Every now and again we all experience intense periods at work. One man recently shared on Reddit that his wife has been working 10 to 14 hours a day, and he thinks that's way too much — so he took the extra step of contacting her boss to talk about it.
He writes, "My wife has been putting in 10-14 hour days chained to her computer for the past 2-3 weeks through weekends as well. (EDIT- to clarify the last 2-3 weeks have been 100+ hour weeks, the whole year has been bad with lots of lost weekends and working over vacations). Wasn’t able to take any days off for the holidays either. She’s been screaming obscenities about her job, how she wants to quit, how it’s ridiculous she’s working so hard without any break. There have been multiple tear filled days."
He says it's really been a lot.
"I have been walking on egg shells doing everything I can to help around the house and get her anything she wants," the husband says. "But I am on edge constantly watching for an explosion."
So he decided to call her boss.
"Today (working through the weekend again) she was screaming about other people she worked with screwing her up and I just couldn’t take it anymore. I texted her boss (EDIT – we work at the same company and I’m semi friendly with him already) and said 1) there are limits for human beings, 2) this kind of thing can’t happen again next year. He agreed and said he’d try to help.
"Either way, he did a crap job of keeping me out of his conversation with her about limits today. So she found out I’d messaged him ASAP. (EDIT- yep that’s me complaining about getting caught red handed, IATA)."
"Now she’s telling me it was extremely misogynistic to message her boss to say she can’t handle her job (which I didn’t say) and it’s going to set her career back years. Says she can’t ever trust me anymore to talk about work or how she’s feeling. Generally threw me in the doghouse," the husband explains.
"AITA here? I honestly don’t know. I can’t stand to see her that strung out by work, but did I cross the line too far?"
People can't believe what he did.
The top comment really says it all. That person writes, "I don't know what field your wife works in, but women often have to fight a lot harder for promotions and raises than men do. You get to hear her stress, but I am sure she plays it off as being totally cool and collected to her coworkers. What you did is essentially tell her boss that she cannot handle the work load and it's not your place to do that even a little bit.
"If her anger and stress at home is an issue for you, that is something you both need to communicate about with each other. You should never be messing with her other relationships without her permission, ESPECIALLY NOT HER WORK RELATIONSHIPS. You have shown her that she cannot express her emotions to you and expect them to remain private, so how is she supposed to be vulnerable with you in the future?"
In fact, he might have messed up her whole career.
A second person writes, "Let’s be honest; he might have single-handedly tanked her career at this office. And depending on her industry and how small/specialized it is he may have completely killed her career."
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