'[My boss] never called past 5 p.m. again:' Banker uses the time difference to his advantage to make his boss respect his work hours

Author image for Elna McHilderson
Elna McHilderson • Managing Editor
Sep 5, 2023 1:00 PM EDT

Many businesses depend on international deals and teams. It's exciting to get other cultures and markets into your business. But it's not easy. There are many factors you have to consider, one of the most obvious ones being the time differences. 

It's unprofessional to call your employees after working hours, but for some reasons many bosses and managers think that it's okay to call you after work hours, because in their time zone it's still work hours. Work hours. Work hours. Work hours. Like, what is there hard to get there, boss? A Redditor shared the story of a family member who was a trust agent at a bank back in the day. They were on the east coast and their boss was on the west. They would always call in the evening way after work hours. Usually he would be eating dinner or having family time and he would be interrupted by his boss demanding something for work. He tried to set the boundary to only call him during his work hours. But nope. 

So finally he decided to use this to his advantage. After an unpleasant wake up call to his boss, the upper management quickly learned to respect their employees set work hours. 

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  • 02
    Font - Posted by u/Writes ForDough42 1 day ago Ignore the time difference in the evening? I'll ignore it in the morning. S OC Not me, but my father-in-law's story.
    via u/WritesForDough42
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    Font - In the 1970s (before email and faxes), my father-in-law, Carl, worked as a trust agent for a bank in the Midwest, which is on Eastern time (ET). He handled trusts and estates for bank customers, including one older lady. Her son-in-law, Brewton, lived in California, which is on Pacific time (PT), three hours behind Carl, and managed his mother-in-law's estate on her behalf.
    via u/WritesForDough42
  • 04
    Font - Brewton used to call Carl with questions, which is not a problem. Except Brewton would call Carl at home at 8 p.m. ET, expecting him to answer questions. Carl would be at home, eating dinner or spending time with his family, so Brewton's calls were unwelcome.
    via u/WritesForDough42
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    Font - Carl would explain the time difference and said that Brewton should call before 5 p.m. ET, not PT. But Brewton always ignored Carl's requests, and demanded that Carl call him back "first thing in the morning."
    via u/WritesForDough42
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    Font - Carl was nice and would wait until 11 a.m. ET to give Brewton time to get settled in his own office. Until he decided he'd had enough. The day after Brewton's latest call, Carl went to his office extra early, got the information, and then promptly at 8:00 a.m., Carl called Brewton's house.
    via u/WritesForDough42
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    Font - A sleepy Brewton answered the phone and croaked, "Hello?" "Good morning, Brewton!" Carl all but hollered into the phone. "What time is it?" Brewton groaned. "It's 8:00," Carl said. "But it's 5:00 in the morning here."
    via u/WritesForDough42
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    Font - "Huh, so it is. I guess there's a three- hour time difference. But you said you wanted these answers first thing in the morning, and it's 8:00 here, so I thought I'd give you a call." Brewton never called past 5:00 p.m. again.
    via u/WritesForDough42
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    Font - Position_Extreme 1 day ago I did this all the time while I was a telecommunications engineer in Chicago. Sales teams got one freebie (plus a request to accommodate time zone differences), then for every 8:00 AM Eastern call they scheduled me for, I scheduled one for them at 4:00 PM Central. Same idea for the folks on the west coast.
    via u/Position_Extreme
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    Font - LaserGuided Polar Bear 21 hr. ago . I do something similar. I don't know if it is a national culture or a team culture thing, but this group in India I interact with is completely self centered about time differences.
    via u/LaserGuidedPolarBear
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    Font - try to schedule calls that are equidistant from the end of my day and the start of their day. It seems fair to me, I stay a little late and they get online a little early, but they almost always decline and propose a time that is around midnight for me.
    via u/LaserGuidedPolarBear
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    Font - So I just decline and propose a time that is around midnight for them. Often they decide they don't need the call anyway, which is just fine by me because they need me, I don't need them.
    via u/LaserGuidedPolarBear
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    Font - Arcticmarine 20 hr. ago Yeah, this has been my experience with teams in India as well. They are 100% unwilling to meet outside of their normal business hours. Good for them, I guess.
    via u/Arcticmarine
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    Font - A buddy of mine recently bailed on going out because he had an 11pm call with the team in India come up last minute, for something really visible to the VPs, and then the India team just no showed the call anyway.
    via u/Arcticmarine
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    Font - kmcdonaugh 13 hr. ago I just had this, except the group was IN THE SAME TIME ZONE AS ME. We have a major project going on, and for some reason this dude wants a meeting every Monday morning, to find out our plans for the week, AND a 5 pm meeting EVERY DAY to discuss what had been done during that day.
    via u/kmcdonaugh
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    Font - Unfortunately for him, I don't work for him. Showed my boss, and said I'm not doing that. My boss agreed and I never called in. The guy ended up changing it to 4:30 and then asked me to join. Sure thing, I now join every day at 4:30 and do the meeting in my car on my way home. It works out for both
    via u/kmcdonaugh
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    Font - of us, he gets me in his meeting, and I get home 30 minutes early but am still technically working until 5 because of his meeting.
    via u/kmcdonaugh
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    Font - grannygritz 23 hr. ago ● Many years ago I worked nights and my roommate worked days. I'd get home about 7am and go to bed as she was leaving for work. For some reason her boyfriend liked to call about 9am and wake me up to ask me to relay a message to my roommate when she got home.
    via u/grannygritz
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    Font - (This was way before answering machines). No matter how often I asked him not to or had her tell him not to call and wake me up, at least once or twice a week he'd call. One night I got home early...around 2am. Could not shake that wild hair out my a so at 3am I called his apartment. His roommate answered. His roommate was a great big boy. Not fat just BIG.
    via u/grannygritz
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    Font - I explained to Bob that Jeff kept calling me and waking me up and that starting that day every time Jeff called and woke me up at 9am, BOB could look forward to me calling and waking BOB up at 3am. Bob said he'd take care of it. Jeff never called me and woke me up again.
    via u/grannygritz

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boss new employee employee manager new-boss upper management workplace
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