A TikTok video from @kellybrooke.m, which had amassed more than 890,000 views and 4,700 comments at the time of publication, describes how she missed her shift after sleeping for 14 hours.
Kelly planned to take a short nap before her 3 p.m. shift but slept until 4 a.m. the following morning. She had recently returned from a trip to Georgia and Texas and attributed her disrupted sleep schedule partly to the time changes. She decided to rest on her couch about an hour before her shift, still wearing her work clothes, and set multiple alarms in case she overslept.
The TikToker woke up at 4 a.m. to find multiple missed calls and texts from coworkers and the restaurant asking whether she was okay. She said she had never fallen asleep so deeply before. "I never sleep that long or that hard. I will be waking up at any slight sound," she said.
She woke up in the same position she had fallen asleep in and immediately realized she had missed her entire shift. "Now I have to say it out loud. I have to call the restaurant and say hey guys, yes, I, a 27-year-old woman, did sleep through my entire shift," she said.
Kelly then waited until a reasonable hour to contact her coworker, who had called her multiple times overnight asking for a response. She later learned that coworkers were particularly concerned because of an earlier medical episode that resulted in her being taken from her apartment by ambulance.
She said she had called out of work more often than usual over the previous month and a half because of ongoing health issues she could not fully explain. She called her manager to apologize directly and offered to accept a written warning if necessary.
"She said girl, we're good," Kelly said, recalling her manager's response. The manager acknowledged the difficulty of the past month and noted that she had responded with similar understanding each time Kelly had to call out, including once when Kelly called from a hospital while crying and said she could not make her shift.
Kelly works in Arizona, where employment is generally considered at-will, and said she believes restaurant jobs offer little tolerance for repeated absences. She said her manager's consistent response was one reason she had stayed at the job despite the recent difficulties.
Commenters share their own pre-shift nap stories and praise her manager
Reactions to the video largely focused on the manager's response and similar experiences with pre-shift naps. One commenter asked for more information about the workplace, they wrote, "What restaurant?? I'd love to support one that actually treats their employees like human beings that's so hard to find here."
Another commenter described a similar moment with their own manager during an illness, they wrote, "love a good manager, i once called mine crying in the urgent care cause i got the flu right before a big weekend where we were already short staffed due to teenagers requesting off" [sic].
Another commenter warned against napping before a shift, they wrote, "NEVER EVER TAKE THE PRE SHIFT NAP. I learned the hard way after I slept for SIXTEEN HOURS STRAIGHT and missed a Saturday night... double."
The Daily Dot was unable to independently verify the identity of the restaurant, the nature of Kelly's ongoing health issues or the medical episode referenced in the video. The details above are based solely on @kellybrooke.m's account shared on TikTok.
