'At 5:00pm, I am leaving': Manager assigns "urgent" task 4:50pm to be completed by end of day, employee stands his ground

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Dec 2, 2024 4:00 PM EST

No one enjoys getting assigned a new task at work right before the end of the day. The reality of the matter is that most tasks can wait until tomorrow at that point, and if it cannot, then that's on management for holding off on assigning said task for so long.

This story serves as yet another example of how communication within a strict corporate hierarchy can lead to bad business. Here, we have an employee who was asked to complete a task at 4:50 pm that was evidently urgent. This would be frustrating on any given day, but the fact that this happened on the precipice of a long holiday weekend only makes it so much worse. Thankfully, this dude had enough self-confidence to stand his ground and inform his boss that he would not be staying late under any circumstances. That's what you get, management!

For more stories like this, check out this post about how management accused an employee of trying to sabotage the company.

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    12/ 93 19/
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    If a task is so urgent, do not assign it to someone at 4:50 PM if the workday ends at 5 PM.
    via CanadianDeathMetal
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    I will never understand why some managers pull this nonsense. If it was so freaking urgent, why couldn't this be assigned or notified earlier in the day. I am not staying late because you
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    cannot plan your sh accordingly. You may need it by end of day. But at 5PM. I am leaving and it will be finished tomorrow.
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    Don't assign tasks that late in the workday, especially if you know your employees are preoccupied with other tasks to work on.
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    "Urgency" is not a substitute for absentmindedness. The same applies for clients who respond to an email you sent earlier in the day at 4:58 PM, and expect an immediate response.
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    lunarteamagic • 14h ago . I work for a software company as part of the support team. We have a client that routinely emails
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    us at 4:50 ish and always says that this issue has been going on for days. But suddenly now it is always an emergency.
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    It will never make sense to me. Other than they like to feel the power... or control.
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    erikleorgav2 • 14h ago. It's like a new role that was forced on me. My workday ends at 3:30pm CST. If a work order shows up at 3:31,
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    I'm not clocking back in to process that. They're clearly perturbed that I'm not working extra/off the clock because the emails keep coming in.
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    XR171 13h ago I have a manager that's a workaholic. He'll change my schedule (job site and not working hours usually) after
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    hours. I put Outlook into Quiet Hours from 5PM-7AM. He's asked me a couple times why I don't respond and he's not happy about quiet hours.
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    JRago 13h ago . Failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.
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    . LurkerInTheDa... 13h ago I had a manager that did this purely as a power play. F those guys.
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    . error_accessin... • 12h ago Bad bosses boss badly. I had a bad boss, worked at a university as a sysadmin. He would do exactly this thing. Wait until about 30
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    min before close and start a task that should take weeks. One time he told me he needed our university to have a webmail portal by the end of the day (back when webmail was a brand-new thing).
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    Another time... So how university funding works is, any unspent grant money expires and the rest of it goes back to whomever gave it to you. So you hold
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    on to that money and are stingy with it, then when it's about to expire you blow it all. Often times there are restrictions about what you can purchase.
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    So I'm sitting at my desk, I hear the boss screaming my name across our entire facility. I come in and he's absolutely furious. I mean,
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    on a level I've never seen before, even from this dude who had some pretty serious anger issues. He says, "ERROR! I NEED YOU TO SPEND 40 THOUSAND DOLLARS BY THE END OF
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    THE DAY!!!!! AND I WANT A GOOD F PRICE ON WHATEVER IT IS!!!!!" I called my Sun rep (defunct server company) and told them I had 40k to spend and get me a quote by the end of the day that looks like a good deal-- just raise the MSRP to until it looks like a good deal.
    via CanadianDeathMetal

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