have had good intentions, but the timing was terrible.’

“That’s why you ignore it. I used to have a boss who tried to make you worry, but just ignore it. Go apply for another job. It changes my stress level when I ignore things like this,” someone else wrote.