Meetings held at odd hours that aren't family friendly to exclude

Anonymous
A commenter in the other thread had me thinking about this. She wrote that her boss "held a meeting to discuss every case the firm had and the meeting lasted until 11pm or later." She was a new mother at the time, and attending the meeting was difficult.

I don't have any children of my own. I am a woman in my early 50s.

Managers who do this to exclude seem to have a "playbook" they follow. LoL. (It's not really funny, though.)

1. Held unscheduled meetings at 1 a.m. in the morning. I wasn't invited. It was an important meeting, and I was told that's how dedicated they were, that they would conduct this meeting at 1 a.m. It was a technical test run of a project.

2. Held unscheduled meetings at 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon, just impromptu meetings not normally on the calendar.

3. Held unscheduled meetings at 6 p.m. when contractors charge 40 hours and are not allowed to go over. If you already worked and charged 8 hours, you're going home before you know there's a meeting.
Anonymous
Not to make light, but I wish there were meetings scheduled intended to exclude me! My job is endless meetings that everyone is expected to go to, but aren’t productive. So you are actually doing work at those odd hours.
Anonymous
I've gotten to the point that I've stopped responding to most emails after my normal working hours.

if I get an email from by boss that reads like its critical I'll respond.

the line between personal/work life is becoming so blurred and its beginning to feel like we are always working.





Anonymous
1AM -- that's ludicrous. I would not show up. My boss is texting my team before 8AM and I'm intending to speak with him about it because I think that is inappropriate.

Unscheduled 3pm Friday -- if I have sufficient notice (2+ hours) and my calendar is not booked, I'd attend.

6pm unscheduled -- I would attend if I could, if it was important. I would skip for *any* prior personal commitment (kid soccer practice drop-off, family dinner plans).
Anonymous
3 p.m. is part of the workday, I don't see the issue with that one. I wouldn't meet at 1 a.m. unless I was in buglaw or something and everyone was working to close a deal or whatever and I was already up working.
Anonymous
If you are in a tech job and you want to test something in production, you *have* to do it in the middle of the night if it is a U.S.-centric product..
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:If you are in a tech job and you want to test something in production, you *have* to do it in the middle of the night if it is a U.S.-centric product..


Yeah but those types of tests/change windows should be scheduled. And attendees should get comp time (the next day or the next week depending on the situation) to make up for working the night shift.

Also, I have young kids and would consider 1am plenty family friendly for something like working a release. I’m up with the baby often enough my sleep schedule is always f*ed and it’s not like my preschooler is going to be interrupting me wanting to be read to at 1am. 6pm meetings, on the other hand, are evil.
Anonymous
Anonymous wrote:If you are in a tech job and you want to test something in production, you *have* to do it in the middle of the night if it is a U.S.-centric product..


My DH does something like this. He has to schedule it a week out at least, get sign off from all the managers of the groups involved. He also has to get approval from his manager, his manager's manager, and his manager's manager's manager (just a cursory click of the mouse, but he's leaned to give it a lot of lead time) This is standard.

The only variation would be in an emergency when it's all hands on deck, but if it's an emergency all the time, then something is wrong at that work place
Anonymous
If they have you on a track where there is the potential to make orders of magnitude more money like a partner track then this is expected. The job is expected to come first and they want to know that they own you. If it’s a regular salary job then this is just a pissing contest.
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