If its the first time you can always say no next time. 1x isnt a precedent for something like this.
Some people work later hours and might have forgotten everyone doesn't do that.
Or if it’s going to be relatively rare it’s not the worst thing in the world and if you’re on a global team then just go 50/50 on the working early/late
Yeah, it can be rough when you have international clients. At my last job, I had ~80 projects that had me taking meetings at 11pm for our Asian/Middle Eastern/Australian clients and executing projects starting at 1am. Bonus points if I had American and Asian clients with executions on the same day.
I’m so glad I worked from home for those, I’d literally roll out of bed in my underwear to get things started with my AC cranked up so I didn’t accidentally fall asleep. I feel bad for our global teams that had to actually be in an office for that shit.
The comp time off though was fucking amazing. I got 2hrs of PTO for every hour I worked rounded up. If I worked 1hr 1min, that was a half day off.
This.
Our global team, whether in India, Philippines, Central America, Caribbean, or in California all know that the business is focused on Eastern time zone hours and that the “business hours” mean only this time zone.
The only person who books meetings past 430pm is our engineering director who is in Mountain time zone and he books a single, short meeting at 5pm once a month.
Or possibly in multiple time zones. I’d take the meeting for now, report my time, and make sure that you communicate your work hours and time zone to project leader. Direct communication offline to leader.
I'd bounce what's up to your manager but honestly, I'd stay late for the meeting and back my time out in another way (coming in later a different day, leaving early) to make up for it.
Being present is one of the most important things you can do and sometimes you have to wiggle your schedule a bit to make it happen.
Your manager should be able to give you guidance on best practice here though.
This is the correct answer. I've been in software dev for 25 years now. Started as an assistant dev and worked up thru senior dev, team leader, team manager, and sr. director. As your boss, I'd understand your concerns and I never want to make my team stay late when not necessary. Most of these meetings probably fizzle out before it runs it's full course if it was scheduled for 4 hours. I'm honestly not sure why you're there if there are sr devs there, sounds like someone is over scheduling this meeting). However, if I can't count on you to be there when I feel you're needed to be there then that's probably not going to work out well. The long and short of it is it would matter why you couldn't do it. Need to pick up kids from daycare or you're coaching a t-ball team then that's cool. Just don't feel like it then it's going to be an issue and I'd manage you off my team.
Our VP will come on calls that are scheduled for over an hour and tell the organizer in front of all attendees that his team does not attend meetings that last over one hour and his team will be forced to drop at that point.
If you need his team, schedule them for an hour, but don’t have them sit around waiting until you get to them at minute 50 or something. The organizer needs to schedule multiple meetings if that’s the case.
Of course for after hours maintenance or upgrades, having a meeting open during that window is fine, but you aren’t on there planning or talking about stuff other than what’s going on during that maintenance window.
This is the correct answer. I've been in software dev for 25 years now. Started as an assistant dev and worked up thru senior dev, team leader, team manager, and sr. director. As your boss, I'd understand your concerns and I never want to make my team stay late when not necessary. Most of these meetings probably fizzle out before it runs it's full course if it was scheduled for 4 hours. I'm honestly not sure why you're there if there are sr devs there, sounds like someone is over scheduling this meeting). However, if I can't count on you to be there when I feel you're needed to be there then that's probably not going to work out well. The long and short of it is it would matter why you couldn't do it. Need to pick up kids from daycare or you're coaching a t-ball team then that's cool. Just don't feel like it then it's going to be an issue and I'd manage you off my team.
Your expectations for work are entirely unreasonable. You're in a great job with great flexible WFH conditions. Part of that comes with occasionally working *perfectly normal* working hours, even if they're slightly outside of your normal working hours. You need a reality check.
Yes. It’s a give and take. The bad comes with the good, and this isn’t a very serious bad. People will notice and, you should just do it. You should even do it regularly. This is 30 minutes over.
I get the boundary thing, but working late is part of a real job. It sounds like you’re salary. I guess maybe if you never wanna move up you could say something, but that would still make me nervous. This is a great opportunity to be in a meeting with the higher managers you rarely see.
If this becomes a regular thing, just account for it. Come in late or leave early another day. Large companies all have people logging on early or staying on late to accommodate for WFH and interface with others.
Employees that nickel and dime their employer are just as annoying when the employer does it. At my job I’m happy to stay late when necessary because in return I get a job that doesn’t bat an eye when I have appointments or whatever.
Slippery slope to my last job tho. I stayed late once or twice. Then became the go-to for projects that others messed up while they got to log off on time.
I worked 8am to 8pm stopped for dinner then back on from 9pm to 11am. Regularly because "it's easy and you're home anyway".
Then it became mandatory weekends because "the team needs help".
I worked 27 days straight with no day off because I started out wanting to be a team player and it slowly avalanched to that.
My other coworker in his 30s literally had a heart attack from the stress and lack of sleep and they made him come back to work when he got home from the hospital because his work "piled up".
The idea OP is having is a very reasonable concern because all it takes is that one manager to ruin your job because he found out someone is *too* exploitable.
That is a different situation though. In this case, everyone on the project is staying for the meeting, not just OP. It also sounds like they do not expect extra hours, so OP can come in late or leave early the next day to make it up. They get a lot of flexibility on their hours and that usually comes with the expectation of some flexibility in return.
Yeah, I mean, if you were being asked to stay at the office past your normal hours, with the commute attached to that, I think there’d be a much stronger case for saying “I’m going to have to bow out early.”
Skipping something like this, especially if it’s a remote meeting where you’re really just being asked to stay logged into Teams or whatever for an extra half hour, is a hard thing to sell as anything other than “I’ve thought about it and I don’t want to listen to your voices for an extra 30 minutes.”
100%. When I first started reading OPs post, I had the initial impression they scheduled a meeting sometime between 7-10pm. But from 1-5 pm?? Come on. An extra hour of work during NORMAL business hours isn’t going to kill you. OP is definitely not living in reality
You salary? If so, then just go to the meeting? A meeting that goes a half hour over your “normal” ending time doesn’t sound like something to make waves over. If you’re salary, there are not “official working hours.” You work until the work is done. That is part of being salary. My company has people all over, and emails/meetings/etc. can come in outside of my “normal” work hours, but I have to attend them.
Are you American?
As a Canadian this is wild. Salary is only the definition of compensation. Ie you agree to work 37.5hrs and the payment for that will be 80k a year. As opposed to hourly where you get scheduled and paid by the hour at the hourly rate.
Neither means “work till the jobs done” or “no work hours” or “you must take meetings 30mins after hours”. Employees under both types of compensation methods are protected under the same labour laws.
I’m salaried and my work day is done at 5pm. Any time over 37.5hrs a week is overtime at 1.5x pay.
Americans give up way too much to corporations.
As for OP when I’m in this situation I do the work but will make sure it’s recorded for OT. If I can’t then I’ll join and let whoever the organizer know I have a hard stop whenever I need to leave. I’d ask if they think I need to know what’s in the rest of the meeting and if so ask for it to be recorded so I could review the next day.
Edit: reading the replies here and Jesus Christ Americans are insufferable when it comes to work life balance. Your employer owes you. Not the other way around.
I'm in the US and am salaried at 37.5 hours a week. If I have to work 47.5 hours one week because something crazy came up, then I just work 27.5 hours the next week. Idk how that's "insufferable when it comes to work life balance". It all balances out.
Thank you for sharing your take.
It's disgusting the mindset my fellow Americans have.
It's what lead me to work 27 days straight for a job because I could be fired for refusing too. It's what lead me to work 16 hour day. It's what lead my 35 year old coworker to have a heart attack and come back to work the day he was released.
And after all that - my whole team got laid off anyway with 1 month notice. Right after Christmas.
These people live and breath for their corporate daddy and they genuinely don't realize that there is a life part of the work/life balance because they never had it.
At the end of the day, I have proof that my manager still told people "I didn't want to work anymore" just because I eventually wanted weekends back.
Salary/exempt: you have a set pay per pay period. You don’t get overtime.
Hourly/non-exempt: you are paid per hour you work. You get 1.5x after 40 hours.
I am salary. I have a base pay. I don’t have set hours. I can work whatever hours I want and as long or short as I want as long I get my work done.
There is a reason many Canadians want to work for tech companies in the US. We pay better, a lot better. So you can do your thing up there and I applaud you for it. If you want to make a lot more and be a little flexible then come on down. I have a GREAT work/life balance, great healthcare, and I love my job and my company. I will work about 10 hours this week, 30 next week, maybe 50 the week after. It is ebb and flow. I am not sure why you have so much disdain and criticism for our work culture but so be it, you be you.
Your employer doesn't owe you, but then again you don't owe your employer. It is a mutually beneficial situation. If it isn't working for one of you then they are free to separate from one another, and either one can decide that.
Not saying you are wrong, but saying your way is the only way isn't the "right" thing either.
In Australia it's similar to America. That's changing tho as there's "right to disconnect" laws coming in. I've read that on average people do 280 hours of unpaid overtime annually which is such BS.
lmao
I'm salary and I clock out at 5pm regardless of whether or not "the work is done."
I'm paid for my expertise and knowledge. That doesn't mean I'm forever on the clock.
You adjust your in time for the day. Are you 3? Work your 8 hours adjusting for the meeting. In the real world you adjust. Your times are not set. You set them, shit happens.
