Anonymous wrote:To the PP above, some of us purposefully don’t keep our phones in our hands outside of working hours. We like personal time to be personal time and we want to model to our children that life goes on even if one doesn’t glance at their phone every 5 seconds. If your unconventional schedule works for you then fine, but don’t expect everyone else to adhere to it or respond outside working hours.

I used to check my phone during morning and evening routines with my kids and then realized I was getting distracted and irritable with them because my mind was simultaneously trying to think about work while also dealing with the routine. It led to much less pleasant interactions. So now I unplug. IFF there is work requiring additional time (either because I took a chunk of time off during the day to attend a school activity, or because it is a busy time at work) then I log in for a couple hours at night. And I schedule any emails or Slack messages to arrive the next morning during working hours.

+1 and unlike PP above some of actually want to focus on work during work hours and not be doing a million random other things, so we don't also want to focus on work off-hours

To the PP above, some of us purposefully don’t keep our phones in our hands outside of working hours. We like personal time to be personal time and we want to model to our children that life goes on even if one doesn’t glance at their phone every 5 seconds. If your unconventional schedule works for you then fine, but don’t expect everyone else to adhere to it or respond outside working hours.

I used to check my phone during morning and evening routines with my kids and then realized I was getting distracted and irritable with them because my mind was simultaneously trying to think about work while also dealing with the routine. It led to much less pleasant interactions. So now I unplug. IFF there is work requiring additional time (either because I took a chunk of time off during the day to attend a school activity, or because it is a busy time at work) then I log in for a couple hours at night. And I schedule any emails or Slack messages to arrive the next morning during working hours.

I actually find emails, slacks meetings between between 9 am and 4 pm annoying. They interrupt my day and pointless.

I like to shoot out slacks, very very very rare emails from 6-730 am
so I can get responses same day. I also like to repeat from 6-7pm to send deliverables or ask for info. I don’t expect responses right away but means often I have answers in morning or end of day.

I do like to do chats. I also like a morning scrum now and then 7-8:00am

Most of mom coworkers or staff with kids actually like my schedule. For instance my manager she gets up early on days she wants to hit gym after dropping kids off at school. She responds or forwards or follows up other people. She knows nights and mornings I am active. She then can drop kids off hit gym and be off line till 10ish. The other mom she is more of Evening person as class mom and does stuff with her child after school. She knows she can pop on line later in evening.

I looked at my emails today and noticed I sent 37 work emails in last two years. I also schedule meetings at most 2-3 times a month. I don’t send emails hardly ever and often respond in a chat, poke, slack.

During day I and staff we like to get work done and if kids need to be picked up, go to bus stop, heck even drop car off at dealership we can do it as pointless meetings are gone.

Plus we can catch up on weekdays or after work if we literally did nothing all day. It is more relaxing to work anytime than an assigned time.

People who are PITAs of strict work hours may not think it but they really stress folks out. Drives me nuts.

I still don’t see big deal checking your work stuff. I am holding my iPhone and will beep I have the slack and gmail app for work on phone, I also set up channels rather than my own slack or email name. So we do group messages. I also get shared Google docs. I jump on any time. Maybe while waiting up kid or at Starbucks even if Sunday morning,

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, do you not get your work emails pushed to your phone? I find it astonishing that any white collar professional does not and if a direct report told me they don’t I would really change my view of them.

I don’t. Work doesn’t pay for my phone and we aren’t supposed to have work email on personal devices.

So, you missed it. A poor decision by your boss, had a poor outcome. I don't understand why *you* don't just move on.

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, do you not get your work emails pushed to your phone? I find it astonishing that any white collar professional does not and if a direct report told me they don’t I would really change my view of them.

OP here. I do, but I don’t actively check them at 9pm. Moreover, I have childcare commitments in the morning. I cannot devote 24/7 to my job.

Anonymous wrote:If she would have scanned her emails (it came at 9pm the night before), she would have seen the request and been able to explain her conflict.

See how that works?

PP is either willfully obtuse or just dim.

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, do you not get your work emails pushed to your phone? I find it astonishing that any white collar professional does not and if a direct report told me they don’t I would really change my view of them.

No wonder our work culture has all the problems it does today. This post above just.makes me sad.

Anonymous wrote:Seriously, do you not get your work emails pushed to your phone? I find it astonishing that any white collar professional does not and if a direct report told me they don’t I would really change my view of them.

No - I don't want to be bothered with work emails and teams chats and whatnot all the time. Just like when I had a sep work phone, I wasn't looking at it all the time off hours.

Anonymous wrote:It’s a sign of (best case) disorganized and dysfunctional management or worst case a toxic approach to employees time. 8:00 is not a reasonable meeting time outside a genuine emergency, and an emergency is announced by phone call not outlook invite.

