Should I wake my lodger? Hasn't turned up for work

[Noodge]

My lodger works in a nursery and starts around 07:30.

Her boss has messaged me this morning to ask me to get her to get in touch as she hasn't turned up for work.

I actually heard lodger getting up this morning, but then I went back to sleep.

Is it my business? I'm inclined to think not but then, if she's accidentally slept in she might appreciate me waking her up? I've only just seen the message so she's already very late.

Boss knows who I am as we're both in the same social group.

WWYD?

I know we're all being facetious now, but many an older person has been found ill, injured or dead because the local newsagent or post officer clerk noticed that they hadn't collected their paper or pension.

I suppose you all think they should suffer a slow and painful death after a fall and not be found for weeks on end?

I think it was not right that the work contacted the landlord and should have been the next of kin. But she should then have knocked on the door asked her if she is ok and ask tenant is she going to contact her work as do not want them contacting them. I could not imagine years ago when renting with a few friends if I was off sick that my work would contact my landlord just weird. But I always made sure work got a message so would not have left them not knowing.

My brother too (meningitis).

Work attendance/absence info is explicitly listed as a GDPR example. Imagine if you weren't performing well at work and your boss just did a little "check-in" about you with your landlord on FB Messenger – would you be happy about that? As I said justifiable in an emergency but 20 mins late is not an emergency.

I don't want my boss getting my landlord, tenant/lodger, neighbour, postman, local shopkeeper, ex boyfriend, or any other randoms knocking on my room door or hovering over my bed every time I oversleep a little bit or am feeling a tiny bit poorly thanks, and this is the position the law would take as well.

Disappearing into thin air for weeks is a little different from being 20 mins late to work, as I keep saying.

How sad is it that we can't even check on someone without getting strangers' approval on the internet first.

No time to ' be checking on someone's work situation' as OP said it, yet enough time to post this thread and add updates.

*Imagine if you weren't performing well at work and your boss just did a little "check-in" about you with your landlord on FB Messenger – would you be happy about that?

I don't want my boss getting my landlord, tenant/lodger, neighbour, postman, local shopkeeper, ex boyfriend, or any other randoms knocking on my room door or hovering over my bed*

But none of these things happened at all in this case, did they? Not even close.

That... literally happened though.

I don't want my boss getting my landlord, tenant/lodger, neighbour, postman, local shopkeeper, ex boyfriend, or any other randoms knocking on my room door or hovering over my bed

Maybe the difference is that half of the people on this thread live in nice cosy villages where everyone knows everyone.

If you work in say the City and your landlord is a typical London landlord, I don't think you'd want your line manager Facebook messaging your landlord to wake you up for work whenever you had personal circumstances. I would be horrified actually if my landlord started reporting details of my wake up schedule to my manager.

Well, if anyone who lives with me doesn't show up for work and someone is concerned for their welfare, I'm happy to knock on their door and check if they are okay. It takes a second. If a relative of my neighbours calls me and asks me to check because they are uncharacteristically uncontactable, I'd be happy to do it. Why? Because sometimes things happen and people need an ambulance called or something. I care enough to do that, if needed, even though I'm someone who values privacy and usually keeps to myself.

Why not - sometimes they are?

It happened to a young man I worked with. His Mum didn't turn up at work, work contacted him, he found her dead at home.

None of my employers just shrugged their shoulders if someone didn't turn up for work and hadn't been heard from. The first thing that would enter their mind is that something was seriously wrong, or they would have called in sick.

Nothing wrong with work trying to contact you to make sure you are ok, but contacting the landlady because you know her from French class/the bowls club/am dram is a bit much.

Don't be ridiculous. A housemate would take seconds to check on someone, a next of kin living miles away could take hours to get there, have to take time off work etc.

This is typical MN - people are too self absorbed to even spend a minute or two to check that someone is okay. Thank goodness no-one I know is as selfish and uncaring as a typical MNer.

Don't be ridiculous? I'd love to see you say that to my face. People get over excited on these forums. We have different opinions that's it. Don't tag me for this nonsense.

Totally agree. Wonder how some of the 'not my business' posters would feel when it's them who has taken a fall and people don't come to help them because 'not my circus'? I never want to be that person.

The no-show employee is OP's lodger. They're housemates and share some friends. It wasn't a case of asking OP to get in her car and drive to another property where the tenant has no more than a contractual relationship with her.

I probably would do that, if no other contact could be found, but it's beside the point - people are now rewriting the story to obscure the simple facts.

Of course it can be an emergency

Over the last few years two of my colleagues have not turned up to work because they had died from suicide.

Completely normal and expected in my industry to do a welfare check, including going to the person’s house. Easily avoided by calling in sick.

I think it’s a wonderful world where people can do welfare checks on each other. I’d like to think that one day somebody would be concerned if my son didn’t turn up for work and somebody was caring enough to try to find out why.

It is one of those situations where thee is a tiny chance that something bad happened but if it had it could have been terrible. I am a lone parent and when the kids were small I used to ask my boss to call my emergency number if I ever failed to show up for work.

you just need to ask her to make sure you are not her emergency person

Boss messaged you and asked you top get in touch. Otherwise I would've said none of your business, but boss made it your business

Why the aversion to a (live in) landlord knocking on the door? When there are many examples of someone having been taken ill (I gave one) the other examples were obviously what I was referring to and odd extrapolations. Seems an unusually solipsistic approach. If it was regular or involved any detail other than 'X is not here, can you check on her?', that may be a point but why the fuss when there is a duty of care, it is a simple enquiry and people are sometimes taken ill?

I would rather wade in and look a fool that not.

@curiositykilledthiscat "This is one step away from stalking. Of course it isn’t normal for a manager to do all that."

Blimey - I've heard it all now 😂

Its not even a bloody circus! Its a 2 minute knock on a door.

Not virtue signaling before anybody starts but I came across a teenager distressed in a park and spent a good while chatting to him. I like to think it helped. I have reunited lost kids with carers, rescued a lost dog and looked in on a neighbour. For Gods sake we are humans.