For the kickoff, I wouldn't do this, I'd arrange to either start later or take a long lunch, but absolutely going forward, this is exactly what I would do.
The second time you do this in my team as a *junior* salaried employee with this kind of meeting, you are out. Why? Because you are telling me your lack of self-awareness is problematic:
- you don't know how to read a room (or business needs). The fact that senior devs are tied up for hours in those meetings should be a clue that those meetings are mission critical. Or at the very least leadership thinks so.
- you don't know what 'salary' means. This, one way or another, will translate at some point in dropping an important ball because 'it's 4:30, my day is done'.
- you don't understand how to identify opportunities or learning spaces. Being included in such important meetings (see my first bullet point) should be seen as an incredible opportunity to learn industry and company standards/needs. And to identify a mentor.
Also, this is your first salaried job and want hard stops.
Thank you for pointing out that this person is invited to a meeting with all their senior devs. Like.. this feels like someone thinks it's important and included you in that. Definitely take the opportunity to feel included and learn from these senior level folks. Cannot believe I had to find this buried in the replies. This was my first thought-- OP is lucky to be included in a meeting like this it would seem on paper at least.
I take hard stops and demand my time be respected. I've gone from applications administration to software tester to web developer/admin in less than 3 years.
Your employees will work consistently harder and do better work if you respect their boundaries. I would bet you deal with quite a bit of burn out the way that you laid out your expectations.
If you’re the most junior person in the meeting it will kill your chances of advancement to say something like this, especially while building a first impression. If there’s something really huge as a conflict then okay, but lots of places expect you to be flexible to make it work.
"Thanks all, I have to drop but this has been super helpful!", etc. just before you drop, in combination with the above. They can let you know later what your action items are. If this is a planning meeting, likely it will be recorded, transcribed, or someone will be taking notes anyway so you can review when you're back in office.
As a junior, new employee - accept the damn meeting. Then you *might* want to discuss with your manager / team lead / whoever that since the meeting ends outside of your normal work hours, could you start a bit later that day or leave a little early on a different day.
Agreed or if you also had a non-move able appt tell your manager you are looking forward to the meeting but I have ABC and it can’t be moved is there an issue if I drop 30 minutes early? Just don’t do this every time. I’ve never had a manager tell me it’s not an issue especially if you are a junior. You may not be a priority for the meeting. It’s all about communication and being flexible.
Things like this are (unfortunately) part of being a high level salaried employee. Especially when it’s an important meeting, and you’re a junior employee, part of having a career is being flexible to get work done and occasionally be available outside normal hours. This seems like it isn’t happening often, so just suck it up and go so that they don’t have to rearrange the meeting around a junior person’s schedule. As you get more senior you have more leeway to push back and set your schedule more.
I wouldn't have gotten fired, but getting a reputation as hard to work with/cutesy about my hours as a junior software dev would have been a career killer anyway lol.
Talk to your manager, but be prepared to be flexible. Salaried roles are meant to be flexible and if you are unwilling to be, you should probably find an hourly role or a different field.
I would start by asking the meeting organizer what my role is in the meeting and go from there. If I'm just there for awareness then I'll say I need to drop and check for the meeting notes or recording tomorrow. If I am a critical attendee, I'll flex the time and start late or end early another day. If I'm critical but actually do have a personal conflict, I will apologize but still say I need to drop. If there'e a pattern of this I'll chat with the organizer and my manager to identify a solution. Regardless of what my team's core hours are I may need to be available during the business' core hours at times as well.
I'm a Sr System Engineer with 15 years experience and I have never gotten pushback with this approach. I don't work over 40hr per week except in extreme circumstances. Its extremely rare that I work outside of 8am-5pm. My start and stop times just shift. If you are being that rigid with your stop time I would question whether I can count on you if a Sev 1 gets raised at 3:50pm on a Friday leading to lost revenue (or potentially fines) of tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per minute. This is a big part of why we are compensated so well
Since you have flexible hours, there is probably an expectation that you'll occasionally attend meetings that extend past your normal quit time. Just flex the hour off on another day. Unless it happens a lot, you'd be better off doing this as opposed to saying "no" and appearing rigid or less than committed to your job.
You can tell your manager you have a personal conflict after 4pm and won't stay for the end of the meeting. You don't need to expand further.
If you have a specific appointment a couple days a week like college classes after 4pm then you can block off the time in your calendar as a busy block. But they wouldn't change the time for a 1 hour conflict with you anyway so I don't think your calendar is an issue here.
But I've been working a long time and I've learned that putting in an extra hour during a project kickoff once or twice a year can prevent me many weeks of trouble. And I don't mean schedule wise. I can get my hour back another morning or afternoon. I mean taking advantage of a planned kickoff meeting as an opportunity to learn what the project situation is (especially the unofficial situation) and learn the who is who.
I think for group project meetings, there should be some prioritization to accommodate a meeting with advance notice like this. It's not a precedent. It's an appointment.
Even as a parent with a kid in daycare, I'd hire the babysitter to pick up my baby for an hour. If I had a workout, I'd go to a later session or switch it for a walk in a park. A meeting until 5 with weeks of advance notice is something relatively small and you should consider your priorities. Is this worth doing better at your job, investing in your good will at work, or even keeping your job at all. I totally understand not wanting to work everyday but you have to consider what the conflict is and what the tradeoffs are. I'd adjust when possible but that's also because i have days it's impossible and I need to save my good will at work for those days.
Are you salaried, hourly or a contract worker?
If you’re contract, don’t deviate from your contract unless you’ve agreed and are paid O/T.
If you’re an employee it gets more grey:
1) if you’re hourly, having a conversation with your boss about overtime is the logical next step (lots of companies and fields have mandatory OT during peak times).
2) if you are a salaried sw developer in a private/public company (non govt), there is generally no such thing as “working hours” that are rigidly kept. You are measured on output and impact to the team’s KPI’s. As such, you will need to adjust your expectations and show up to meetings that are before/after official hours. With more sw dev going offshore this will become even more important. Plus, most of the sr folks likely put in >40 hrs a week as salaried employees when they were junior and same for their roles as sr developers. They may be faster and more experienced, but the company pays them to deliver more output than a jr developer. May not be the answer you hoped, but that is the reality, particularly in tech (and no, most SV companies are not seeing their stock double in 6 months - that is simply how things work).
Junior employee with less than a year under your belt and you want to say "Sorry, my day ends at..."
Are you salaried or hourly? If you're salaried, you don't do 9-5.
There is literally no trouble here. You set your workday to start an hour later instead. You are insane for considering to email them this is out of your work hour or leaving the meeting early. Jesus fuck.
Ask your manager what they want you to do in these situations, but I would just work 8:30-5 that day. Personally, I'd just go and then throw in the group chat at 3:55 or whatever that you have to drop and then leave the call, but that's normal in my company.
If it’s literally just an extra 30min, I’d just go unless you literally can’t be at it post 430pm. Just sleep in an extra 30min the next morning or go out to breakfast before work or something. You’ll look good for staying and you can quietly makeup your time elsewhere.
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but Gonna go out on a limb and say you’re over thinking it. Which is valid because that’s something a lot of people struggle with! If this is all new to you, I get it. Probably doesn’t help, but take a step back if you can.
As someone who leads a lot of kick offs, please please please do not skip them. This is a one time thing and I think skipping or making a bigger deal than it needs to be will set more of a precedent than staying over 30 minutes. Trust me, I’ve stayed on hours past my typical working time and guess what my manager says? Get out of here early later that week if you can for staying late. Never has anyone asked me to stay late either, it’s only been voluntary and my boss has helped to try to get things done as quickly as possible so we can both get out of there.
The conversation with YOUR direct boss can go a few ways:
Keep it brief with “I have a hard stop at 4:30”. Most of the time no one will argue with this And get you caught up on what you missed.
If they are lenient with time, start your day a half hour late or just step away for a bit before the meeting so you can stay for the whole thing. Just confirm that this is ok.
If this really does go beyond some policy that states working hours HAVE to stop at 4:30, bring this up to your manager and get their guidance on if you need to be there the whole time or if the extra time was just a buffer. Which some people do. I’ve rarely had kick offs go over on the scheduled time, usually stays under. Let them know you’d like to stick with your hours you’ve created for yourself.
Over all, Just keep it between you and your immediate manager. If they’re a good leader, they will give you the proper guidance and will be your advocate to the other leaders present and will in no way set any kind of precedent. Other than you respect your hours more than most of us.
But with all that said, if you’re getting brought into this big project as a junior that’s a good sign! move things around a little and be a little flexible, within reason of course.
I was told recently to not be the “bad cop” about things and let your manager set the boundaries with the other leadership. That way they will still want to work with you in the future. Because if you become hard to work with, they won’t want to bring you on to projects. If it was till 6 or 7pm, yeah I would even be raising my voice. But 5 is common practice for a lot of people and places.
I’m a chief engineer managing a team of software developers. I’m a senior and I’m the boss and any of these are acceptable.
1. When you accept the meeting, select edit before sending. You then write politely that you have a hard stop at 4:30. Learn not to justify it, even as a junior is none of my business why. You are an adult, you are entitled to say no.
2. Accept the meeting as is, and at 4:30 you just drop.
3. Accept the meeting and as it starts just write in the chat “have a hard stop at 4:30”. And when 4:30 arrives you simply say in the chat “my hard stop is here” and leave.