HAHAHAHAHA.

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Anonymous wrote:How much do you make?

Not enough to deal with this. $160K plus a $4-5K bonus.

That’s in what I consider all-hours email checking salary range. I thought you were going to say sub 6 figures.

+1 Feels like a 8 hrs/day + check email a few times type level

My sibling makes $38k,is overtime eligible with approval, and does not check email or teams after hours or weekends.
Now that seems reasonable.

+1. At that salary, you likely have some real responsibility. Your boss handled this poorly, but at that comp level you shouldn’t expect to clock in 8:30 to 5p and be offline otherwise. (Note, they don’t pay you enough to check email nonstop, but you could be doing more.)

You should be checking email when you get up, to just to make sure nothing came in. I’m at a nonprofit earning $220k and I do that when I wake up at 6.

This is why people think nonprofits are disorganized. If you routinely have to check email at six it’s not a well-run organization.

Exactly. No one should be surprised with an 8am meeting at 6am outside of a true emergency. This deadline has been known for a month and management should have been working to meet it much earlier than the day before the deadline.

Checking at 6 isn’t about being sure I catch last minute requests/accommodating someone’s poor planning. It’s about being sufficiently plugged to an extent commensurate with my comp and seniority level. 99% of the time it’s all innocuous stuff (news alerts, email from vendor/someone working late), but this means in the rare case something like this happens, I wouldn’t be caught off guard. And if there were a conflict, I would be able to communicate that out.

It’s very telling that OP wants to make this kind of money but believes she’s entitled to totally check out after 5. Both supervisor and employee have room for improvement here.

That’s a good salary but not 24 hrs on call salary. I earn about that much and I absolutely would do a meeting outside of my normal hours (AM or PM) if necessary and I got notice during my normal hours. But no, I am not checking email when I wake up and before I go to bed.

Agreed, that’s not a 24h on call salary. But we can agree to disagree - I do think it’s a “check email once after hours” salary.

And in this case, if OP happened to check it at 8:30pm, they would’ve missed this meeting invite.

Nope, in this case OP woke up earlier than that to get her daughter ready for school and then checked at 8:30. If she had checked earlier, she could have declined the meeting and not have been blindsided.

Why the heck does she need to check emails during her personal time? She should use her precious morning time to enjoy a cup of coffee, a book, do yoga or meditate, spend quality time with her kids, and get them out the door pleasantly.

And before you say it, checking email is not a “5 second” task. If you have a position of responsibility, opening your inbox reminds you of a lot of things that you need to think about and work on. Those things stay with you even when you put the phone back on, and distract you from the things you actually want to do during your personal time. Better to completely unplug unless you are in a job where a non-response equals literal life and death.

+1 exactly this - I'm a PP who tried to capture this in another comment. This is why I don't check email just before bed and as soon as I wake up, or nonstop during the wknd or holidays. It's just a way to be stressed about work all the time.

And yes I make more than OP salary. That's not a 24/7 on call salary by a longshot.

Seriously, do you not get your work emails pushed to your phone? I find it astonishing that any white collar professional does not and if a direct report told me they don’t I would really change my view of them.

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Anonymous wrote:I get off hours meetings but the concept of off hours is unusual. I have meetings anytime between 730 am and six pm. But I rarely have meetings.

My meetings people are in India, UK, Midwest, West Coast, Japan they try to find middle ground.

I am not working OT. As there is no concept of OT.

Maybe your husband can make his own breakfast and get kids ready when you have a morning call.

The issue is not an early morning call. I’ve done those and it’s fine. The issue is having 11 hours’ notice of an 8am call.

8 am is not early. Mu kid gets in bus at 7 am so I am up at 6 every day. I check my phone as soon as get up for meetings that pop up. I also check at 11pm every night. My phone beeps with meeting invites or slack message. 11 hours is a long time. I would have got invite at 9pm

Good for you.

If I were your boss, I'd be ticked off not because you missed the meeting, but because you made a mountain out of a molehill. Unless this happens all the time or unless you missed something critical, neither of which seem to be the case, let it go.

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Anonymous wrote:I get off hours meetings but the concept of off hours is unusual. I have meetings anytime between 730 am and six pm. But I rarely have meetings.

My meetings people are in India, UK, Midwest, West Coast, Japan they try to find middle ground.

I am not working OT. As there is no concept of OT.

Maybe your husband can make his own breakfast and get kids ready when you have a morning call.

The issue is not an early morning call. I’ve done those and it’s fine. The issue is having 11 hours’ notice of an 8am call.

8 am is not early. Mu kid gets in bus at 7 am so I am up at 6 every day. I check my phone as soon as get up for meetings that pop up. I also check at 11pm every night. My phone beeps with meeting invites or slack message. 11 hours is a long time. I would have got invite at 9pm