Boss Fires Employee For Long Lunch Break, Wait Till You Hear Her Reason

If you are a corporate employee, you might be familiar with occasionally extending your lunch break for different reasons. But not everyone finds life in the corporate world to be straightforward. Troy Holmes, a real estate businessman from Australia, was criticised for posting a story about firing his assistant. Following the outcry over the story, he justified his decision. Holmes clarified that the 2014 incident—which he deemed to be extreme—was the reason behind the assistant’s termination.

In his TikTok video, Holmes said that he had recruited a personal assistant who did well in a big real estate company at first. During the interview, the 22-year-old assistant made a good impression on him and other people by stating all the right things. After a few weeks, though, Holmes noted that she would vanish for a few hours at a time, and something didn’t seem quite right. “She seemed to not be able to follow instructions,” he said.

“I wasn’t getting any real reasons on what she was doing,” Holmes told his followers. “I was struggling to hold her accountable because she wasn’t clear as to what she was delivering as far as her KPIs go.”

The assistant’s duties included door knocking and letterbox dropping in an effort to increase revenue for Holmes and his business. One “hectic afternoon,” the assistant’s hour-long lunch break proved to be the last straw. Holmes gave her a call to find out her whereabouts.

In response, she said that her “heart stopped” and she collapsed on the pavement. When Holmes arrived at her location, he was informed that she attempted to return to her work, began to run, had her heart stop, and then fell down.

After he offered her medical attention, Holmes subsequently added, “Her entire demeanour changed to perfectly fine.”

“So yeah, apparently your heart can stop, and then you’ll be perfectly fine in a couple of minutes,” he explained.

The employee’s employment with his company ended at that point. The comments section received mixed reviews, with some supporting Holmes’s decision to terminate the assistant, while others backed the employee, saying that Holmes did not come off very well in his video.

Holmes expressed his confidence in his scepticism to news.com.au, citing the assistant’s refusal to seek medical attention and the fact that she had just lost a close friend to heart failure.

Holmes told the media outlet that the primary takeaway from the incident was the need to improve the interview procedure in the future.