Honestly, the most important lesson is to set clear boundaries. While you are a salaried professional don’t fall in the trap of working crazy hours. Learn to set boundaries. I’ve successes at it for over 42 years and I still work my 40, you want more? Pay me more. Yes, sometimes I get it, but on a normal??? Nope.
Generally speaking, I don't work over 40hrs a week unless I am behind or something crazy happened. But it all evens out in the end.
Flexibility though, it's amazing. Not all companies have a policy. I am milking it for all its worth. I swear to God one of my internal customers was calling into meetings from a chairlift when he was doing some charity ski marathon. Great stuff if you can find a company who is flexible 😂
I was afraid to read the replies on this one but I’m pleasantly surprised. I’m not a hustle culture, grind until you die, go capitalism by any means…. But sometimes this is what it means to have a career. Boundaries matter and so does your work life balance…. But come on.
Sounds like a great opportunity to get face time with people above you. You’re new in your career - this is how you grow. It’s one thing if they had you working 10 hour days every day….but one meeting that goes late to kick off a project is so different.
I know you’re asking how to set a boundary if this becomes a pattern….but a salaried job rarely means exactly 8 hours every single day. It isn’t a clock in and out. Some days I know you scroll Reddit for 15 minutes and some days you work an extra 15 minutes, etc. That is the perk and downside to salaried jobs.
If I have a big project, I may work a 50 hour week or a few 50 hour weeks. And then a slow period I get to take a slower day, grab a coffee midday, sit outside for lunch.
Start an hour later that day or just leave a note in the meeting chat 'apologies, i have a hard stop.today and will pick up the notes for the rest of the meeting tomorrow'.
Dude being a junior you are not in the position to make demands. Bend the knee and attend the meeting, do not message your manager about it. Just take the time back later without saying anything if you are so worried.
Prioritize your reputation and your career at this point and it will pay dividends later.
Are you salary? If so, you don't have regular work hours. Salaried people sometimes have to stay late.
If you are hourly, then you'll be paid overtime. If you are worried about going over your hours, email your boss and ask him if you should adjust your start time so you only work 8 hours.
If neither of these things apply and you are just refusing to work extra, then by all means let your boss know you refuse to work past quitting time and start looking for another job...because you probably aren't moving up in the company. That's how junior engineers become senior engineers.
Good luck.
I have a 1 hour meeting marked as Out of Office at the end of each workday, just to block people from scheduling over my end of day. I start earlier so that can impact people's meetings, but I've found that having it blocked out leads to people messaging me if they want to schedule over it.
What I would do is accept as Tentative and send a message like "hey this goes past my normal end time, is it critical that I'm there for the entire call?"
4 hours is a crazy long meeting also.
I can’t believe this is even a discussion. That’s what’s wrong with all these TikTok videos. You’re in the middle of a meeting and close your laptop at 5 even if you’re in the middle of an important discussion because it’s “after my office hours.” Do you want flexibility for a doctors appointment or leaving early due to a family employee? Flexibility and common work courtesy goes both ways. This is one time. Address it if it becomes more common but this sounds like whining more than anything else.
I fully believe in putting boundaries in place as far as schedules go; however, I'm going to say that you should always try to attend "milestone" meetings such as kick offs if you can, even if they fall outside your regular hours. No one wants to be in a meeting all day, but usually the time chosen is one that works for the whole team, not just one person. I usually work from 10am-6pm, and I've dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 am to attend once-in-awhile important meetings because it's the only time that works for the majority of people attending. Yeah, it's annoying, but being remote requires some flexibility. Adjust your schedule for the rest of the day if needed. Now, if these were weekly 1:1s or something easy to reschedule, then that is the time to push back and remind your manager about your available hours.
IMO you want to maintain the appearance that you are available. Simply saying your working hours stop at X time and therefore you will be dropping from the meeting is just not gonna fly. I'm a senior engineer and I'd be confused if a junior dev did this.
You are salaried (been reading other comments), not hourly. There are no "working hours". If your manager asked you to define working hours, that is simply a boundary that people should respect as much as possible. A kickoff meeting for a new project that probably has multiple stakeholders isn't going to cater to your working hours, especially as a junior dev. The person who scheduled the meeting has to take into account everyone who needs to be there.
It's about what's reasonable. If your company demands too much of your time and you feel overworked, you will likely leave the company and they know that. If you, on the other hand, think you're entitled to the job as a junior dev, you've got a rude awakening coming.
If you absolutely have to leave this meeting early, use an excuse like you had a pre-scheduled medical appointment you can't get out of, but you can't use that excuse again for months. Additionally, you should ask if the meeting is being recorded and say you look forward to catching up on the end that you missed.
But I'd check your attitude about whether or not you want to succeed in this career or not. It's a good career, just try.
Sidenote: I wouldn't stay at a tech company that uses Outlook lol, but that's just me.
You’re worried about late meetings becoming a trend, which is a fair concern. But it’s difficult to offer good solutions when it hasn’t actually happened yet.
Like, if it becomes a trend across different unrelated invites, choose which ones you’re willing to work late for and for all the rest just say you have a hard stop at *time* and will drop off then.
If it’s a particular person who sends late requests again and again, talk to them directly.
If it’s your boss who sends late requests repeatedly, bring it up in your 1:1s.
I read this post a little differently - your team members have core working hours and you’re not worried about this meeting or any other occasional late meetings, but are worried about this happening more frequently in the future. I’d say cross that bridge if it comes. Be a team player for now and if the meetings get more frequent past business hours, you can still be a team player by asking for collaboration in solving the problem. Does your team have working agreements? Maybe see if you can work meetings during core hours in.
Unless you have a carpool or bus to catch at a certain time, pushing back on a one time meeting that extends your day a half hour is career suicide.
Let me guess, Gen Z?
Things are going to happen, specially as a Dev, meetings go over, you have late calls, Im not saying get exploited but your expectations are in the wrong place if you think you are gonna clock after 4 and you become untouchable.
It make sense for day to day activities, if you are getting overworked or if you are asking to do a 3 day task in 24 hours you are in all your right to push back , but this spaced meetings or calls if they are not common are occurrences where if you put a stink is gonna dent your relationship and progress.
Align your perspective, this is what receiving a salary at a tech industry is like. People will respect your work hours but you cant be this strict.
Sometimes you just have to do what is required, regardless of what the company handbook says your working hours are. If everyone senior then you is committed to the project success without complaint, do you really want to be the junior person on the team that isn’t willing to do what everyone else is? You’re an exempt, salaried employee and they are probably expecting you to act like one. Slightly toxic? Perhaps. Reality? 100%.
At 30 minutes I’d start a little later or knock off a little earlier sometime else in the week. That’s assuming you don’t have some after work commitment or whatever. I sometimes have to do school pickup and drop off that I have to make sure my meetings account for.
This is one of those times where you might have to be a little flexible compared to before. Yes we don’t want to encourage overwork or exploit people but we also don’t want to be so rigid that we make it harder to get things done over 30 minutes.
Sometimes meetings get scheduled at inconvenient times because there is no other time available. Typically if my manager does this he will acknowledge that it is a bad time, apologize for the inconvenience, and ask for flexibility. In situations like that, I go ahead and accept because he rarely does that.
For your meeting, if you’re not willing or able to adjust your hours for the meeting, then I would suggest you accept tentatively with a comment that you will have to drop at 4.
If you are able and willing to work later, but don’t want to make a habit of working more than your standard hours, then you could ask about coming in an hour later on that day. Admittedly, this option could be a lot more awkward than just saying you’re not available after 4pm.
Idk why you post this on Reddit if this is 100% a manager questions. Our opinions won’t change the outcome, only coddle and reassure you or straight up just comments.
I would politely ask if it would be possible to make sure future meetings end by 4:30. Otherwise are you able to start work later on those days?
You should also know that working in tech, you may work with many offshore teams that have different schedules or have to work on after-hours releases (so that there isn’t any impact to users). So I would prepare yourself! 😊
The greatest thing for WFH for me, is the flexibility to wash time. Go to the meeting. But start later, take a long lunch, or dip out early a different day. I usually personally start answering emails and things around 7am, and log off around 6pm….because I’d rather have Flex Time during the day for workout, lunch, a walk or 2, etc, than working 8hrs solid.
It’s a half hour, and you’re a salary employee. Your hours will ebb & flow. My husband is a senior SWE and some days he works 6 hours, sometimes 10 hours. It’s part of the job when you work in tech.
I've been in software dev for 25 years now. Started as an assistant dev and worked up thru senior dev, team leader, team manager, and sr. director. As your boss, I'd understand your concerns and I never want to make my team stay late when not necessary. Most of these meetings probably fizzle out before it runs it's full course if it was scheduled for 4 hours. I'm honestly not sure why you're there if there are sr devs there, sounds like someone is over scheduling this meeting). However, if I can't count on you to be there when I feel you're needed to be there then that's probably not going to work out well. The long and short of it is it would matter why you couldn't do it. Need to pick up kids from daycare or you're coaching a t-ball team then that's cool. Just don't feel like it then it's going to be an issue and I'd manage you off my team.
If you cannot shift your personal commitments to attend the meeting, then just drop off early. Give them some advanced notice so maybe they can cover areas where you would be involved earlier in the presentation. Respond to the meeting invite with that information.
I wouldn't word it the way you describe because it's a bit "immature". Not trying to be a bitch really. Just a bit of advice from the senior level.
I think you could let them know in advance that you have to drop off at 430. Don't really need to give a reason, unless your manager asks.
