Man Gets Tired of Client Ignoring 3-Hour Time Zone Difference, So He Does the Same

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  • 01
    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.
  • 02
    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.
  • 03
    Handwriting - 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."
  • 04
    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.
  • 05
    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." "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.
  • 06
    Font - Position_Extreme 5d 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. ↑ G 1.1k
  • 07
    Font - grannygritz 5d 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. (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
  • 08
    Font - 91 Zoreb1 5d That's how you do it. : ↑ 2.4k
  • 09
    Font - Paerrin 5d The East Coast bias due to time zone differences is absolutely real. My last boss was a lifelong East coaster, while I am from the mountains of Colorado and currently live in Denver. On numerous occasions he would mention how the culture in Denver was too relaxed. The more I've thought on it, the more I'm convinced it was mostly due to the time zone difference. He hated that we weren't online the same time they were and would complain that he had to wait for someone. He saw it
  • 10
    Font - PunfullyObvious 5d Exactly what I would expect from a Brewton ... nicely handled ... exactly as I would expect from a Carl ... ㄅ分 313 凸 Û G
  • 11
    Font - Luke1521 5d When I worked 3rd shift my brother had a habit of calling around 3:00 P.M. when I was sound asleep, always apologized and then would do it again. I waited for his wife to be out of town and called him at 03:00 A.M. two nights in a row, he finally got the message.
  • 12
    Font - boogers19 5d This approach also work great for those daytime workers who can't comprehend that night workers need to sleep during the day. Wanna keep harassing me because you "need" someone to talk to on your lunch break? Fine. My lunch break is at 3am. Û ← 4 71 ↓

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