Manager texts employee at midnight to cover a shift, threatens their career when they ignore it

Should you always be around to answer a work text?

Some people would tell you no, and some would tell you yes. It depends on the job. If you have a high-stakes one, your phone might be on all the time, ready to field info. But in those situations, you probably want to have an especially hard boundary around your personal time. When your phone is off, it's off. But for the rest of us, we don't really need to be on call. Maybe if you can pick up a shift when someone asks, you're willing to do that for a good manager or a friendly coworker. But you don't need to be bending over backwards just to answer some work texts when you're on your personal time. Personal time is everything, and you want to protect it with all your might.

via Kev Costello

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My manager texts at midnight and acts like ignoring it makes you a bad employee.

via FARHANFREESTYLER
via FARHANFREESTYLER
Commenters gave their takes and reactions to this.

via anneonnymous
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Your personal time is your personal time, and you should be wary of letting anyone interrupt that. You need your time to decompress, and if that takes turning your phone all the way off, then so be it. You should be able to do that for your own sanity. But managers don't always see it that way. Sometimes they see it as a ticket out of responsibility, which is something they would probably frown upon. You don't want to be known as a slacker, but you also have every right to protect your peace and do whatever you can to make yourself happy. That's what the employee in this story tried to do when they ended up in an annoyingly common situation. Their boss was hitting them up for work far past the hour when it would have been appropriate. So they had no choice but to just ignore it. That's the advice that we're getting all the time: just ignore the things you can ignore. But what if that has rippling consequences in your professional life? What if you're constantly being asked to break your own rules? Keep reading to see what happened here and see what you think about it.
via Tim Mossholder

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