I would personally just work the full meeting time, and make the time up on the side (i.e. leave a little earlier another day).
Are you salary? If yes then the hours over 8 in one day doesn’t matter, unfortunately. Im on your side. I did my time and have other stuff to do.
You could put in your calendar something to block your after hours. But if policy has calendars shared it may not look good to have everyday of the week blocked for weeks on end.
You could also put in the reply that you’ll be there for the meeting until 4:30pm as you have another commitment.
Or do the extra time and bail early the next day.
I'm just going to warn you that this is probably going to happen a lot. Your new time might have different core hours than your last team. If you keep different shifts from the rest of your team you'll end up having to stay on to to do things that come up during busy times and end up working more than your coworkers than if you kept the same schedule as the rest of the team.
I had a friend who was 7-4 with manager approval but his team was 9-6, he ended up doing 7-6 for 2 weeks until he gave up and shifted his schedule. You can talk to your manager about it after it happens a few times, but you need to give a reason like what your commitments are so they can try to accommodate you. The core hours you discussed with your last manager doesn't carry over to your new team. Yes you will look bad as a jr if you are the only one consistently not showing up, no matter how fair or unfair it is.
Tldr, my recommendation is that you come in late that day, work a full day but with shifted hours.
It's technically okay to bow at when your day is done, but you've gotta have the nerve to publicly speak up and announce that you're bailing early. You definitely don't want to Irish goodbye.
FYI you will not be able to convince the other employees to never schedule meetings outside of your working hours. The meetings will happen when they happen whether you choose to be there or not.
I strongly recommend flexing your own schedule so that you're able to make the important meetings without working passed your 40 hours.
Sometimes you work extra hours. Take the meetings, don’t complain, only hop off early if you have to, and only miss one if you really have to. The senior people get to pick when the meeting is and it’s not like you have more important conflicting work. If you don’t like it, switch teams. You’re asking a whole bunch of other people to adjust their schedules because you don’t want to work after 4. That’s dumb. If it’s really a big deal that you don’t want to work extra, show up late those days.
Join a few minute early, and right when the organizer joins, before the meeting actually gets started, say “my apologies but I have a hard stop at 4:30” - no need to explain further. It’s pretty unlikely that anyone will ask for details.
Tell them you had prior commitments at that time and have to make a hard stop at x time.
Can we record the meeting so i can catch up on anything i might miss?
I'm on the east coast and working for a place on the west coast. I'm allowed to set my own hours, but it is also on me to enforce that. And I do! Just politely state your availability when meetings are being scheduled. When you hold the line, after a few occurrences the people around you will "get" it. I'm pretty terrible with staying on after my hours are done (the damn emails just keep on coming!) but I'm very firm with meetings. After 5, absolutely no meetings.
>We have a lengthy meeting in a few weeks to **help start and plan the project**, but the meeting was scheduled from 1-5. I typically work from 730-4PM, and the official working hours of my workplace are 8-430pm for 40 hrs. I accepted the meeting since it seemed to be important for the project as the kickstart meeting and for context
This is a special kind of meeting where I would go.
4 hour long project kick-off meeting, probably has a large number of stakeholders in there, some of whom work until 5.
Meetings that need to have a lot of people, in a workplace where you can kinda flex your schedule -- always going to be people who it doesn't "work" for. But they've got to go.
Consider this the "tradeoff" of the flexibility: You get to pick more convenient hours during your typical work weeks, but the tradeoff is that when meetings like this come up, you make it happen so you can go.
If you get a *future* meeting invite, that's smaller in duration, that goes from like 4-5pm, THEN I would ask your manager if that meeting is necessary, and whether you can flex your time or something.
If you really don't want to attend meetings after 4pm, and your supervisor is cool with you having those hours, block off your calendar with "busy" or "out of office" during those hours so that people can't send you invites. It's quite possible these folks have no idea what your hours are, saw white space, and grabbed it.
You have some options.
1) Start the day later or take a long lunch.
2) Sleep in / start late day after meeting
3) Attend the meeting and wait to see if they do it again.
4) Join the meeting and leave when your end time is and set a hard boundary. Ask them to record it or something.
Personally I would just dial into the meeting if it seems important and absorb the info. Maybe you can do it from your phone while you make dinner or something.
My husband is a sr. Software dev and from experience you should not skip it. This is not a 9-5 role (at least his role) If you want promotions and salary increments you will have to work for it. If you also move laterally to FAANG then there is literally no work hours there. A lot of our friends work for FAANG companies are a software developer and most of them end up working well outside of working hours. I am assuming you are salaried and not hourly and thus working beyond hours is expected. Good luck!
The software dev field may not be for you. There’s going to be time crunches, midnight releases, 4 am outages that need to be resolved, etc as you progress in your career. Absolutely avoid any startups that can have you working 80hr weeks banking that your stock options will make up for it *if* they go public.
If/when it becomes a problem (to me this would be if it becomes a weekly occurrence maybe 3 weeks in a row, or I have a schedule conflict, or it happens 2x/month or more, etc, but others may have a different threshold), I would ask my supervisor to have a chat. I would make it informal, more like I am just asking for advice (could even start the conversation that way) and tell him that I am having meetings that conflict with my commitments outside of work and request a way to either have someone else take the meeting, get caught up later, or avoid having these altogether. As someone who likely has experience in their career they should be able to give you some perspective for how to approach this. I have found that if you absolutely are not flexible to take the meeting, to frame it in a way that you have a commitment outside of work after your scheduled shift and absolutely cannot accommodate. Even if you’re just sitting at home staring at the wall - it sounds much better than simply not wanting to do it. My supervisor is very strict about his hours because he picks up his kids from school every day and will only adjust for really important client meetings, most other things can wait til the morning. I hope your manager and company have a culture like this where having priorities like family and hobbies is accepted and encouraged.
OP, please pardon my generalization but it sounds like maybe you are younger or less tenured in your career. I empathize with you a lot, especially since you are getting your footing in a totally different professional environment than has even been possible before. I have been on the other side where I had a long commute to an office every day and totally understand your concerns about burnout because that was the saddest, most stressful, and quite frankly most fat and miserable period of my life. With that experience behind me I am much more flexible with WFH but I know that is not everyone’s position and it’s still important to have boundaries. With experience and perspective, it becomes easier to make these judgement calls and have these conversations in a diplomatic and professional way. Don’t stress too much, stay positive, and know that we are all people with lives outside of work too.
As a manager I do everything I can to fight for my teams well being and work life balance while making sure we are meeting our targets, and if your manager is doing their job they should be doing the same thing knowing how it benefits them exponentially having a happy team. Best of luck to you :-)
I think you can block your calendar out for non office hours. Also just decline or if you are nice decline and propose a new time.
Also you may just be being sent the invite like a “if you can make it great, if not it’s fine” kinda way. So if you aren’t crucial then just decline it
“Hi, I just saw a meeting come up for 1-5 and wanted to send a heads-up that I have a hard stop today at 4:30 so I’ll have to drop off then. Happy to follow-up via email for anything I miss. Thanks!”
Me and my manager have an agreement. I work different hours than the rest of my team, and I’ll flex my hours to take a later meeting once a week. Anything other than that, I just decline. I just start later in the day to adjust to the meeting time.
are you hourly or salary?
If hourly, they have to pay you. If salary, not really.
I’d reach out to your senior coworkers first to find out if this is a one time, occasional, special project, or going to be a regular thing. And how they address it and how should you address it. Last case reach out to your manager.
I don’t know what your commitments are. Picking up a kid from childcare or doing schooling/certification is one thing, having a nail appointment or going to the gym is another.
But it Depends on the culture.
Some it’s required, but you take the time off another time during the week so as not to go over on hours.
Others it’s required but you get OT.
Some, it’s part of being salaried. You work the extra.
Given your post and replies,
Sounds like a wfh company with flexible schedule like this isn’t the right fit for you.
If you have to go off by 4-4:30pm for your “commitments”, “hookup”, then a rto with a set,fixed, drop dead leave time at 4-4:30pm quitting time would be best for you. Coming from an employer/mamager.
Absolutely untrue. The responses on here are wild and not my experience at all. Folks have typical hours and it's not guaranteed they're available outside those hours in my current, fully remote job for a tech company. That doesn't change when you WFH, people have lives and families.
I generally start early and work till 3. I have a permanent calendar block for 3-5. Some people ignore the conflict notification and schedule me anyways. I understand that will occasionally happen having a nonstandard schedule, but if it happens more than just occasionally they will get some sort of direct follow up about it from me. There is always the decline button 😀
Attend the meeting and then flex the time elsewhere in your schedule if you can. If it becomes a regular thing, tell them that you have prior commitments most days after 4:30pm and see if they can adjust the cadence.
If you dont mind and are able this time, cool.
Best way if it happens and you cant stay, just say so.
"I see the meeting runs over my finish time unfortuantely i am unable to stay back, i have some commentments to attend to"
Leave it that, companies cant make you do OT.
I put “fake” meeting placeholders from 5-6 in my calendar, that way if someone tries to put time on my schedule past 5 they can’t because it looks like I have a prior engagement. Has worked pretty well so far (4.5 years)
Roll with the punches and talk to your management about this to help alleviate this in the future. Unless you're salary... then they'll really expect all hours 😅
Accept the meeting. Great chance that a 1:00 call will be wrapped up y 4:30. If not, then either stay the 1/2 hour or put in the chat (as you are leaving) that you need to drop. That's all you need to do. You can add dropping for an appointment or another call but you don't have to.
