Texas Realtor Got Fired Over a Drunk Boss’ Late-Night Text

A single mother and real-estate agent from East Texas, Kristin McCarley, recently shared a wild story: she found out she was fired not in person, not via call, but over a late-night text message from her boss.

At 10:36 p.m. on a Saturday, McCarley received a blunt message that read: “Do not come in Monday.” According to her, the text continued with “I’ve made (sic) changes to the office,” and then: “I have to let you go.”

Shockingly — and even more bizarrely — around 1:07 a.m., she got a second message: this time a screenshot of a picture from her social media, showing her and a friend smiling. No explanation, no face-to-face meeting, no warning. Just a cold dismissal while presumably drunk.

Viral Outrage and a TikTok Bow

McCarley posted the whole story on TikTok — and it blew up. The video reportedly racked up more than a million views, drawing sympathy, outrage, and a wave of support from strangers online.

Many viewers urged her to take action: contact HR, talk to a lawyer, maybe even sue. Comments ranged from disbelief — “Getting fired over a drunk text? This can’t be legal” to frustration at how unprofessional and cold the firing was.

One workplace-culture expert, Roxanne Calder, weighed in. She argued that firing someone by text is part of a worrying cultural shift in how conflicts and big life changes are handled in our digital age — “avoidant communication,” she called it. Instead of tough conversations, some managers apparently choose the easiest path: send a message, tick a box, move on. For the person at the receiving end, that can be deeply dehumanizing.

Why This Sparks a Bigger Conversation

This incident touches on a few broader issues many people are talking about right now:

• Professionalism and respect at work: Terminating someone’s livelihood should rarely — if ever — be done over a text. Doing so raises questions about employer ethics, respect, and basic decency.
• Power imbalance and employee vulnerability: As a single mom working in real estate, McCarley could have been especially vulnerable. Getting fired over a drunk text feels like poor treatment of someone’s income and stability.
• Workplace culture in the digital era: As workplaces become more remote or tech-mediated, some managers may rely too heavily on impersonal modes of communication — even for serious matters like firing people.
• What counts as fair treatment? Many social media commentators noted the peculiar follow-up text with a social media screenshot — suggesting this may not have just been a business decision, but something more personal or arbitrary.

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