An employee whose strict manager reprimanded him for keeping his camera off during a virtual meeting is receiving praise for the way he dealt with him. In a Reddit post, the employee shared an incident from 2021 when his manager, Mark, asked him to turn on the camera, unaware he was undergoing treatment in the hospital.
Describing his manager “as stricter to the rules,” he said Mr Mark didn’t allow chitchat in the team and wasn’t aware of his chronic illness. He decided to keep his camera off during the meeting to avoid discomfort and thinking it wouldn’t be a problem. He was immediately called out by the manager to switch on his camera.
He wrote, “I get onto the call and Mark immediately comments that he can’t see my face. I tell him that I’ve not got my camera on today and don’t elaborate, figuring that it’s a 15-minute call and I could just as easily be driving or something.”
Mr Mark then asked him to stay back on call after the meeting was over and scolded him for not complying with the rules. He said, “Mark chews me out for not turning on my camera, saying that it’s a rule that we all need to show our faces.”
The employee then turned on the camera, revealing a hospital setting, leaving the manager speechless. “I turn on my camera and watch his face go from red to white as he sees me in what is very clearly a hospital room,” he wrote.
The employee chose to keep their health confidential and just said that he was uneasy showing up on camera while receiving treatment.
Continuing further, he wrote, “His sweaty little face still brings me joy. It was a really nice moment to bask in, and I think about it pretty often when I get managers who like rules just a little too much.”
Turn my camera on? Fine…
byu/scissorfella inMaliciousCompliance
Social media users appreciated the way he responded.
One user wrote, “The only way that could’ve been better is if you turned it on in the meeting and caused him to get sweaty face in front of everybody on the call.”
Another commented, “Any manager who always thinks that everyone on their team is trying to get one over on them needs re-training. These aren’t children and you’re not Daddy. Trust the people you work with.”
A third user wrote, “Attending work meetings from a hospital bed. American work culture is really something.”
Over the last few years, the employee-employer relationship across industries has undergone transformation, with work-life balance and mental health becoming an important part of the discussion. There’s been a massive pushback to toxic practices in workplaces, with employees making their bosses aware of the discomfort their behaviour caused.