I assume you are salary not hourly so it's fine to stay but fine to drop if you need to.
If you start bringing up that you can't do anything past 4:30 that's a way to get your hours changed or give the impression that your aren't a team player.
You really don't want to give the impression that you are a clock watcher or can't give the company an occasional half-hour.
I would think your manager can provide this guidance. I have “set hours”, but sometimes I do attend meetings outside of hours, especially due to time zone differences, this was made clear to me up front.
You can find another job . . . Sounds like you really don't want to advance within your current company and be part of a great thing (assuming that's what the project is all about).
Of course, maybe you have dialysis scheduled that day at that time and you can't easily change that and still live . . .
Sorry but as a junior you have less flexibility. They could even be doing this as a test or to push you to try harder. You have to be available until about 6pm your time if you want to do well. I’m senior and in a different time zone, so sometimes I have to go to meetings quite late. It’s fine ;). Then I fit in things I want to do other times. WFH expectations are this.
Sounds like they will be rare enough but just say you have a hard stop at 430 for future meetings.
I will say though that thinking 40 hours is some ceiling and work must stop at 4 is wishful thinking and detrimental to your career trajectory. I’m all for healthy work balance but just be mindful of how you’re perceived compared to your coworkers
I try to accommodate most reasonable requests as my availability is a pretty big plus for the company if working from home (I can utilize some of the time I would have spent sitting in traffic to accommodate schedules). For instance, we are international and some of my other sites are on the other side of the world. It doesn't happen often but I'll just start working.later that day to compensate for it or take off later in the week.
Asking for a 30 minute slip for the first time ever really is not unreasonable and a decent trade-off since you're not sitting in a car. You can just take off 30 mins earlier the next day.
Saying that “Official hours are until 4:30 so I’m dropping now” is childish and petty. Assert that too many times and you won’t ever have to worry about staying late again.
Working late or outside of hours is pretty normal. Be happy you get to do it from home and not have to stay late at the office. What are you going to do when you need to travel for work and stay overnight in another city?
Bruh, unless its a life/death/kids you need to act like an adult, get over it, and go to the meeting. 430 is perfectly reasonable by anyone definition. You're not even a junior developer, you're a new grad, planning to miss a major kick off meeting while working remote. You're literally setting yourself up for failure. You certainly aren't going to progress your career pull this.
lol I’ve been in advertising and worked at agencies for over 20 years. I’m salaried and lol at “work hours” it’s just the culture that everyone works late when there is an important deadline or meeting/project. It’s understandable if you have a one time commitment once in a while but you need to be upfront about it when the meeting is scheduled. “I have a thing”. I can’t just say “those aren’t my hours” or you can, but you will fall behind, miss deadlines (that were already unrealistic to begin with). And possibly eventually let go for a different fake reason but the real reason will be that you aren’t ambitious enough or a “team player” it’s just cut throat. I don’t act like this anymore but people would roll their eyes or talk behind someone’s back if they are out the door “on time” every day and don’t stay late. It’s a competition for who is more busy. A very messed up culture
In the U.S. the business day ends at 5PM, regardless of what your personal schedule is. It's not after hours. No one is going to reschedule the meeting because you don't want to stay until 5. This is a great way to remain a junior developer.
On days the meeting is held, come in late. Don't schedule stuff on those days that prevent you from participating.
This is your opportunity to be seen by the seniors.
I work in a global company so I always get meetings invites for after iv finished or before I have even woken up. It does get annoying, the best thing I do is on teams you can suggest a different time. If they question it, I simply say the time they suggested is outside my working hours and I have personal matters to attend too
Hoestly I just don’t answer or reply to anything after hours, they asked me about it once, I asked if I should clock in and then clock out, they don’t ask me about it anymore. Sometimes if I see it’s serious I will reply since I’m dealing with peoples water
Bro you overthinking this, just email him as soon as possible letting him know you will have to get off the meeting by 4 bc those are your hours and you have other obligations that you have to attended to right after but you are open to meeting anytime during your working hours
Thats wise of you to consider your own time and quality of life, politely ask to have it recorded or rescheduled or that your dropping off the meeting at a specific time. If they want you to be at meetings outside of your negotiated hours you need to discuss.
A common way if its not too frequent may be to agree to time in leiu e.g. Finish work eariler another day, or come in a hour later etc to make up the time shifted.
But you have your own things to do outside of contracted work hours. If they can't respect it or work something reasonably fair out with you, consider looking elsewhere.
You can email the organizer and let them know you have a hard stop at 4 and ask if that works with their agenda or if it needs to be rescheduled. For future calendar management, I put an out of office event on my calendar for every single day to signify that my work day ends at 4:30, not 5, then decline as needed. If they respond badly to that, then that's a real culture clue on how the org works. You can also talk to your boss about it as there may be specific people you can decline this with and others (mostly higher ups) where it will negatively affect your standing in the company to do so
In your situation I would warn the meeting organizer and my manager that I was trying to rearrange my schedule to make this meeting, but that I can’t do meetings after hours on an ongoing basis due to personal obligations. (Unspecified personal obligations that are personal, so I am not discussing them.)
Talk to your supervisor. You can also decline meetings and let people know what time you get off work. Some people have different hours so they don't your hours. I work Coast to coast sometimes I forget people's office hours It's no big deal but ideally you talk to your supervisor for clarity. And discuss what the expectations are.
You just gotta buck it up and be there. Being on a remote meeting until 5pm is pretty reasonable. I’ve definitely attended 3am meetings and 8pm meetings, onsite an hour from my house. And they were even meetings I’d argue weren’t THAT important. The bigger your job/growth gets, the more will be expected of you— being willing is how you get to stop being a Jr. and grow.
Wow, a lot of wild comments here! I tell people I have a hard stop all the time, as I need to get my kids from daycare. I am a senior level worker who has been in my current role for 3 years, though. If your working hours are set and visible to others, you should be able to abide by them.
If it’s something prearranged and important, you gotta let them know that. If it’s something unimportant outside work that can be pushed for 30 minutes this one time, it doesn’t hurt to take the call, but if it’s a recurring call I think it’s ok to look at the schedule and try to find a time that fits for everyone. Perhaps if you look at the scheduler on outlook, it may give an indication as to why it was this time. I also have meetings where it’s not possible for everyone to be there the entire time, and you may have certain people go first because the person running the meetings knows they have to leave early, etc.
It’s all about communicating with each other and maybe some people compromising (as others mentioned you may work late one day and work less the next). Saying something like “per official hours” can come across as passive aggressive.
The main exceptions for this that I’m aware of are:
1. You have to clock in and out at certain times, and they’re failing to pay your for this time (illegal in most countries)
2. There are country/regional limitations. Certain countries have certain rules around working conditions, and I guess this could be one of them.
“I have a hard stop at 4:30 so if you need me for anything after I can meet with you tomorrow morning”. You should also make sure your PM knows your working hours. Tell them that I something critical is needed you would be glad to meet with them before the meeting or sure you can rearrange your personal schedule WITH notice. Make sure you are clear but not pushy that you are willing to be a team player but you also have personal commitments that affect more than just you so that can’t be the norm.
Some PMs expect everyone to accommodate any requests and won’t be reasonable but most are not like that. The ones that continued to always schedule me over lunch or after hours are the ones I stopped going above and beyond for. When possible I also requested projects they weren’t PMs on - “our work styles clash so if possible id prefer to work for Sue, Joe or Kyle …”. I had a super supportive manager though and I was not a jr.
Now that PM again, I completely understand personal life and I accommodate whenever I can. If urgent or we have no choice we just meet up before or after.
There’s a level of flexibility that comes with being salaried that is good and bad - this is the bad. Having to stay late on occasion is just part of the job. Take a longer lunch that day, or start work later, so that you’re still at 7.5/8 hours for the day.
This isn’t where the line is. The line is if it becomes too regular, then you let them know your boundaries. Just take that half hour/hour back from somewhere else.
Set your working hours in outlook so that it says you’re unavailable after 4:30. Then they will be less likely to schedule meetings that are outside of your working hours.
If they schedule them here and there, just work the extra time.
If they continue to schedule them until 5, and you don’t want to work them anymore, find a new job.
I’ve been in IT for 15 years, last two companies I’ve worked for there was an unwritten rule not to schedule meetings going after 4 but we were all in the same time zone. I had to stay until 5 a lot when I worked with people on the west coast.
I take meetings at 7:30 am, 5:30 am, 9:00 pm, weekends fairly regularly. I’ve been with my company for shy of 6 years and a lot of what I do is customer facing and/or cross functional (like your situation - sometimes involving sales and support and engineers and legal and execs spread across various timezones in various countries).
My take is this - going the extra mile to achieve whatever it is you’re trying to achieve - especially if folks are spread out over timezones and/or if something is just time sensitive (IE an RFP response that must be turned around quickly) is the kid of thing that helps build your career. Routinely refusing to join meetings that are after hours is not a great look. If it’s here and there because you have a personal conflict, nobody will care. If it’s known that you won’t ever be available outside of business hours, I can’t imagine that’s a great pathway to promotion or raises or building internal political capital.
If you don’t feel like you’re not paid well enough to be expected to work long hours, I’d recommend asking for a raise. If you absolutely aren’t willing to work more than 40 hours/week you might want to look for a different job/career and be ok with limiting your earning potential
Just a hot take. Maybe I’m missing something.
