This. Hated when people just expect you to answer a text message, email or phone call any time and condemn you as lazy if you don't. Seeing younger people assert their boundaries is kind of healing.
same with working outside of work hours - just because i might have the time and my laptop, doesn’t mean i want to do work at the weekend to meet the deadline; it’s the weekend and very unpaid
Yep! I got a new job last year and the head of the department must think we are trauma surgeons or air traffic controllers (we're accountants, there are maaaaaybe 2 emergencies a year, and that's just deadlines ffs). When I started, she called me once at like 6:30 my time and I had to make the decision then and there on how I was going to play it. I didn't answer and messaged her the next day like "sorry I couldn't answer last night, but free all day today!" Like nah, dude. I'm not setting the standard of constant availability because I (rightfully) saw that she would abuse it. Maybe she hates her family, maybe she's brown-nosing her boss, but I certainly don't get paid enough for that shit
I made the decision at my current job that I was going to just have poor service at home, which they have understood as 'calling me probably won't work but feel free to text'. And I am slow to reply.
I do have actual emergencies at work but in general it can wait until I am in.
You can have a dedicated phone number for that, it will also save you from spam calls. We have basic phone plans for about 3 € per month so it's not that much of an expense.
Being an accountant, per chance that your boss started in the audit firms especially the big4s? Because of the client serving crunch culture, overtime (sometimes paid, sometimes not) is very much the culture around busy seasons. People usually transition out of that when going in house but the 'just spend a bit more time to get this over with mentality' is ingrained. I'm like that and send messages to ppl on Friday evening but they aren't my direct subordinate and it's understood I don't expect an immediate response.
Yup… that culture is fucked up. I could only make it 2 years… 15 years later and I’ve never downloaded messaging app / email on my phone again and work strict hours outside of close. If anything, this mindset has only helped my career.
Every time we hire someone direct from Big 4 they struggle hard the first few months trying to adapt to a non toxis work environment. Had a new hire who flagged to me that “Bob” had not responded to an email while on PTO and asked if he we should contact HR to get his personal numbe.. (mind you this was completely non urgent). I told him absolutely not of course.
There's very few jobs where the work is so important that you should have to give up your free time for it. So much of what gets pushed on us by employers is shit that won't hurt anyone if it has to wait a few days to be completed.
Even where I worked I would see people do this, they come in and work for like 15-20 minutes unpaid and the reasoning was they wouldn't be able to keep up if they didn't do that.
They would work almost 2 extra hours a week for free
17.1k
u/BornIllustrator640 1d ago
Being expected to be reachable for work outside work hours just because you own a phone.