Small Business Owner Asks Employee To Either Choose Demotion Or Termination, Gets Called All Sort Of “ists” 2026

Responsibilities should be honored especially when your boss trusts you with them.

If you think about it, if you organize yourself a bit, and make a couple of compromises on leisure, you can honor any responsibility. Especially when you have taken that responsibility up with pride and have been promoted to a higher position in order to receive the tasks.

In today’s story, one manager who had recently been promoted to the post of a manager one day got tasked to open the vape store she works at. Reddit user u/Absolut_Failure, who is also the owner of this vape store, shared that very day they started receiving lots of notifications from customers who had come to the store to shop saying that the store is still locked. This was 3 hours after the time store was supposed to be opened. The owner quickly contacted the manager who was supposed to open the store to know what had happened and she said she had devoted the day to her self-care in order to cater to her mental health, and that’s why she couldn’t make it.

The owner then proceeded to give her two options; either go back to her old position or leave the organization.

What happened in between is for you guys to read and discover. Scroll down below to enjoy!

1. OP tasked Peggy the manager to open the vape store but she couldn’t handle the responsibility, and didn’t show up that day.

Via u/Absolut_Failure

2. Turns out, she wasn’t mentally well and couldn’t take on the responsibility. The boss then proceeded to give her two very simple options.

Via u/Absolut_Failure

3. The owner said she could’ve at least called him pre-hand but she didn’t and without good communication, no business ever succeed. So he had to teach her a lesson.

Via u/Absolut_Failure

I think OP is NTA. As a business owner, when you wake up to 20-30 messages from your customers telling you to open their shop, you would go crazy. And of course, he bestowed a responsibility upon Peggy. She did not refuse to open the store before so that meant she was going to do it. And she just randomly decided to not show up. That’s not how businesses are run and irresponsible people needed to be taught a lesson in order for such events to not happen again.

Here are some of the comments on the story:

4. So that’s what the spoon reference meant. If she didn’t have enough spoons, why did she agree to take on the responsibility in the first place?

Via u/Absolut_Failure

5. I don’t think the boss would’ve said anything to her had she reported beforehand that she won’t be coming in the next day.

Via u/Absolut_Failure

6. She really is incompetent as a manager.

Via u/Absolut_Failure

7. This was the first time she didn’t show up without any notice

Via u/Absolut_Failure

8. OP really is trying his best to be called the AH but he dealt with the situation very well.

Via u/Absolut_Failure

I really hope you guys enjoyed this one. Don’t forget to share your thoughts in the comments section down below.

Stay tuned for more!

Via Neekeii9

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