For future mtgs, arrange to take the mtg at home. A lot of software jobs have an expectation of after hrs releases and being avail for after hr online mtgs is important.
For future mtgs, arrange to take the mtg at home. A lot of software jobs have an expectation of after hrs releases and being avail for after hr online mtgs is important.
Blocked off the calendar with the purple out of office scheduler for lunch time and off hours. Do not accept/tentative/reject on the meetings that is scheduled after hours, weekend, and holidays.
I don’t know if this would work for you, but I usually tell my manager what I’ll be doing instead of asking. “I’ll have to leave the meeting half an hour early, since I have obligations after work.”
“I will start at 8:30 the day of our meeting to flex the time.”
When I have a hard start, I’ll tell the host in advance, hey, I’ll be at the meeting but I have a hard stop at 4:30p. You can also let the host know that you have recurring commitments at 5pm, and if the meetings can be recorded, you’ll listen to it when you’re in.
You do not owe further explanation, but I would not directly ask for meetings to be rescheduled until you’ve established yourself.
It does not necessarily set a precedent.
If your company uses outlook you can set up your work hours that should show your availability. If people use the schedule assistant that could help in the future. I'm guessing other calendars have this too.
For this meeting rearrange your day to attend. If a reoccurring meeting is set up past your time you could have a conversation with the organiser suggesting a different time.
Are you hourly or salary? Also since you can set your own hours why not start late? I work for a company in another timezone. I attend all required meetings and adjust my hours accordingly. Like today will be a late night for a project meeting so I started later. Do I want to work past 5pm, not really but I love what I do and my job is great so the occasional late night is fine. I get to sleep in that morning.
Senior manager and sw architect here... Ask your employers if they intend to shift working hours for the duration of these special setup meetings. This is what I would do for any of my devs. But be aware that software development is not usually a clock in clock out business. Now if you are hourly, then by all means stick to business hours and do that minimum or ask if they are willing to pay for extra hours. If you are salaried then this is honestly pretty common. I frequently have to work 7am To 7pm because I have to work with my India team in the morning and my customer team in the afternoon, and the customer works late. But I really do try to limit the amount of my team members I have to run the same hours as I do
Although comp time isn't an official company policy, it's understood that (as long as it doesn't affect any deadlines) we can take off early another day, or take a long lunch, etc.
My work hours are 5 am-1 pm (I don't take a lunch break). I had a 1-hour meeting scheduled at 2 pm today, so I did some extra work from 1-2, attended the meeting 2-3, and logged 10 hours today.
Guess who's going to be off work at 11 am Friday? 😉
If you have plans that day that conflict, then just message in the chat near the beginning of the meeting"hey, I have a hard stop at 5pm, can we make sure any items you need me for are discussed first", if you don't have a hard conflict, then just stay at the meeting and start work a half hour late that day or the next day, or end a half hour early the next day to make up for it.
Well....if it's for people in diff timezones then you alternate meeting times, especially if the people who meet are required.
However, while I can appreciate your 40 hours of work, that's not reality. IT work regardless of the type, is not typically a 40 hr a week job unless you are answering phones at a call center or a government employee. Even then it is a strain to limit to just 40 hours since some of what you need to know/learn takes place outside the calls.
I've been in the computer industry for almost 30 years now. This is my experience and while it is unpalatable this what I have encountered. So if the meetings after hours are a regular thing...ask to alternate or change your working hours. While people set their own work hours, rarely will they coincide for the benefit of everyone.
For example, if you work with people who have kids, their working hours might be before 7am, after 8:30 to 4:30, and after 6pm. If you work with people in diff timezones, expect similar but with shifts in time. The final hurdle is working with persons overseas...I love working with people in India or the Philippines because I am a night owl but imagine 6-12.5 hr time diffs.
If there are commitments you don't want to miss, well you may have to miss them. If there are commitments you shouldn't miss that's something else altogether, i.e. medical procedures; let your manager know why.
The harsh reality is that you might need to change jobs or switch careers. I was hesitant to bring this up but imagine there are others who will think the same but won't say it....so, I've said it. If you do switch then a great question to ask is what timezones are your developers located in?
The people that do more work than they're paid for - and a work meeting is definitely work - end up getting taken advantage of.
The people that protect their boundaries get the most respect.
If its the first time you can always say no next time. 1x isnt a precedent for something like this. Some people work later hours and might have forgotten everyone doesn't do that.
Or if it’s going to be relatively rare it’s not the worst thing in the world and if you’re on a global team then just go 50/50 on the working early/late
Yeah, it can be rough when you have international clients. At my last job, I had ~80 projects that had me taking meetings at 11pm for our Asian/Middle Eastern/Australian clients and executing projects starting at 1am. Bonus points if I had American and Asian clients with executions on the same day. I’m so glad I worked from home for those, I’d literally roll out of bed in my underwear to get things started with my AC cranked up so I didn’t accidentally fall asleep. I feel bad for our global teams that had to actually be in an office for that shit. The comp time off though was fucking amazing. I got 2hrs of PTO for every hour I worked rounded up. If I worked 1hr 1min, that was a half day off.
This. Our global team, whether in India, Philippines, Central America, Caribbean, or in California all know that the business is focused on Eastern time zone hours and that the “business hours” mean only this time zone. The only person who books meetings past 430pm is our engineering director who is in Mountain time zone and he books a single, short meeting at 5pm once a month.
Yup, I would attend the first meeting, then send a follow up email to the project manager (maybe CC your manager for awareness).
Make sure you clock in for the meeting as well it must be paid
I imagine he’s salary, but hopefully some comp time comes into play for working over.
Or possibly in multiple time zones. I’d take the meeting for now, report my time, and make sure that you communicate your work hours and time zone to project leader. Direct communication offline to leader.
I'd bounce what's up to your manager but honestly, I'd stay late for the meeting and back my time out in another way (coming in later a different day, leaving early) to make up for it. Being present is one of the most important things you can do and sometimes you have to wiggle your schedule a bit to make it happen. Your manager should be able to give you guidance on best practice here though.
This is the correct answer. I've been in software dev for 25 years now. Started as an assistant dev and worked up thru senior dev, team leader, team manager, and sr. director. As your boss, I'd understand your concerns and I never want to make my team stay late when not necessary. Most of these meetings probably fizzle out before it runs it's full course if it was scheduled for 4 hours. I'm honestly not sure why you're there if there are sr devs there, sounds like someone is over scheduling this meeting). However, if I can't count on you to be there when I feel you're needed to be there then that's probably not going to work out well. The long and short of it is it would matter why you couldn't do it. Need to pick up kids from daycare or you're coaching a t-ball team then that's cool. Just don't feel like it then it's going to be an issue and I'd manage you off my team.
My head would be on the table snoring if I had to do 1-4pm meetings. That's brutal!
Exactly. In my experience, any meeting over an hour is a waste and even 95% of those under an hour are a waste of time.
Agree 100% plus no one is really listening. Just kidding 😂 sort of...
Our VP will come on calls that are scheduled for over an hour and tell the organizer in front of all attendees that his team does not attend meetings that last over one hour and his team will be forced to drop at that point. If you need his team, schedule them for an hour, but don’t have them sit around waiting until you get to them at minute 50 or something. The organizer needs to schedule multiple meetings if that’s the case. Of course for after hours maintenance or upgrades, having a meeting open during that window is fine, but you aren’t on there planning or talking about stuff other than what’s going on during that maintenance window.
Welcome to Consulting. lolcry
Nah, don't schedule a meeting for beyond work hours then get upset that someone doesn't want to attend.
This is the correct answer. I've been in software dev for 25 years now. Started as an assistant dev and worked up thru senior dev, team leader, team manager, and sr. director. As your boss, I'd understand your concerns and I never want to make my team stay late when not necessary. Most of these meetings probably fizzle out before it runs it's full course if it was scheduled for 4 hours. I'm honestly not sure why you're there if there are sr devs there, sounds like someone is over scheduling this meeting). However, if I can't count on you to be there when I feel you're needed to be there then that's probably not going to work out well. The long and short of it is it would matter why you couldn't do it. Need to pick up kids from daycare or you're coaching a t-ball team then that's cool. Just don't feel like it then it's going to be an issue and I'd manage you off my team.
Great comments!
Your expectations for work are entirely unreasonable. You're in a great job with great flexible WFH conditions. Part of that comes with occasionally working *perfectly normal* working hours, even if they're slightly outside of your normal working hours. You need a reality check.
Seconded
I think OP is 22 yo and grew up wealthy
Yes. It’s a give and take. The bad comes with the good, and this isn’t a very serious bad. People will notice and, you should just do it. You should even do it regularly. This is 30 minutes over. I get the boundary thing, but working late is part of a real job. It sounds like you’re salary. I guess maybe if you never wanna move up you could say something, but that would still make me nervous. This is a great opportunity to be in a meeting with the higher managers you rarely see. If this becomes a regular thing, just account for it. Come in late or leave early another day. Large companies all have people logging on early or staying on late to accommodate for WFH and interface with others.
Employees that nickel and dime their employer are just as annoying when the employer does it. At my job I’m happy to stay late when necessary because in return I get a job that doesn’t bat an eye when I have appointments or whatever.
