'Could’ve been a link in my calendar': Remote employee drives 2 hours to the office to attend a 'mandatory' briefing, then pays $12 for parking for a meeting that gets canceled at the last minute

Author image for Jesse Kessenheimer
Jesse Kessenheimer • Writer and Editor
Nov 5, 2025 9:00 AM EST

An office manager was wasting everyone's time, especially the remote employee, they forced to come to the "mandatory" meeting in person. But only after enduring 2 hours of hideous traffic, paying $12 for parking, walking 10 minutes through downtown, and buzzing in at the lobby did management decide to notify everyone that the meeting was actually cancelled. 

Thanks for the heads up, that would have been great to know a 5:45 AM before leaving the house this morning. 

Remote employees often get a bad reputation as haters of the office; however, that's not actually the case. What remote employees truly despise about office mentality is the colossal waste: Wasted time, wasted commutes, and ultimately wasted money at the hands of office culture. For folks who work well on their own, are self-motivated, and are technologically savvy, working from home grants all of the benefits of in-office productivity, from the convenience of home. Sure, we're wearing PJs on an average work day, but that's not stopping WFH employees from getting the same job done with greater efficiency, without all the hoopla of in-person meetings.

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  • Man on his phone driving in traffic
    via gustavo quiroga

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • They made me come in for a meeting that got canceled... while I was parking.
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  • I left my house at 6:30 AM for a "mandatory strategy session." Traffic was brutal. I paid for parking, walked five minutes to the office, and just as I was scanning my badge in, I got a Teams message:
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  • "Hey everyone, meeting postponed to next week. Just join remote if you're already in." So I turned around and drove back home.
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  • That's two hours of driving, $12 in parking, and one giant reminder that none of this needed to happen.
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  • I don't hate the office, I hate the waste. The time, the gas, the energy... for things that could've been a link in my calendar.
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  • Numerous_Shallo... I once was asked to attend an important meeting on a day I wouldn't normally be in the office. As an extra bonus my partner was away.
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  • So I was out of the house at 4am to walk the dogs then was in a taxi to the station at 5.30. Two trains and a tube and I'm in the right city but worried about being late
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  • so take another taxi to the office. I walk in at 8.30 (about 5 hours after getting up) to find the meeting cancelled. On top of 2 extra taxi journeys I'd also had to
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  • pay for someone to come in to check on the dogs/let them out for a pee so the whole thing cost me about £50 more than a regular day in the office, and I got home at 7.30pm so had 15 hour plus day. Champion.
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  • 128Spitfire ⚫ I was remote one week but my manager scheduled an in person 1:1. I drove 5 hours the night before to attend in person and he decided to work from home that day.
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  • cheeseburderedd... You have to pay to park at work? No wonder people hate their jobs
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  • Appropriate_Sky_... I once was forced onsite for a mandatory team meeting. Lunch was provided. My manager just brought Jersey mikes for everyone and all we talked about was
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  • her flowers in front of her house. Also we had a vegetarian in the group. Her sandwich was literally just bread and cheese
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  • rusty1066. Expense the gas and parking. Be specific as to why, get HR involved if pushback. Light 'em up.
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  • ledow⚫ I was once attending an interview and, while I was en-route, they changed the venue. By email only. Not just to a different room, but to a completley different site on the other side of town. 20 minutes before the interview was starting.
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  • It was only blind-luck that I'd pulled over to check directions and looked at my email for the address. I always leave early to arrive early for interviews anyway,
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  • so I still made it to the new location on time with a good 10 minutes to spare. No word of apology. Nothing.
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  • Then they made me sit and wait 30 minutes (no other candidate or even staff in sight) in a derelict waiting room (you seriously moved the venue TO here? The
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  • other place was LESS suitable?). Peeling paint, holes in the floor, holes in the furniture exposing the stuffing, etc. The place was empty. Nobody else around. Waited forever, way past the advertised starting time.
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  • Then one guy collected me and led me through - no exaggeration - a working men's toilets, out the other side (apparently the only way to access this particular
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  • room) and into the smallest cupboard of a room you've ever seen. Which was apparently the office I'd be working from. It stank.
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  • They introduced me to the actual interviewer. Two of them and one of me, there was NO ROOM. And there were cupboards on every wall, so you had to duck and mind your head and lean
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  • awkwardly forward, and be careful when you sat down to not bash your head, and then remember not to stand up too quickly. For all three of us.
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  • And then they decided to have the interview there. Not so much as a cup of tea, or a brief chat, nothing. Straight into questions.
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  • I'd already taken an instant dislike to the interviewer. Couldn't be bothered to introduce himself, couldn't be bothered to look at me, spent 20 minutes quizzing
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  • me on trivia from their corporate website - absolutely irrelevant to the job told me my answers were wrong, which I later proved that I'd actually got right! And then when I asked
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  • a clarifying question "I'm sorry, but this is the interview for <a senior management position>, right?" he basically exploded. I had to point out...
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  • you invited me to TWO interviews, for TWO different positions at the same place, on different times/days, you've already changed the details without warning once, and I just want to make sure
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  • we're on the same page here and that that hadn't been changed around or been confused with some other role because... the questions were utterly irrelevant and were going on for the ENTIRE interview time, and some more.
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  • The other guy calmed him down and we started again, but when I got another question "wrong" (and then showed him the website where it said what I'd answered, irrelevant as it still was!), he exploded again.
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  • I terminated the interview early, and never bothered to go back for the other one. The "nicer" guy (who basically had said nothing but a quick introduction and
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  • to try to calm the other guy down) led me out and apologised but you know what... it wasn't enough. I don't think anything could have been enough.
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  • There is no way, whatsoever, that I would have stood in that room as one of the interviewers and allowed that to happen unchecked, no matter what personal problems that other guy had
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  • (maybe he was being forced to hire his replacement, against his will, I don't know). I'd have made them leave the room, or taken the candidate elsewhere, and I'd have gone to senior management and got them to do something about that whole mess.
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  • Never even got an email or anything from anyone, nothing at all. Definitely dodged a bullet. Whoever had permitted that to occur, unchecked, without a word of apology or explanation... I would never, ever want to work with or for them anyway.
    via ledow

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