A Gen Z worker who told their boss they couldn’t attend a meeting as they had to go to a gym class has sparked a furious row.
The admission by the resolute employee was revealed on a podcast – and the reaction was so angry that the clip has now had to be taken down.
Podcasters Natalie Marie and Ross Pomerantz – who host Demoted – said that they received an email from an unnamed listener claiming their Gen Z employee refused to attend an 8am meeting because it conflicted with their workout class. Gen Zers are aged up to 27 years old.
Natalie said: “When asked to come in for an 8am meeting my Gez Z new hire said ‘ugh, sorry can’t make it. I have a workout class. Should this be allowed?”
The hosts’ response to the email was of shock and rage. Ross said: “My visceral reaction was ‘are you f***ing kidding me?’”
Natalie agreed saying how angry the email had made her. They both agreed that work life balance was important but slammed the Gen Zer for not attending the meeting.
But one Gen Z TikTok creator challenged the host’s response. In his video – which has been liked 3.7million times – Alexandre Evidente put himself in the shoes of the employee.
He said: “Okay, let’s just say I skip the gym. Two things. When can I expect you to reimburse me for my class? And two, are you going to be paying me from 8am to 9am? Or at the very least let me leave at 4pm.
“Natalie, if your answer to both of those are ‘no’ then there’s no discussion needed.” And his followers were full of praise for his stance on the issue.
One person said: “GenX here. We’ve been brainwashed into giving our souls to employers. Good on Gen Z for putting their mental health first.”
Another said: “GenX HR here – if it’s outside your normal working hours, don’t tell them more information than they need to know. Say you have a prior commitment.”
But some thought being asked to attend a meeting at 8am was not unreasonable. One said: “I worked with people 20yrs ago who couldn’t be bothered to make a slight adjustment for a meeting. Those people get nowhere in life.”
Natalie later revealed that she had made the decision to take the video down because she was receiving vicious comments.
She said: “First things first, we made the decision to take down the video, so it’s no longer there. We got a lot of heat, and rightfully so. It was getting vicious in the comments. We decided to take it down.”