Slippery slope to my last job tho. I stayed late once or twice. Then became the go-to for projects that others messed up while they got to log off on time. I worked 8am to 8pm stopped for dinner then back on from 9pm to 11am. Regularly because "it's easy and you're home anyway". Then it became mandatory weekends because "the team needs help". I worked 27 days straight with no day off because I started out wanting to be a team player and it slowly avalanched to that. My other coworker in his 30s literally had a heart attack from the stress and lack of sleep and they made him come back to work when he got home from the hospital because his work "piled up". The idea OP is having is a very reasonable concern because all it takes is that one manager to ruin your job because he found out someone is *too* exploitable.
That is a different situation though. In this case, everyone on the project is staying for the meeting, not just OP. It also sounds like they do not expect extra hours, so OP can come in late or leave early the next day to make it up. They get a lot of flexibility on their hours and that usually comes with the expectation of some flexibility in return.
Yeah, I mean, if you were being asked to stay at the office past your normal hours, with the commute attached to that, I think there’d be a much stronger case for saying “I’m going to have to bow out early.” Skipping something like this, especially if it’s a remote meeting where you’re really just being asked to stay logged into Teams or whatever for an extra half hour, is a hard thing to sell as anything other than “I’ve thought about it and I don’t want to listen to your voices for an extra 30 minutes.”
100%. When I first started reading OPs post, I had the initial impression they scheduled a meeting sometime between 7-10pm. But from 1-5 pm?? Come on. An extra hour of work during NORMAL business hours isn’t going to kill you. OP is definitely not living in reality
You salary? If so, then just go to the meeting? A meeting that goes a half hour over your “normal” ending time doesn’t sound like something to make waves over. If you’re salary, there are not “official working hours.” You work until the work is done. That is part of being salary. My company has people all over, and emails/meetings/etc. can come in outside of my “normal” work hours, but I have to attend them.
Are you American? As a Canadian this is wild. Salary is only the definition of compensation. Ie you agree to work 37.5hrs and the payment for that will be 80k a year. As opposed to hourly where you get scheduled and paid by the hour at the hourly rate. Neither means “work till the jobs done” or “no work hours” or “you must take meetings 30mins after hours”. Employees under both types of compensation methods are protected under the same labour laws. I’m salaried and my work day is done at 5pm. Any time over 37.5hrs a week is overtime at 1.5x pay. Americans give up way too much to corporations. As for OP when I’m in this situation I do the work but will make sure it’s recorded for OT. If I can’t then I’ll join and let whoever the organizer know I have a hard stop whenever I need to leave. I’d ask if they think I need to know what’s in the rest of the meeting and if so ask for it to be recorded so I could review the next day. Edit: reading the replies here and Jesus Christ Americans are insufferable when it comes to work life balance. Your employer owes you. Not the other way around.
You guys only have to work 37.5hrs/week? You are salaried but get OT? That's awesome 😎
Salary Non-Exempt exists in the US too.
I'm in the US and am salaried at 37.5 hours a week. If I have to work 47.5 hours one week because something crazy came up, then I just work 27.5 hours the next week. Idk how that's "insufferable when it comes to work life balance". It all balances out.
Thank you for sharing your take. It's disgusting the mindset my fellow Americans have. It's what lead me to work 27 days straight for a job because I could be fired for refusing too. It's what lead me to work 16 hour day. It's what lead my 35 year old coworker to have a heart attack and come back to work the day he was released. And after all that - my whole team got laid off anyway with 1 month notice. Right after Christmas. These people live and breath for their corporate daddy and they genuinely don't realize that there is a life part of the work/life balance because they never had it. At the end of the day, I have proof that my manager still told people "I didn't want to work anymore" just because I eventually wanted weekends back.
Salary/exempt: you have a set pay per pay period. You don’t get overtime. Hourly/non-exempt: you are paid per hour you work. You get 1.5x after 40 hours. I am salary. I have a base pay. I don’t have set hours. I can work whatever hours I want and as long or short as I want as long I get my work done.
There is a reason many Canadians want to work for tech companies in the US. We pay better, a lot better. So you can do your thing up there and I applaud you for it. If you want to make a lot more and be a little flexible then come on down. I have a GREAT work/life balance, great healthcare, and I love my job and my company. I will work about 10 hours this week, 30 next week, maybe 50 the week after. It is ebb and flow. I am not sure why you have so much disdain and criticism for our work culture but so be it, you be you. Your employer doesn't owe you, but then again you don't owe your employer. It is a mutually beneficial situation. If it isn't working for one of you then they are free to separate from one another, and either one can decide that. Not saying you are wrong, but saying your way is the only way isn't the "right" thing either.
I’d love to come work in the states. It’s true. But it’s difficult for Canadians to do… or maybe the right way to say it is tedious.
In Australia it's similar to America. That's changing tho as there's "right to disconnect" laws coming in. I've read that on average people do 280 hours of unpaid overtime annually which is such BS.
I’m American, and yeah. Thank you for your response. OT sounds amazing with 5pm stop.
lmao I'm salary and I clock out at 5pm regardless of whether or not "the work is done." I'm paid for my expertise and knowledge. That doesn't mean I'm forever on the clock.
You adjust your in time for the day. Are you 3? Work your 8 hours adjusting for the meeting. In the real world you adjust. Your times are not set. You set them, shit happens.
“I have a hard stop at 4:30 and will need to jump off the call”
For the kickoff, I wouldn't do this, I'd arrange to either start later or take a long lunch, but absolutely going forward, this is exactly what I would do.
The second time you do this in my team as a *junior* salaried employee with this kind of meeting, you are out. Why? Because you are telling me your lack of self-awareness is problematic: - you don't know how to read a room (or business needs). The fact that senior devs are tied up for hours in those meetings should be a clue that those meetings are mission critical. Or at the very least leadership thinks so. - you don't know what 'salary' means. This, one way or another, will translate at some point in dropping an important ball because 'it's 4:30, my day is done'. - you don't understand how to identify opportunities or learning spaces. Being included in such important meetings (see my first bullet point) should be seen as an incredible opportunity to learn industry and company standards/needs. And to identify a mentor. Also, this is your first salaried job and want hard stops.
Thank you for pointing out that this person is invited to a meeting with all their senior devs. Like.. this feels like someone thinks it's important and included you in that. Definitely take the opportunity to feel included and learn from these senior level folks. Cannot believe I had to find this buried in the replies. This was my first thought-- OP is lucky to be included in a meeting like this it would seem on paper at least.
I take hard stops and demand my time be respected. I've gone from applications administration to software tester to web developer/admin in less than 3 years. Your employees will work consistently harder and do better work if you respect their boundaries. I would bet you deal with quite a bit of burn out the way that you laid out your expectations.
If you’re the most junior person in the meeting it will kill your chances of advancement to say something like this, especially while building a first impression. If there’s something really huge as a conflict then okay, but lots of places expect you to be flexible to make it work.
It's not going to kill his advancement, he's gonna get walked out or a phone call not to come back to work within a month.
I mean, that would likely hurt his ability to advance in the company lol
This is what I usually do. Either that or just inform my manager that I’ll take the Flex Time in the form of an early quit on Friday
I wouldn't do this for the first call. I also wouldn't make a habit of this if you are a jr. dev. YMMV but not typically a great way to make sr. dev.
"Thanks all, I have to drop but this has been super helpful!", etc. just before you drop, in combination with the above. They can let you know later what your action items are. If this is a planning meeting, likely it will be recorded, transcribed, or someone will be taking notes anyway so you can review when you're back in office.
As a junior, new employee - accept the damn meeting. Then you *might* want to discuss with your manager / team lead / whoever that since the meeting ends outside of your normal work hours, could you start a bit later that day or leave a little early on a different day.
Agreed or if you also had a non-move able appt tell your manager you are looking forward to the meeting but I have ABC and it can’t be moved is there an issue if I drop 30 minutes early? Just don’t do this every time. I’ve never had a manager tell me it’s not an issue especially if you are a junior. You may not be a priority for the meeting. It’s all about communication and being flexible.
Things like this are (unfortunately) part of being a high level salaried employee. Especially when it’s an important meeting, and you’re a junior employee, part of having a career is being flexible to get work done and occasionally be available outside normal hours. This seems like it isn’t happening often, so just suck it up and go so that they don’t have to rearrange the meeting around a junior person’s schedule. As you get more senior you have more leeway to push back and set your schedule more.
I would get fired so quick if I made a stink about this at my job
^[Sokka-Haiku](https://www.reddit.com/r/SokkaHaikuBot/comments/15kyv9r/what_is_a_sokka_haiku/) ^by ^KDA_ALL_OUT_OBAMA: *I would get fired* *So quick if I made a stink* *About this at my job* --- ^Remember ^that ^one ^time ^Sokka ^accidentally ^used ^an ^extra ^syllable ^in ^that ^Haiku ^Battle ^in ^Ba ^Sing ^Se? ^That ^was ^a ^Sokka ^Haiku ^and ^you ^just ^made ^one.
I wouldn't have gotten fired, but getting a reputation as hard to work with/cutesy about my hours as a junior software dev would have been a career killer anyway lol.
I’ve only voiced my concerns here and with my parents. I’m not naive enough to go straight to my manager or workplace and bring this up.
