AITA for telling an employee she can choose between demotion or termination?

A small business owner faced a tough decision after a newly promoted manager failed to open the store and didn’t communicate due to taking a “mental health day.” The employee later accused the owner of discrimination after being offered a choice between demotion or termination for the no-call/no-show incident.

To explore the nuances of workplace accountability and mental health considerations, read the full story below…

‘ AITA for telling an employee she can choose between demotion or termination?’

I own a vape shop. We’re a small business, only 12 employees. One of my employees, Peggy, was supposed to open yesterday. Peggy has recently been promoted to Manager, after 2 solid years of good work as a cashier. I really thought she could handle the responsibility.

So, I wake up, 3 hours after the place should be open, and I have 22 notifications on the store Facebook page. Customers have been trying to come shop, but the store is closed. Employees are showing up to work, but they’re locked out. I call Peggy, and get no response. I text her, same thing. So I go in and open the store.

An hour before her shift was supposed to be **over**, she calls me back. I ask her if she’s ok, and she says she needed to “take a mental health day and do some self-care”. I’m still pretty pissed at this point, but I’m trying to be understanding, as I know how important mental health can be.

So I ask her why she didn’t call me as soon as she knew she needed the day off. Her response: “I didn’t have enough spoons in my drawer for that.”. Frankly, IDK what that means. But it seems to me like she’s saying she cannot be trusted to handle the responsibility of opening the store in the AM. So I told her that she had two choices:

1) Go back to her old position, with her old pay.. 2) I fire her completely. She’s calling me all sorts of “-ist” now, and says I’m discriminating against her due to her poor mental health and her gender. None of this would have been a problem if she simply took 2 minutes to call out. I would have got up and opened the store on time.

But this no-call/no-show s**t is not the way to run a successful business. I think I might be the AH here, because I **am** taking away her promotion over something she really had no control over. But at the same time, she really could have called me. So, reddit, I leave it to you: Am I the a**hole?

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

iolaus79 −  NTA You aren’t taking it away because of her gender or poor mental health You are reacting to her not following the sickness policy of contacting you before her shift. TBH not showing up or contacting anyone I wouldn’t have been giving her the choice (however check that legally you are ok with that)

Salt-Superior −  The “spoons” thing is referring to Spoon Theory. A psychological theory regarding the amount of energy it takes someone to perform a task. In this example, a “normal” person might need 1 spoon yo call out, but someone with mental/chronic illness might need 4.

Essentially a way of explaining that it can be harder to do things when you have mental illnesses, in a quantifiable way. That being said, as a neurodivergent person, it is complete and utter b**lshit that she didn’t make herself call you. It isn’t just her shirking a responsibility.

It is her making a decision that effects your livelihood and the livelihood of 12 other people. Not to mention the way she effected the customers, cause how many more tried to come to the store and didn’t say anything on the FB?

If she didn’t have enough spoons to work, fine. But if she can’t be trusted to uphold her managerial duties, mental health or otherwise, she doesn’t deserve that responsibility. She doesn’t deserve the raise and title that go with it. NTA

EDIT: there have been a lot of comments saying the the Spoon Theory was actually initially in reference to chronic illness. I’ve only ever seen it in reference to neurodivergence, so I apologize for being incorrect there.

Mulberry-Longjumping −  NTA. I’m a manager as well and fully believe in the importance of mental health days and taking care of your mental wellbeing as much as your physical wellbeing. However, an employee just going AWOL like that is not ok. If they didn’t have the spoons to call, they should have gotten a trusted friend or family member to call instead.

Or texted and thrown their phone across the room. I would happily make a last minute callout work. Damaging the business by no-showing is not ok but I’d have a serious talk with her about responsibilities and be frank about your expectations.

It’s the same as someone calling out half an hour before opening because they’ve gotten sudden onset diarrhoea. Just call or text or tell someone you can’t make it. Basically, don’t demote or fire her but put her on a type of probation and make it explicitly clear that you value her wellbeing but she can’t no show.

oopsthoughtoutloud −  NTA. you don’t have enough spoons in your drawer to deal with incompetent managers.

TWAndrewz −  Has she no-showed as a cashier before? Was this totally new behavior for her?

JadedSlayer −  I think I might be the AH here, because I am taking away her promotion over something she really had no control over. Actually taking a mental health day was not the problem, the problem is she preformed a NO CALL NO SHOW.

What has made her NO CALL NO SHOW more egregious is that she was the opening manager. When you are the person responsible for opening a place of business, you are even more of an A H for not calling in.. NTA

bobert13581 −  Major red flag when she throws the -ists, discrimination and gender cards. Toxic people like that are better not in the workplace, let alone management. NTA

OkTomorrow9194 −  Personally, I would not have given her the option of her old job back. I would have politely fired her over the telephone and been done with her.

Inevitable-Mastodon1 −  NTA She had absolute control over calling in to tell you she couldn’t do her work. Not only is that expected, it’s simply polite. You would not be able to run a business if your employees randomly don’t turn up without notice. She is absolutely taking you for a ride here.

Seliphra −  NTA She absolutely could have called you, takes like two minutes, and saying she can either return to her old position or be fired is a totally fair thing. Needing a mental health day is all well and good, but this was just irrisponsible as she didn’t even get back to you until after her shift was over.

An explanation of ‘spoons’ though: It’s a disability and mental health thing that the community uses to explain energy and how much energy a given task might take or give us. For example if we wake up we might have ‘ten spoons’. Eating something gives us two spoons,

taking a shower costs one spoon, cooking a full meal takes 3 spoons, getting dressed takes one spoon, so on and so forth. Different days start with different numbers of ‘spoons’ in your proverbial drawer, and different tasks can have different ‘spoon’ costs depending on numerous factors.

Still not an excuse when calling or texting you would have taken almost no effort, and is important enough that she should have been willing to go into ‘negative’ spoons in order to do it.