"You Can't Just Stay An Extra 10 Minutes?": Employee Refuses To Stay Longer To Wait For Late Coworker, Drama Ensues

Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is easier said than done. Especially when people at the company expect you to put your job first. That is why it’s important to stand your ground when you feel that’s the right thing to do.

LA-based TikToker Gabi (@bishitme_) recently opened up about the time they had to draw the line at work. They were asked to stay after their shift at a retail food establishment to cover for their co-worker who was running late. They refused to do so and the story blew up on the internet, attracting over 400k views.

"Oh, I'm irked. I'm so irritated, I left work shaking today. So I am a store lead at a retail food establishment here in LA. I am also 29. So I have been in this game for a little bit. I say that because I am going to work the hours that I'm scheduled and nothing more, unless a previous agreement has been made. I'm here to get a paycheck. I'm here to clock in and clock out. I'm not here to go above and beyond. I'm sorry. So my coworker was supposed to be coming in at 1:45pm. I'm off at 2pm. And we have a little bit of overlap just in case anything happens. And good thing we had the overlap because obviously, something happened. This coworker was late. I had a different coworker late the other day, I was supposed to be gone at 1:45, and she didn't show up until 2pm. So we're clearly having some issues here with people getting here on time."

"So my coworker isn't answering her phone. Her texts are going green (we have iPhones). Her phone is going straight to voicemail.
I text my manager saying "hey", you know, "coworker isn't here yet. I have to leave at 2. I can't stay to close. Sorry."
Finally, coworker gets ahold of me. It's 2:00. I'm already like finished, I closed up the drawer. I locked the door."

"Coworker says "I'm on my way." Awesome. She lets me know. "Sorry. You have to stay though, until I get there." And I was like, "what?" And then my manager calls me. My manager then says, "Yeah, you just have to stay until she gets here" and I'm like, "I got an appointment." Then she starts getting upset with me saying, "Oh, well, you can't just stay an extra 10 minutes?" I inform her that it's going to be an extra 20 minutes. And that's not the issue. My schedule says I'm going at 2:00, I should be done at 2:00."

"I'm not gonna stay an extra 20 minutes. You have no idea how far I live. You have no idea where this appointment is, what this appointment is. Then she pulls this: "Okay, well, I'll tell the operations manager and we'll have to have a conversation about this later." I said "oh, we're gonna talk about this later?" And she says "Oh, yeah, we are." I said I am 29 years old. I do not have time for this. She's also doing some other shady [stuff] that I don't even have time to tell you about. But I don't like it. It makes me want to quit. Please tell me that I am not in the wrong, because I think that is absolutely ridiculous. I had to be somewhere and you're gonna ask me to stay an extra 20 minutes? She's supposed to be here at 1:45. Like, I'm already doing more than what I need to do. Miss me with that."

Gabi stood their ground when it came to the scheduled time at work. And for a reason—it shouldn’t deprive people of personal affairs planned for after hours. The manager didn’t seem to care too much about such plans, though. Situations like that can affect workers’ perception of the company’s concern for their well-being. Gallup’s research shows that, in recent years, the data hasn’t been in favor of employers—the number of people that feel cared for dropped from 49% to 24% in just a couple of years.

The managers might not take into consideration the lives their employees lead outside of work. Especially since we spend an astonishing amount of our time there—an average person devotes over 13 years of their lives to their job. In addition to that, they allocate an entire year for unpaid overtime, which is all the more reason to stop yourself from doing that too often.

Statistics show that more than 70% of full-time employees work extra at least once a week. 48% admit to doing so even more often. That might be more than enough to throw them off of their schedules or disturb their personal lives.

According to Zippia, more than half of working people are somehow able to maintain a healthy balance after all. However, the numbers don’t show a positive trend—surveys reveal that the percentage dropped from 65% in 2020 to 60% back in 2021. There are many reasons for that, and people at the managerial level are not excluded. They seem to account for over 13% of significant obstacles standing in the way of creating a proper work-life equilibrium.

Some happy folk might use the words of Confucius, saying, ‘Choose a job you love and you'll never have to work a day in your life’. They are likely part of the 60% of workers in the US that are actually content with their jobs. And they might be right—when you love what you do, a couple of additional hours don’t feel like such a heavy burden. (In one of their TikTok videos, Gabi admitted they’d be happy to work overtime as well if it was serving or bartending, which they love to do.) But even then, it’s important to try and separate the two matters for the sake of your own well-being.

Working yourself to the bone can cause a vast array of health problems, ranging from heart disease to having trouble sleeping, and more. It can also lead to burnout—another major headache that is often job-related. According to a 2021 survey, 51% of respondents admitted to feeling burnout at work, and as much as 70% said it got worse over the recent covid years.

As if the stress of the job itself isn’t enough, some co-workers tend to fan the flames. When it’s an office job, having to cover for someone puts a significant amount of pressure on others, as over 50% of respondents in this study affirm. But a problematic colleague is not a rare species in other types of jobs as well—a multi-industry survey revealed that over 80% of people have a colleague who annoys them.

The irritation might be related to co-workers not arriving on time, which was the initial cause of problems in Gabi’s story as well. As a matter of fact, as much as 46% of people say they feel animosity towards that fellow teammate who is often late. If you have one as well, find solace in the fact that you’re not alone—you suffer together with colleagues of 6% of hourly workers who tend to start behind schedule.

That is how situations like the one described in the viral TikTok video arise. Of course, emergencies happen to the best of us. In such cases it’s important to let the responsible people know. But whether they do or don’t, finding someone to cover for them is usually the manager’s responsibility. That’s also what numerous people emphasized after watching Gabi’s video.

You can read their comments below; and if you found the story interesting, you might also like this one about a boss saying it’s “unethical” to make plans after work or about a superior who wouldn’t allow employees to work from home under any circumstances.