St. Petersburg clothing brand fires employee after grandfather's death, then accuses her of orchestrating harassment campaign
An employee of St. Petersburg clothing brand OldBaby Shop said on Threads she was fired after missing work due to her grandfather's death, sparking public backlash before the owners accused her of inciting a harassment campaign against them.
Tamara, an employee at the St. Petersburg clothing brand OldBaby Shop (also known as "Samost"), described on Threads how she was fired after missing a shift because her grandfather had died. Her post drew nearly 7,000 likes and around 2,000 comments within two days.
Tamara said she had worked at the store for almost a year without ever skipping a shift or calling in sick. On August 13, she learned that her grandfather, who had long been ill with cancer, had passed away. She told her employer the same day that she needed to help her mother arrange the funeral and couldn't come in. Her only shift partner was unable to cover for her. Although Russian law entitles workers to five days of bereavement leave, Tamara asked for just one day off, arranging shift swaps with a colleague for the remaining days, including the funeral itself.
Screenshots of the workplace chat that Tamara made public show a company representative questioning whether the funeral was scheduled that day or whether she simply couldn't cope "psychologically." She was accused of choosing her mother over her job and of preventing her mother from "growing up" by helping with funeral arrangements. She was then told she was being fired and was called an "infantile zoomer."
According to the screenshots, brand founder Anna never personally responded to Tamara; the messages came from Anna's husband, Ivan. Once the story spread, social media users rallied behind Tamara, leaving negative comments on the brand's accounts and lowering the store's rating on the mapping service 2GIS. The owners renamed their Instagram account and deleted their replies to Tamara's post.
In a video, Anna said she'd had to cover Tamara's shift while also sewing customer orders, working without sleep. In a separate video, Anna and Ivan claimed Tamara was fired not because of her grandfather's death but because they no longer trusted her, accusing her of calling them frauds. Ivan said the business had suffered losses worth hundreds of millions, with accounts blocked and cards canceled, and accused Tamara of orchestrating an online harassment campaign against them.
