Supervisor demands analyst complete report unpaid on a Saturday, analyst logs in just to CC the VP of the company in his reply—supervisor gets reprimanded, analyst gets 3 hours pay: 'After that, no one ever tried calling me outside of working hours'

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Brad Dickson • Managing Editor
Aug 24, 2026 11:15 AM EDT

Working from home blurs the line between what is work and what is the employee's personal life. This skew in work-life balance can have knock-on effects on the rest of your life if you're not careful. But how do you handle these types of situations? 

Well, CCing an upper manager who has a handle on these types of things should do the trick. This does, of course, rely on there being some leader in the organization with their head screwed on straight. 

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  • 01
    The analyst works from home, logging in to answer the supervisor's demands.
    via Samuel Bourke

    The analyst works from home, logging in to answer the supervisor's demands.

    Not actual story subjects.

  • Being that go-to person in your workplace has many benefits. For one, well, when the company falls on hard times, and you watch others being laid off. You know that as long as sanity prevails, your reputation and usefulness will keep your name off the list.

    On the other hand, the workplace can become overly reliant on you over time. Resulting in a situation where you have to be available pretty much at all times. This is basically like being on-call at all times without any of that extra pay. Just so that you can sort out whatever problem it is you're good at solving when one pops up. Just so the leaders feel comfortable that you're serving your special purpose and, well, you get to keep your job.

    But, as that line between your work and your life blurs and erodes, you'll find things increasingly less tolerable. And you might find yourself wondering if this is worth it after all.

    Any one of us who was in this situation of existing in this working purgatory found things a lot worse in 2020. Now, working from home full time in a job that wasn't explicitly remote. With leaders' anxiety amid all the newness and uncertainty. The expectations they created. Making situations where now there wasn't even a blurred line when it came to work-life balance. You were pretty much just working all the time.

    Having good, confident, strong leaders who can convey this to their staff is no small thing. Which is why the VP in this story is such a standout for his willingness to draw a line in the sand for his staff.

    Want me to reply to an email, even though I’m off? Sure!

    Story Source: ITNW1993


    This systems analyst, like a lot of the world post-2020, worked from home full time. He worked as a non-exempt worker, meaning he would earn pay and overtime for any work that he did over 40 hours. You can probably tell already where this is going. The VP of the company had expressly forbidden staff from doing unpaid work. So, when his supervisor repeatedly called and texted him on a Saturday demanding a report, he logged in to reply and copied the VP into the email.

    So, this is from a while back, on one of my old jobs as a systems analyst. This was during the height of the p*ndemic, so we were all WFH at the time. I worked as a non-exempt employee, meaning I did my 40 hours Monday to Friday, and overtime for any work over that.

     

    Our VP at the time, when we were getting ready to lug all our stuff home once lockdown was announced, made sure to remind us that unless we were exempt we were not to answer any work-related emails, texts, or calls outside of our work hours and said that if anyone tried to give us grief over that, to let him know. He was a good bean, that VP.

     

    For some background, I was the main analyst for our systems, and I was also the main guy to reach out to for reports and things like that. Most of the folks knew how to run basic reports and export them to Excel, but the more complicated ones I was one of probably only two in the company who knew how to really make them.

     

    Anyway, a few weeks into lockdown, a supervisor, who worked at a different city, emailed me asking for a report on a Saturday morning. After not getting an answer from me, being off work that I was, they decided to call my phone instead. 

     

    I ignored it the first time, but they seemed pretty determined to reach out to me, and called me a second and third time, before sending me a text demanding that I stop being unprofessional, get on my work PC, and answer their email. I decided, f** it, they want a reply, I'll get them that reply.

     

  • 02
    Working from home has its upsides and downsides when it comes to work-life balance.
    via Borja Verbena

    Working from home has its upsides and downsides when it comes to work-life balance.

    Model portrayal.

  • So I boot up my PC, open the email, and without running the report or anything, just hit Reply and CC my VP. I wrote something along the lines of "Hi supervisor, per VP, I'm not supposed to be working, or even answering emails, on weekends. Waiting for approval from VP to run this report." I send that off, and left my work PC running because I already knew there was going to be a sh**storm incoming.

    This is, in office culture, a pretty big deal. CCing in someone higher up the chain just to make a statement is like going all in on a hand of Texas hold 'em. Basically, it's the type of thing you only do when you know you're going to win. It's 100% going to cause an escalation one way or the other.

    In this case, the VP stepped in right away and set things straight. It resulted in the analyst getting paid 3 hours of overtime just for logging in. And the supervisor got reprimanded, avoiding the analyst at all costs going forward.

    Less than ten minutes later, I get a separate email from my VP, telling me to hold off on the report and asking if he could call me, with him clarifying that him calling me would constitute overtime and that I would be paid for it. 

     

    Well, I wasn't doing anything that day anyway, so I tell him to go ahead, and he called me up, asking what report this was about and if I'd already started working on it. I told him not yet, but that supervisor seemed pretty pressed about receiving it as soon as possible. 

     

    He asked if supervisor reached out to me on my phone, and I confirmed. He asked me to send him the texts and to not worry about running the report, then told me to turn off my PC and enjoy the rest of my weekend.

    You love to see leaders like this. It's just a shame that they seem to be so few and far between.

