A wedding is the time for celebration. Think champagne, speeches, dancing, and… work? A recent photo of a groom working on his laptop during his own wedding was recently shared to LinkedIn, and the Internet's response has been, well, let's just say spirited.
The co-founder of an AI startup company in the US called Thoughtly, Torrey Leonard shared a snap of his co-founder, Casey Mackrell, wearing his wedding suit and working on his laptop while guests danced. But while the post was meant to be a compliment, things quickly turned sour.
"My co-founder Casey has built a reputation for himself as 'the guy who sits on his laptop in bars' from San Francisco to New York City. Last week Thoughtly brought on a customer that needed to launch within two weeks. He just so happened to be getting married within that two week window," Leonard wrote.
"So, here he is wrapping up a pull request. At his own wedding," he continued. "Congrats Casey — now please, go take some time off."
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The post quickly went viral on LinkedIn and it's safe to say people weren't as impressed with Mackrell's work ethic as Leonard had probably anticipated.
"This has got to be one of the most depressing posts I've ever seen on LinkedIn," one user commented. Yikes.
Others focused on how this reflected poorly on the company's culture.
"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," read one comment.
Another agreed, writing, "This would just make me question the time management skills of Thoughtly."
In an interview with news.com.au, Leonard defended his decision to upload the photo, and clarified that while it may be hard to understand from the outside, the way their business works requires 24/7 commitment.
"As a company, what we do is very high-stakes," Leonard said. "Every single one of our customers, they depend on us to function perfectly, 24/7, around the clock, no questions asked."
He continued, "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."
Leonard went on to say that despite how it may have seemed in his original post, it was a quick task that did not take Mackrell long to complete.
"The context of this post, he had to solve a problem, and it was really only something that he could solve," he explained. "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."
But many onlookers were also concerned about how unfair this was for the bride.
"What's the brag here — he prioritises work over his wedding day? His once in a lifetime day with his wife — could be the shortest marriage ever!" one user wrote.
Another commented, "Honestly hugely disrespectful to your new spouse, her family and people invited to the wedding. It is literally one day in a lifetime (it should be anyway)."
Leonard addressed this contentious issue too, reassuring everyone that the bride, Grace, was not bothered at all by the short interruption to their wedding. As Leonard would tell it, she had always understood what her now-husband is like.
"Casey is just as devoted to Grace as he is to the company," he explained. "If she needs something, he acts the same way. He would drop everything for her. And so she gets that, and she loves that about him.
"They were dating for many years," he continued, "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."
Finally, the groom himself also weighed in on the viral drama. Mackrell reassured the masses that he was very much present for the rest of the evening.
"Don't worry I got back to dancing and champagne two seconds later," he commented on the LinkedIn post. All's well that ends well?
Feature image: LinkedIn/Instagram.
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