People should spend time with family and shouldn’t be manipulated by managers to feel bad about it
Spending time with family, particularly close family like siblings and parents, can be psychologically very important. Yes, this seems like common sense, but it never hurts to back up these ideas with data. A study across four countriesthat individuals who participated in more family activities tended to have fewer psychological complaints and had, overall, higher life satisfaction. Not everyone’s situation is the same, as some families are best avoided if possible.
From her story, it seems like this person is absolutely in the right. But often workplaces and managers in particular will try to manipulate their employees to the degree that they feel bad for doing such natural things as taking time off. It’s a pretty established concept that job satisfaction will performance. If a job limits the work-life balance too much, the employee ultimately feels bad, restricted, and trapped, leading to deteriorating work performance. Since a manager exists to keep performance in check, this is directly counterproductive to their job.Despite this common sense concept, many managers are downright toxic. This might not be immediately visible to an employee.
In the long run, repeated use of these techniques will end with the employee hating their toxic work environment and looking for a way out. As we see in this story, sometimes there is just one incident too many that pushes the employee to resign. Often, smaller organizations are moreto this sort of manipulation. You might work closely with your boss more often, allowing them to convince you that you are perhaps friends.