Employee forced to take the red-eye home, refuses to come to work the next day, leaving boss scrambling: 'I came back to work the following day to a flurry of emails'

Author image for Ben Weiss
Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Apr 16, 2025 2:00 PM EDT

Some work policies are so counterintuitive it's as if they are meant to be challenged. When it comes to traveling for work, nine times out of ten, most employees do not want to make the trip. Therefore, they deserve to have decent accommodations to make the time away from home and from family worth it. Of course, employees in high-ranking positions get that special treatment, but we're not talking about them. We're talking about folks who just want to get a decent rest while they're traveling thousands of miles to attend a few boring, unproductive meetings against their will.

In this instance, we have an employee who was pressured into taking the red-eye home after a brief business trip despite the fact that he had requested to spend one more evening at an $80/night hotel so that he could be well-rested for the trip home. He even suggested working using the airplane wifi during the flight the following day. However, his boss immediately assumed he was trying to waste company money, so his request was vehemently denied. That's when some good old-fashioned malicious compliance was necessary to prove his point.

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  • 01
    My work has been tightening the purse strings lately and I had one- day meeting on the west coast, flying in from east coast. so 5-6 hour flights and 3 hour time. difference. They said I could only
    via ZoiSarah
  • 02
    difference. They said I could only stay one night in a hotel the night before the meeting and must had a red-eye home the following evening.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 03
    "Work forces me to take a red eye home, which prevents me from working."
    via Unsplash+ (Alexander Mills)

  • This employee remembered a niche business policy that if he took a red-eye flight home from a business trip, he could take the subsequent day off. He brought this up to his boss, who clearly resented him for suggesting it but had no choice in the matter. Unfortunately for her, that meant losing an entire day of productivity not just from the author, but also from her!

  • 04
    I explained that if I stayed overnight a second night and got a good night's rest not only would I be likely to work that evening in the hotel but i could work on the 5- 6 hour flight the next day during regular business hours using airplane wifi. They blatantly
    via ZoiSarah
  • 05
    refused, saying they would not allow the expense of the second hotel night. So I reminded them about the policy that if you take a red eye, you are allowed off work the next day which they begrudgingly said "if you must".
    via ZoiSarah
  • 06
    So after meeting's end at 5pm pacific time I went to the airport and took the red eye. I didn't sleep on the plane because I was next to the bathroom and they could not do anything about the glaringly intrusive light nor did they have
    via ZoiSarah
  • 07
    sleep masks. So I roll into my house at 6am eastern having not slept in nearly 24 hours, take a shower and zonk out hard for the entire work day.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 08
    I came back to work the following day to a flurry of emails and tasks that my boss tried to do in my stead and how apparently her entire day yesterday was a cluster ☐ trying to deal with my stuff. I reminder her that an $80
    via ZoiSarah
  • 09
    hotel stay could have avoided a far more costly loss of an entire day's productivity for her. They agreed to not force me to do the red-eye again.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 10
    as a quick side story on how disjointed my work is with their new strict money rules, i was allowed a rental car during that trip so like $45 total for the day. My
    via ZoiSarah
  • 11
    coworker was allowed the second night hotel stay but was absolutely refused allowance for a rental car. so she ended up spending $130+ each way for a taxi.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 12
    SaphiraStorm Had a similar experience, but in reverse... Meetings at corporate GQ are usually like 1000 to 1600, and usually all topics even remotely interesting could be covered within 2-3 hours. To get there from my usual work location, I need to take
    via ZoiSarah
  • 13
    the 0600 flight. It's only about 60 minutes of flying time, so I usually arrive far too early, but the next flight afterwards arrives too late to get to the meetings on time using public transport, which I'm obliged to use. On the way back, I got a similar problem with the afternoon flight leaving at 1700 (impossible
    via ZoiSarah
  • 14
    to catch from a meeting that finishes at 1600) or waiting for the evening flight at 2130. As travelling time is paid like working time, one of those effing meetings gets me 17 hours on my time sheet, and after the mandatory (legal) 12h. cutoff, it's still 12hrs for less than 6hrs of actual work.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 15
    I repeatedly asked to move these meetings forward by one hour so my flights would be perfectly synchronised, but hey, they are HQ and I'm just a worker bee, so who cares...
    via ZoiSarah
  • 16
    Next, I asked for the agenda on those meetings to be optimised so the relevant topics were grouped around noon, which would have made it possible to arrive late and leave early to catch tge late morning / early evening plane. No, I am supposed to be there for the whole meeting.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 17
    Lastly, asked for permission to use a taxi from the airport, enabling me to save 2hrs by using the later connection for a surcharge of just 40€ compared to public transport. Nope, regulations state clearly employees have to use public transport.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 18
    After the last request, received a rather unfriendly mail from corporate HR reminding me to follow the rules.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 19
    Cheezburger Image 10493920512
    via Unsplash+ (Ahmed)

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • 20
    After this, I followed all the rules. Took the 0600 flight, starting the clock upon arrival at the airport at 0500. Took public transport to HQ, spent my time drinking tea until meetings start, then participated in the meeting until the end. On my way to the airport, as soon as it's 1700 (12 hours after the beginning of the working day), I
    via ZoiSarah
  • 21
    am legally obliged to interrupt any travel activity, e. g. boarding an airplane, and find accommodation to spend the night... so unfortunately on this particular public transport routing, there were nothing but 4*+ hotels...
    via ZoiSarah
  • 22
    which my employer had to pay for. During my mandatory rest period, I obviously could not be expected to cancel or change my flight ticket to the next day, as doing so would be work related activity... and the next day, my employer got to pay for an extra one-way plane ticket as the old one had expired (what a shame) plus the travel time and the way to my usual workplace.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 23
    After a few iterations of this (with a 1300€ price tag each, including hours paid but not worked), I received permission to use a taxi and to leave these meetings early...
    via ZoiSarah
  • 24
    ZoiSarah OP I always hate the social requirement to attend entire meetings just to be a face in the room. My portion of my west coast travel involved an hour of my attention. It was nice to socialize during lunch and put faces to names but otherwise I was just a body in a room for 6-7 hours.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 25
    Nevermind04. Lol, my boss just got flown from Dallas to Philly for a two hour meeting because the CFO confused him with someone else in the company with a similar name and demanded that he attend in person rather than dial the conference call. My boss called
    via ZoiSarah
  • 26
    him to explain and didn't even get a chance to speak because the CFO was ranting about how unprofessional it was to call in rather than to go to the meeting.
    via ZoiSarah
  • 27
    That's business class both ways with wifi access and refreshments, transportation to the airport, to the meeting, to the airport again, he ate dinner while waiting for the flight, then transportation back to the office to get his car. He got 5
    via ZoiSarah
  • 28
    hours of overtime, they probably spent close to $2k, and got absolutely no work done that day because of a powertipping man child. Sometimes corporate life is hilarious. But mostly not.
    via ZoiSarah

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