Salaryman with sick wife pulls no punches in verbal smackdown of boss who won’t let him go home

Think Japanese businessmen don’t care about their wives? This one does, and he’s got no time for anyone keeping him from taking care of her.

Salarymen don’t really enjoy the most favorable place in Japan’s popular imagination. The stereotype is often that they’re meek in the workplace and disinterested at home, lacking the ability to show a spine to their boss or appreciation to their wife.

But while salarymen often get a bad rap in both works of fiction and broad discussions about Japanese society, it’s a disservice to them to paint with such a broad brush when applying criticism. Japanese Twitter user @Rakshasa_JP recently shared a story about his friend’s husband that showed, in dramatic fashion, that’s it’s not true that salarymen always put work before wives.

友人（♀）の旦那が「嫁がインフルエンザにかかったので早退します」と申請したら上司から「お前の代わりはいくらでもいるんだぞ」と返答されたのに憤慨し「俺の嫁の代わりはいねえんだバカヤロウ」と怒声をあげて、「俺たぶん会社クビになるわ」と言って帰ってきたが処分されたのは上司の方だった。

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らくしゃさ@ドクペバトル (@Rakshasa_JP) March 22, 2018

One day, at work, the husband approached his manager and said “My wife has come down with influenza, so I’ll be going home early,” as he wanted to take care of his spouse while she was sick. The manager, however, didn’t think this was a valid excuse for punching out early, and angrily told the husband “You can be easily replaced, you know?” implying that this sort of conduct could lead to the husband being laid off.

So how did the husband reply to the ever-so-slightly veiled threat?

“My wife can’t be replaced, you dumbass.”

And with that, the husband went home, figuring his days working at that company were done. However, in yet another twist, @Rakshasa_JP says that the husband kept his job, and the manager was eventually fired.

The husband’s dramatic exit earned @Rakshasa_JP’s tweet well over a hundred thousand likes, plus comments such as:

“Your friend’s husband is seriously cool…”
“Serves the manager right!”
“What an inferior-quality workplace superior.”
“Looks like the manager is the one who could be easily replaced.”
“If the manager thought it’d be so easy to find someone else to do the husband’s job, why didn’t he just cover his workload for him?”

Support for the husband wasn’t entirely universal, with at least one commenter feeling it’s debatable as to whether or not you need to knock off work early to take care of someone who has the flu. Others wondered what exactly led to the manager getting fired, since @Rakshasa_JP doesn’t go into detail as to whether his termination was a direct result of the verbal confrontation, other incidences of throwing his weight around in the office, or simple bottom-line work performance.

In any case, though, it looks like the top management at the husband’s company is willing to accommodate employees who need time off to deal with sudden family situations. That’s the sort of thing that encourages people to keep working for an organization, and ironically means that, the blustery manager notwithstanding, they probably won’t have to replace employees all that often.

Source: Twitter/@Rakshasa_JP via Jin
Top image: Pakutaso

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