    Monday morning, I open my PC to a sternly-written email from VP sent to all supervisors, with me in CC, tersely reminding everyone that I was non-exempt, and that under no circumstances was anyone to reach out to me outside of my working hours, and that if they needed anything, to reach out to him first, and he would determine if it was important enough to have me do outside of normal business hours.

     

     Come next payday, I did see an additional 3 hours of overtime on my paycheck, which was nice, because the entire thing only happened over an hour or so.

     

    After that, no one ever tried calling me outside of working hours; only my VP did, and only ever on extenuating circumstances, and every time he always made sure that I was paid at least 2 hours of overtime each time, even if it was just a report that took me like 30 minutes to run.

     

    As for the supervisor, they didn't get fired, but from what I heard from the grapevine was that they got a pretty nasty dressing down from the VP over their behavior, and sure enough, on one of our weekly Zoom calls that week, they looked really subdued and avoided speaking to me directly the entire time.

  • 03
    OnlyPaperListens I would follow that VP from job to job
    via ITNW1993
  • 04
    slash_networkboy Reminds me of my most glorious OT assignment ever. I was asked to get on a plane, fly to Italy (from California) and pick up a wafer, then fly back to California. I told them I didn't think I was the right person for the job. They asked if I had a passport, yes... "then you're the right person for the job". (mind you I made sure this was in emails. I pointed. out I was a tech and not an engineer, even if I was doing engineering work.)
    via ITNW1993
  • 05
    Well. I drove out of my way to "tag in" at the office (opposite direction from the airport) as this would unambiguously start the clock for my upcoming work shift. to the nearest hour: • drive to airport 1hr • wait for flight (remember rules are to get there at least 2 hours early) 2 hr . Fly to SFO 2hr layover 4hr fly SFO to JFK 6hr
    via ITNW1993
  • 06
    layover 3hr • JFK to ROM 8h • sit at ROM waiting for return flight (never left the international terminal, person was there with the wafer in a case for me to pick up. Gate crew was confused as I was literally reboarding the plane I just got off of ) 2h • ROM to JFK 8h . layover 12h • JFK to SFO 6h
    via ITNW1993
  • 07
    layover 1h • SFO to home 2h • Drive back to office 1h 56 hours. first 8 was straight pay next 4 was OT after that was double time.
    via ITNW1993
  • 08
    over 100 hours of straight pay for that trip. The timecard app couldn't even handle it because it couldn't do more than 24h in a day, and remember this was a *single* shift. There was soooo00 much h I to pay... but not by me, as I had receipts both literal for the food I bought, and figurative (those emails).
    via ITNW1993
  • 09
    hkusp45css This is how I lead my teams in the various orgs. I protect my employee's time. We don't do "on call" and if we need coverage, we need staff, period. Nobody calls my team but me, for anything. My XO and CEO have my back. I've been in the industry too long and seen too many abuses to be a part of perpetuating it.
    via ITNW1993
  • 10
    My teams make me look great. The very least I can do is make sure they're not overworked and paid for anything they're actually and genuinely required to work and left the f alone, otherwise. I don't even allow staff to contact my folks directly for problem resolution. All collaboration needs to be done in the ticket, or on a scheduled meeting which the tech intiates, because written comms have broken down. Again, I have buy in from leadership, which means it actually works.
    via ITNW1993
  • 11
    Hairy Dust4826 I mean, I would've just ignored it til Monday but that works way more. Enjoy your weekends!
    via ITNW1993
  • 12
    ReallyNotALlama My first non-exempt tech job, I got paid a 2-hour minimum if I was called, and 4 hours if I had to go in. Early '90s.
    via ITNW1993
  • 13
    Poh-Tay-To The more I read about stories like this the more I'm glad that our government enshrined in law our right to disconnect from work outside of contracted hours Your VP is a good'un
    via ITNW1993
  • 14
    Alterkaka In some states you can't be paid for less than 2 hours in a day.
    via ITNW1993
  • 15
    Zoreb1 Was the report really that important it had to be received on Saturday? I'm guessing not and it was more for supervisor's convenience.
    via ITNW1993
  • 16
    BugginsAndSnoo Marry him! Ok, maybe not, but spealing as an ex- organizational coach and consultant, I can confirm that is exactly what good management looks like. Respect for everyone.
    via ITNW1993
  • 17
    Sir_Badtard I had a director who I worked under for three years who was very similar. Always reminded us family comes first. This place is a sh hole and it'll be a sh hole when our personal situation is taken care of. He got abruptly fired for basically telling the CEO to his face how he felt about the company. The company wide email said he resigned but it was probably more mutual than anything.
    via ITNW1993
  • 18
    Well about six months later he called me to offer me a position at his new company with about a 20% raise and more vacation time. Ten years later we have done some pretty great things together that I'm proud of.
    via ITNW1993
  • 19
    Sh he invited me and my wife to his son's wedding, and visited us in the hospital when our youngest was born and spent a week in NICU.
    via ITNW1993
  • 20
    steveamsp Some times, stuff really DOES need to get done over the weekend. Not all the time, by any stretch of the imagination, but it does happen. The VP here seemed to have a pretty good grasp on that concept.
    via ITNW1993

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toxic-workplace malicious compliance work life office culture workplace organizational behavior work-life balance Reddit malicious compliance reddit
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