Manager Tells Employee It’s “Unethical” To Make Plans After Work, So They Took It Up With The Director

The “people don’t want to work” argument we’ve seen in the last few years has sparked quite the conversation about workplace expectations.

A healthy work-life balance is important to employees, and so is having clear and fair expectations for employees. If you want me to stay late, you’re gonna have to pay me.

Some places don’t seem to understand this. In a recent story posted to the subreddit r/antiwork, one employee had a particularly frustrating situation after his boss said told him that having plans 20 minutes after work was “unethical.” 

We’ve shared the full story below.

The employee recently posted online about his manager’s unrealistic expectations for office hours

“I was told that having plans 20 minutes after my work hours was ‘unethical'”

Pretty much the title. Last week my direct manager decided to schedule a meeting at 4:15 pm on Friday, which already in itself seemed bitchy af, but then when the meeting ended up taking over 45 minutes, I told her “I am sorry, but I do have plans right after this so I have to go”, she decided to go on a rant about how we should always leave the hour after work free in case we are needed and how even though our work hours are 9-5, it is really more like 8-6 in case we need to do extra stuff.

I honestly could not help but laugh (I muted myself since we were on zoom) and then I told her that unfortunately, I had to go since my schedule does say I end at 5 and I am entitled to do whatever I want with my free time. We are supposed to continue the meeting tomorrow on Monday morning, and I am lowkey hoping my director (her boss) hops on just to see if she will bring this up because my director is actually really chill about this whole thing. As long as we get our work done, he does not care what hours you work or what time.

After writing their original post, OP updated readers on the situation

EDIT 1: WOW. Ok, so I did not expect the story to blow up the way it did LOL. Thanks to everyone who commented and thanks for the silver! So a couple of you were asking me to update you on this since I did mention I had the meeting this morning with her. So I just got off that meeting, and both her and my director showed up (my director was not aware of this situation, he joined because he wanted input on a project we are working on).

So I could tell that she was not planning on bringing it up to avoid problems with him, so I said fuck it and when the meeting was almost over I said “by the way, I would like some clarification on something. I was informed on Friday that my hours should be 8-6 rather than 9-5. I just want to make sure that this was stipulated in writing and that I will be properly compensated for it.” When I tell you my director was shook lol. He had no idea where I was coming from and all my manager could say was “we can set up a meeting to discuss this later”. So at least my director is aware of the situation. Now we just wait.

His manager kept defending herself, but he wasn’t having it

EDIT 2: So since a lot of people are invested in this story, I guess I will see it through to the end lmao. My manager just sent me a message asking if we can have a phone call in about an hour. She didn’t say much but she did make sure to tell me “I wish you would have brought this up with me before bringing it before him, because I was not prepared”. Which I found hilarious since she was the one that randomly brought it up last week. Let’s see if I still have a job in a couple of hours LMAO.

EDIT 3: so as many have requested, this is the update after I had that call with my manager. She started by asking me why did I feel the need to bring it up in front of the director and how this was more of a manager-to-employee deal. So at that point, I decided that I rather just get everything documented, so I told her if we are going to have this discussion, I rather have it in writing and with my director involved.

She kinda just said how she felt I was undermining her authority, but she said she was willing to let it go. I told her I would still rather have this all documented just to make sure all my duties were set in stone. So she said she would schedule a meeting with her, me, and my director. So I guess we shall see where it goes from here lol. Might not update for a while depending on when she schedules this meeting since we are pretty busy this week, but we shall see.

OP concludes the story with a final update

EDIT 4: This will probably be the last update I do on this since it’s gotten kind of wild lol. So after that phone call with my manager in which I told her I would rather have a meeting with my director included, she ended up setting one up and I pretty much got my director up to speed on everything.

He agreed with me that we should not be expected to work 50 hours unless documented and specified and that anything outside of 9-5 is none of the company’s business with regards to their employees. My manager then followed up by apologizing about the way she worded things (bs lol) and how she should not have expected me to pretty much work an extra hour every day just “in case”.

She then proceeded to say that if she ever needs me to stay extra, she will make sure it is properly documented and I am given notice. So at least, for now, I have made sure that my manager does not expect me to work over my 40 hours. That is enough for me to just call it a day on this and move on. I will definitely be wary of my manager in case there is any further retaliation, but I think, for now, I should be good.

Commenters criticized his manager and the unfair expectations many workplaces have

h/t: BoredPanda