9 to 5 employee declines work call at 10 PM, gets placed on performance improvement plan afterwards: 'I questioned whether there was any urgency'

Ally Perry • Writer and Editor

Jun 15, 2026 9:15 AM EDT

Is it acceptable for a company to expect constant availability from its employees?

The rise of hybrid working arrangements has been beneficial in a lot of ways, but one of its big downsides is that it leaves a lot of workers feeling like they can never truly clock out. When you can, technically speaking, do much of your job anytime and anyplace, it becomes easy for it to creep into the hours that you used to designate as not for work.

It goes without saying that certain managers and businesses will also try to take advantage of this theoretical permanent availability, making unreasonable demands that act as a test of an employee's dedication to a job. More often than not, this kind of thing is highly unfair, but it could be argued that this is exactly the point. Sometimes they want workers to perform as workaholics to satisfy the idea that they are getting value for money from their hire, and other times, they want to set them up to fail so they can punish them. Either way, it is an unpleasant situation to be in as an employee, even if you truly love and are good at your job.

via Curated Lifestyle (Unsplash+)

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In this story, a QA engineer was puzzled to be called by his team lead at 10 PM, asking if he was prepared to join a meeting in a few minutes. After establishing that there was no emergency, he declined the offer, as it was outside his normal working hours and he was otherwise occupied.
It seemed that this was the wrong move, as the next day, he was presented with a performance improvement plan by HR. He was confused, as he had always been praised for his good performance in his job. He wanted to know how he should act on this going forward.
Put on a PIP right after refusing a 10 PM work call. Looking for advice.

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