"Ridiculous and disrespectful": Groom goes viral for working on wedding day
A wedding photo has gone viral for the wrong reasons after a groom was pictured working on his own wedding day.
Torrey Leonard, the founder of US-based start-up company, Thoughtly, shared a photo of his co-founder, Casey Mackrell, pulling out a laptop at his own wedding to get some work done.
“My co-founder Casey has built a reputation for himself as ‘the guy who sits on his laptop in bars’ from SF to NYC,” he wrote in the post.
“Last week Thoughtly brought on a customer that needed to launch within 2 weeks. He just so happened to be getting married within that 2 week window.
“So, here he is wrapping up a pull request. At his own wedding. Congrats Casey – now please, go take some time off.”
Hundreds of people were quick to comment on the post, labelling it “one of the most depressing LinkedIn posts to exist” and it was even shared to other social media pages.
The groom himself eventually had to clarify saying: “Don’t worry I got back to dancing and champagne 2 seconds later.”
But that wasn't enough to appease fellow LinkedIn users.
“So your company has such terrible work/life balance that you can’t have a WEDDING without having to work? That’s just sad as hell," one wrote.
Another commenter quipped that it was "really sad" the groom didn't call off the wedding to focus on work, saying: “Someone who actually knows how to grind would have called it off the second the contract was signed."
A few others questioned the authenticity of the post, saying that it had to be staged as they couldn’t believe that someone would be “that ridiculous and disrespectful to his bride and family”.
“Aside from the fact that this is probably staged, pushing people to sacrifice their private life and mental health is not the flex you think it is," another added.
In an interview with news.com.au Leonard defended his co-founder's decision and explained the situation.
“As a company, what we do is very high-stakes. Every single one of our customers, they depend on us to function perfectly, 24-7, around the clock, no questions asked,” he told the publication.
“We work with many publicly traded companies across the globe, and we spend long hours of the night, early mornings awake, monitoring these calls, proactively fixing issues, fixing problems, building new features.
“The context of this post, he had to solve a problem, and it was really only something that he could solve. It was a three- to five-minute task.
“We understand that this lifestyle is not for everybody. It’s obviously something that is a lot of work, but it’s something that we love.”
He also clarified that Mackrell's bride, Grace, did not have a problem with the brief interruption on their happy day.
“They were dating for many years, so she’s seen him pull a laptop out at a restaurant dinner table. I mean, it looks crazy, but that’s just who Casey is. She’s obviously fine with it.”
Images: LinkedIn