Boss schedules a meeting at 6:30 AM on employee's first day of work after 2 weeks off, reschedules meeting for next week at 6:29 AM: 'They're 3 hours ahead of me, so it's a comfortable 9:30 AM their time.'

Author image for Emmy Pratt
Emmy Pratt • Writer and Editor
Jan 8, 2026 8:00 AM EST

They should at least have the decency to cancel the meeting more than a minute before it was scheduled.  

It's not always easy to schedule meetings when half of your team is halfway across the world. If you have a meeting with participants on three different continents, one of the participants might have to wake up earlier than they'd ever want to, the other participant likely has to log onto their Zoom much later than regular working hours, and the luckiest of the bunch gets to have a cozy afternoon meeting. Everyone would prefer to meet during regular working hours, but you can't control the sands of time!

One of the most essential things about scheduling meetings at weird times is ensuring that all participants know about it before it happens. It's not best practice to schedule a meeting for 7 AM at midnight the night before, because attendees might be asleep when the meeting is scheduled and still asleep when it starts. It's essential to give employees sufficient time to prepare for meetings before putting them on the calendar. 

One of the worst offenses in meeting etiquette is canceling a meeting five minutes before it starts. If an employee takes the time to wake up and get to the office early, just for their boss to cancel the meeting that was supposedly mandatory, they might start to feel like their boss doesn't respect their time, and they'd be right! Their boss probably wouldn't be pleased if that happened the other way around. 

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  • Young Asian woman suffering from toothache dental care and health concept
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

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

  • The employee in this story had a terrible first day back at work after having been off for two weeks. She was asked to attend a 6:30 AM meeting, and was fully prepared to do so. That was until her boss canceled the meeting literally one minute before it started.

  • I hate corporate with all of my heart

    Today was my first day back at work in over 2 weeks. While I was on vacation someone from Corporate scheduled a meeting at 6:30am my time that I only caught when looking at my schedule last night. They're 3
    via u/InfiniteOxfordComma
  • hours ahead of me so it's a comfortable 9:30am their time. I look at the meeting invite and I see a bunch of muckity-mucks on the invite so I quietly resign myself to getting up early today. I get up, grab a coffee, and start
    via u/InfiniteOxfordComma
  • settling in. At exactly 6:29am I get a meeting reschedule notice pushing it to next week. FUCK THESE CORPORATE FUCKING FUCKS.
    via u/InfiniteOxfordComma
  • Tired businesswoman take off glasses and nose bridge
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

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

  • GenXMillenial As someone not in the main time zone of the higher ups (or most of them) 100 agree with OP. It's so disrespectful and I have had it happen too; hate it.
    via u/GenXMillenial
  • OP InfiniteOxfordComma See, and I don't mind getting up early too much; I know and can appreciate how hard it is to line up a bunch of execs' schedules. For me it was scheduling it that early the first working day of the year AND rescheduling it with 1 minute of notice. These soulless motherfuckers.
    via u/InfiniteOxfordComma
  • kirashi3 > "Sorry, I was on vacation and did not see this until I got in this morning" is all you have to say. Even better: if OP had their calendar event times / titles visible across the org, OP doesn't even need to apologize. It's not OP's fault nor responsibility to ensure people use the Scheduling Assistant (or equivalent, if not using M365/ Outlook) when booking meetings. If they did, they would have seen OP was both on vacation and that 0630 hrs was an unreasonable time to book a meeting
    via u/kirashi3
  • OP InfiniteOxfordComma 100% I had an automatic "out of office" message set up and my calendar availability in Outlook starts at 0700. They couldn't give less of a fuck about my time despite knowing my input is REQUIRED to make a decision in said meeting.
    via u/InfiniteOxfordComma
  • colorsensible Working on the west coast sucks. Starting the day with all the east coast notifications piled up, finishing the day with all the west coasters still online that have deadlines
    via u/colorsensible
  • OP InfiniteOxfordComma Sadly I've had worse in my career. While still living on the West Coast, at my former employer | used to have to regularly deal with our office in Europe. They were primed with lunch and their 4th coffee by the time I logged on in the morning.
    via u/InfiniteOxfordComma
  • Colleagues in office talking and having fun friends working together
    via Getty Images (Unsplash+)

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

  • CrnkyOL Did they not get an 000 message when they sent the meeting request?
    via u/CrnkyOL
  • OP InfiniteOxfordComma Yep, sure did.
    via u/InfiniteOxfordComma
  • sksauter Reschedule it for 4:30 in the afternoon, your time.
    via u/sksauter
  • Swiftraven I don't attend any meetings that are outside my working hours. Doesn't matter what mucking mucks are in it. In this specific situation, "Sorry, I was on vacation and did not see this until I got in this morning" is all you have to say.
    via u/Swiftraven
  • The_Big_Kahuna_ Why would you check it when you're not on the clock. That's on you fam.
    via u/The_Big_Kahuna_
  • Early_Gold Stop looking at work at night.
    via u/Early_Gold
  • LimJaheyAtYaCervix I'm sooooo glad my job is 2hrs behind me. I start at 9am my time and most of my company starts at 11am so I never have to get up early for meetings. They're also courteous enough to rarely have a meeting past 4pm their time (6pm my time/end of shift) except for in emergency situations.
    via u/LimJaheyAtYaCervix
  • Nopenotme77 I don't look at emails while on vacation. I also have assigned hours and that's when I login. Don't check emails while on vacation.
    via u/Nopenotme77

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