Man takes leave to ‘go to mountains to forget breakup’; Internet backs Gen Z

A senior corporate employee recently ignited a debate on social media by posting about his Gen Z colleague, who “declared” a week-long leave due to a “breakup” during a crucial phase of a team project. The post quickly garnered attention online, fueling a debate about the younger generation’s approach to work-life balance and emotional priorities.
Social media user Krishna Mohan shared his experience working with a Gen Z colleague and how he left the team at a crucial time because “he wanted to go to the mountains to forget his break-up.”
“One of my Gen z team members suddenly declared 1 week leave. It was a critical time of the project so I tried to reason. He did not budge. The leave was because he had a breakup, and he wanted to go to the mountains to forget the breakup,” read Mohan’s post on X.
Krishna Mohan shared the post in response to an older post by user ‘Siddarth Shah’ in which he had shared a leave application by his GenZ team member. Shah’s social media post had sparked an online debate on work-life balance which was further extended by Mohan’s post.
Some social media users criticised the post and underlined the importance of mental health. Others criticised GenZ’s approach to work.
“It’s better to give them a break than overwhelm them with deadlines when they are already under the weather. Less suicidal tendencies the better [sic],” another social media user responded to the post.
“Mental health is very much important. Whether it’s breakup or family issues or whatever…let’s normalise this so people like you shouldn’t mention it as if it’s a trivial thing, [sic]” read another comment on the post.
“That’s a perfect reason to declare leave. Business is business, will go on as will other things [sic]”
“This is a boomer fallout issue. Because over the decades people learned even top performers were not treated well so the pendulum has swung the other way with extreme prejudice [sic]”