Boss requires employee to be in-person 9 hours a day, employee complies by staying within set hours: 'Guess this means I’m excused from all these morning meetings now'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Jan 24, 2025 8:00 AM EST

Arbitrary rules at work certainly have their way of exposing larger flaws. This can become especially apparent when it comes to rules and expectations regarding in-person or hybrid work. Of course, depending on one's role, there is value in collaboration among teams, and sometimes that kind of communication can only be fruitful on a face-to-face basis.

However, there are obvious situations in which that kind of in-person collaboration does not apply. For instance, if your team, coworkers, and employers do not work out of the same office location and are all remote themselves, there is not exactly much of a point in commuting all the way to the office, only to remain behind a computer screen the whole time. One can hardly call that any more collaborative than working from home.

Here's one employee's story of having to deal with full-time in-person work while also standing up for herself in the process. 

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    600X400mm HEGDETARA 熱那风口16000X15C 250x200mm
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • This team leader was told she had to suddenly work nine hours a day in the office. She tried to explain to her supervisor that this would be a difficult commitment given that she has children and does not live close to the office, but her supervisor only “helped” by providing her with three potential nine-hour windows she could choose from for her set work hours. Thanks for the help, I guess!

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    Just got told that it's mandatory that I return in-person to the office Tuesday through Thursday and that I MUST be there in person for 9 hours.
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    Mind you, 95% of my meetings are on Teams and all my work is done on a laptop. Boss gave me three options for my business hours.
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    A) 8am-4pm B) 9am-5pm C) 10am-6pm The first option is off the table as I drop my school age kids at school promptly at 8 AM. I also
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    ride public transport to work which takes an hour so the earliest I could really be there is 10AM. Mind you, I have three important meetings that start before 10AM including some at 7AM due to the global nature of work. I rarely have meetings after 2PM.
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  • Thankfully, this employee had the confidence to stand up for herself and decide that if she's going to go through with this, then she would no longer take all the last-minute meetings outside of her set work hours even with the time zone differences she has with some of her coworkers and bosses. Power to her!

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    Guess this means I'm excused from all these morning meetings now as she wants my cheeks in an office seat to work. No more meetings on the go and being flexible to other's needs. Thanks boss! ETA: I'm a salaried employee and exempt from overtime.
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    throwaway47138 · 41m ago Make sure you send out an email to everybody informing them of your new office hours and that you will no longer be available for meetings outside of those hours. Bonus points if you can work in something like,
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    "If you have any questions about my new hours, please address them to <boss>." Double bonus points if one of the people that you have a legitimate need to inform is your boss's boss...
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    RaichuGirl • 44m ago None of those would be 9 hours in the office. They're all 8 hours.
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    fun4taz • 43m ago Amazing that management can't see what the outcome of their discussions made only to toss some power around will not work out for them in the long run. People will always find ways to thwart the unreasonable rules placed upon them.
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    Princess-Donutt • 43m ago Those are 8 hour shifts. Have you communicated with your boss know about those 3 important meetings prior to 10AM and the problems a rigid schedule creates?
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    RivaTNT2M64 37m ago . It's kind of an obvious power flex with a topping of boss having no real understanding of your work or the timings.
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    Only thing I can say is - CYA! If there's a power flex running on such ignorance, chances are high that when things fall apart, you will be blamed. Get everything on email where it's clear that
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    the boss is the one who specified the timings. To fully cover yourself, I recommend a passive query if the boss is sure about the timings considering your
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    responsibilities. Trick is make the boss think its a 'whine' from you, not a grenade with a pulled pin.
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    Once the 'do as you're told' aka 'I know best' email arrives, agree with minimal resistance to sooth the ego.
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    Then you do what you always do inside the hours specified. And go home and admire the metaphorical pin... >:-)
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  • Several members of the online community praised the employee for refusing to back down in this situation.

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    Boss_B 18m ago Drafting an email to boss letting her know that I can only work 10-6 and that I won't be able to attend her 8am meeting and will need to ask the other two people to either move their meetings or meet with me separately for updates from me.
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    6poundpuppy · 41m ago Hope boss gets a boat load of complaints about lack of flexibility and it bites them in HARD! the
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    jimbobedidlyob • 28m ago Buy a faraday blanket and lay it over the computer at work intermittently so you are more reliably connected from home.
    via Boss_B****_Werk

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workplace-stories employee work stories toxic-workplace job work overworked-employees Horrible Bosses reddit thread Reddit company toxic-work-environment
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