Boss Accuses WFH Employee of Lying for Being Offline All Day

A boss has sparked outrage by accusing a work-from-home employee of not working because he appeared offline all day. 

George sent a message to his employee Josh asking him to explain why he was not showing on their workplace messaging app as actively working.

‘Why does your Teams (status) keep showing that you are away? Please explain,’ the manager said. 

When asked about his idle status on Microsoft Teams, the employee replied that he was unsure why it showed him as idle. He clarified that despite this, he had been diligently working on his tasks.

‘It’s been like that all day though,’ George replied bluntly.

The employee who was working from home further explained, ‘I honestly do not know why it shows that way, but rest assured, I have been productive. I even just forwarded you the presentation for tomorrow and we had a call not long ago.’

However, George wasn’t convinced and fired back, ‘Are you lying to me?’

The confused employee replied: ‘Lying about being on a call with you?’

His manager appeared furious, as he responded: ‘Don’t try and be clever. Are you lying about doing the work?’

Josh insisted he wasn’t lying and he had been working on his computer all day. 

‘I cannot be dishonest about my work when I literally just shared the presentation that we discussed earlier today. I have been focused on that task, which is probably why my Teams status appeared idle since I was not engaging in other discussions,’ he elaborated.

The boss ended the conversation with, ‘Make sure it doesn’t go idle again. It is important.’

The exchange was shared by British career expert Ben Askins, who reads out anonymous submissions from employees about their toxic bosses.

‘It’s this simple: judge your employees’ performance by their OUTPUT, not by their Teams status…,’ Ben said in a viral video.

‘Honestly, I get this is such a weird way to manage. I know there’s a perception that people who work from home are not doing work… but the easiest way to find out is just say, ‘What have you done today?’

‘It’s a very easy conversation. If they haven’t done anything, then of course, you’d have that chat.’

Ben explained that managing people remotely is ‘exactly the same’ as managing them in the office.  

‘You just simply have to say at the start of day, “What are you up to today?” Find out, check in and make sure they know what they need to be doing and it’s the work that you want them to be doing and then you just make sure they do that work. 

‘It’s really as simple as that.’

His video has been viewed more than 240,000 times, with many calling out the boss for being a ‘toxic’ micromanager.

‘Teams status is the most toxic mechanic on any platform. I get it’s useful if you need to message people, but it just turns into another micromanagement tool,’ one said.

‘Blimey – if the manager can monitor the status and spend time chasing them about it – what the hell are they working on?!’ another suggested.

‘I reckon the boss has PTSD from his mates ignoring him on MSN back in the day,’ one joked.

‘Micromanaging and intimidation is a big red flag. Bye bye work,’ another added.

Meanwhile, one IT employee weighed in on the situation.

‘Teams status will change even when you’re actively working on your PC. If you’re not tabbing back over to Teams every five minutes, it’ll say “away”,’ he said.

‘Thank god my boss doesn’t worry about that kind of stuff. He focuses on output, not a little blinking light from Microsoft, which is wrong 99 per cent of the time. It’s not worth firing someone wrongly because of it.’