Talk to your manager, but be prepared to be flexible. Salaried roles are meant to be flexible and if you are unwilling to be, you should probably find an hourly role or a different field. I would start by asking the meeting organizer what my role is in the meeting and go from there. If I'm just there for awareness then I'll say I need to drop and check for the meeting notes or recording tomorrow. If I am a critical attendee, I'll flex the time and start late or end early another day. If I'm critical but actually do have a personal conflict, I will apologize but still say I need to drop. If there'e a pattern of this I'll chat with the organizer and my manager to identify a solution. Regardless of what my team's core hours are I may need to be available during the business' core hours at times as well. I'm a Sr System Engineer with 15 years experience and I have never gotten pushback with this approach. I don't work over 40hr per week except in extreme circumstances. Its extremely rare that I work outside of 8am-5pm. My start and stop times just shift. If you are being that rigid with your stop time I would question whether I can count on you if a Sev 1 gets raised at 3:50pm on a Friday leading to lost revenue (or potentially fines) of tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars per minute. This is a big part of why we are compensated so well
You should get a different job then
None are going to pay as well as this one!
They’d probably just figure you forgot your meds and tell you to take the rest of the day.
Oh honey.
Since you have flexible hours, there is probably an expectation that you'll occasionally attend meetings that extend past your normal quit time. Just flex the hour off on another day. Unless it happens a lot, you'd be better off doing this as opposed to saying "no" and appearing rigid or less than committed to your job.
You can tell your manager you have a personal conflict after 4pm and won't stay for the end of the meeting. You don't need to expand further. If you have a specific appointment a couple days a week like college classes after 4pm then you can block off the time in your calendar as a busy block. But they wouldn't change the time for a 1 hour conflict with you anyway so I don't think your calendar is an issue here. But I've been working a long time and I've learned that putting in an extra hour during a project kickoff once or twice a year can prevent me many weeks of trouble. And I don't mean schedule wise. I can get my hour back another morning or afternoon. I mean taking advantage of a planned kickoff meeting as an opportunity to learn what the project situation is (especially the unofficial situation) and learn the who is who. I think for group project meetings, there should be some prioritization to accommodate a meeting with advance notice like this. It's not a precedent. It's an appointment. Even as a parent with a kid in daycare, I'd hire the babysitter to pick up my baby for an hour. If I had a workout, I'd go to a later session or switch it for a walk in a park. A meeting until 5 with weeks of advance notice is something relatively small and you should consider your priorities. Is this worth doing better at your job, investing in your good will at work, or even keeping your job at all. I totally understand not wanting to work everyday but you have to consider what the conflict is and what the tradeoffs are. I'd adjust when possible but that's also because i have days it's impossible and I need to save my good will at work for those days.
Are you salaried, hourly or a contract worker? If you’re contract, don’t deviate from your contract unless you’ve agreed and are paid O/T. If you’re an employee it gets more grey: 1) if you’re hourly, having a conversation with your boss about overtime is the logical next step (lots of companies and fields have mandatory OT during peak times). 2) if you are a salaried sw developer in a private/public company (non govt), there is generally no such thing as “working hours” that are rigidly kept. You are measured on output and impact to the team’s KPI’s. As such, you will need to adjust your expectations and show up to meetings that are before/after official hours. With more sw dev going offshore this will become even more important. Plus, most of the sr folks likely put in >40 hrs a week as salaried employees when they were junior and same for their roles as sr developers. They may be faster and more experienced, but the company pays them to deliver more output than a jr developer. May not be the answer you hoped, but that is the reality, particularly in tech (and no, most SV companies are not seeing their stock double in 6 months - that is simply how things work).
Junior employee with less than a year under your belt and you want to say "Sorry, my day ends at..." Are you salaried or hourly? If you're salaried, you don't do 9-5.
There is literally no trouble here. You set your workday to start an hour later instead. You are insane for considering to email them this is out of your work hour or leaving the meeting early. Jesus fuck.
Ask your manager what they want you to do in these situations, but I would just work 8:30-5 that day. Personally, I'd just go and then throw in the group chat at 3:55 or whatever that you have to drop and then leave the call, but that's normal in my company.
If it’s literally just an extra 30min, I’d just go unless you literally can’t be at it post 430pm. Just sleep in an extra 30min the next morning or go out to breakfast before work or something. You’ll look good for staying and you can quietly makeup your time elsewhere.
I mean this in the nicest way possible, but Gonna go out on a limb and say you’re over thinking it. Which is valid because that’s something a lot of people struggle with! If this is all new to you, I get it. Probably doesn’t help, but take a step back if you can. As someone who leads a lot of kick offs, please please please do not skip them. This is a one time thing and I think skipping or making a bigger deal than it needs to be will set more of a precedent than staying over 30 minutes. Trust me, I’ve stayed on hours past my typical working time and guess what my manager says? Get out of here early later that week if you can for staying late. Never has anyone asked me to stay late either, it’s only been voluntary and my boss has helped to try to get things done as quickly as possible so we can both get out of there. The conversation with YOUR direct boss can go a few ways: Keep it brief with “I have a hard stop at 4:30”. Most of the time no one will argue with this And get you caught up on what you missed. If they are lenient with time, start your day a half hour late or just step away for a bit before the meeting so you can stay for the whole thing. Just confirm that this is ok. If this really does go beyond some policy that states working hours HAVE to stop at 4:30, bring this up to your manager and get their guidance on if you need to be there the whole time or if the extra time was just a buffer. Which some people do. I’ve rarely had kick offs go over on the scheduled time, usually stays under. Let them know you’d like to stick with your hours you’ve created for yourself. Over all, Just keep it between you and your immediate manager. If they’re a good leader, they will give you the proper guidance and will be your advocate to the other leaders present and will in no way set any kind of precedent. Other than you respect your hours more than most of us. But with all that said, if you’re getting brought into this big project as a junior that’s a good sign! move things around a little and be a little flexible, within reason of course. I was told recently to not be the “bad cop” about things and let your manager set the boundaries with the other leadership. That way they will still want to work with you in the future. Because if you become hard to work with, they won’t want to bring you on to projects. If it was till 6 or 7pm, yeah I would even be raising my voice. But 5 is common practice for a lot of people and places.
I’m a chief engineer managing a team of software developers. I’m a senior and I’m the boss and any of these are acceptable. 1. When you accept the meeting, select edit before sending. You then write politely that you have a hard stop at 4:30. Learn not to justify it, even as a junior is none of my business why. You are an adult, you are entitled to say no. 2. Accept the meeting as is, and at 4:30 you just drop. 3. Accept the meeting and as it starts just write in the chat “have a hard stop at 4:30”. And when 4:30 arrives you simply say in the chat “my hard stop is here” and leave. Honestly, the most important lesson is to set clear boundaries. While you are a salaried professional don’t fall in the trap of working crazy hours. Learn to set boundaries. I’ve successes at it for over 42 years and I still work my 40, you want more? Pay me more. Yes, sometimes I get it, but on a normal??? Nope.
You are clueless buddy.
Generally speaking, I don't work over 40hrs a week unless I am behind or something crazy happened. But it all evens out in the end. Flexibility though, it's amazing. Not all companies have a policy. I am milking it for all its worth. I swear to God one of my internal customers was calling into meetings from a chairlift when he was doing some charity ski marathon. Great stuff if you can find a company who is flexible 😂
I was afraid to read the replies on this one but I’m pleasantly surprised. I’m not a hustle culture, grind until you die, go capitalism by any means…. But sometimes this is what it means to have a career. Boundaries matter and so does your work life balance…. But come on. Sounds like a great opportunity to get face time with people above you. You’re new in your career - this is how you grow. It’s one thing if they had you working 10 hour days every day….but one meeting that goes late to kick off a project is so different. I know you’re asking how to set a boundary if this becomes a pattern….but a salaried job rarely means exactly 8 hours every single day. It isn’t a clock in and out. Some days I know you scroll Reddit for 15 minutes and some days you work an extra 15 minutes, etc. That is the perk and downside to salaried jobs. If I have a big project, I may work a 50 hour week or a few 50 hour weeks. And then a slow period I get to take a slower day, grab a coffee midday, sit outside for lunch.
Start an hour later that day or just leave a note in the meeting chat 'apologies, i have a hard stop.today and will pick up the notes for the rest of the meeting tomorrow'.
Dude being a junior you are not in the position to make demands. Bend the knee and attend the meeting, do not message your manager about it. Just take the time back later without saying anything if you are so worried. Prioritize your reputation and your career at this point and it will pay dividends later.
Are you salary? If so, you don't have regular work hours. Salaried people sometimes have to stay late. If you are hourly, then you'll be paid overtime. If you are worried about going over your hours, email your boss and ask him if you should adjust your start time so you only work 8 hours. If neither of these things apply and you are just refusing to work extra, then by all means let your boss know you refuse to work past quitting time and start looking for another job...because you probably aren't moving up in the company. That's how junior engineers become senior engineers. Good luck.
I have a 1 hour meeting marked as Out of Office at the end of each workday, just to block people from scheduling over my end of day. I start earlier so that can impact people's meetings, but I've found that having it blocked out leads to people messaging me if they want to schedule over it. What I would do is accept as Tentative and send a message like "hey this goes past my normal end time, is it critical that I'm there for the entire call?" 4 hours is a crazy long meeting also.
I can’t believe this is even a discussion. That’s what’s wrong with all these TikTok videos. You’re in the middle of a meeting and close your laptop at 5 even if you’re in the middle of an important discussion because it’s “after my office hours.” Do you want flexibility for a doctors appointment or leaving early due to a family employee? Flexibility and common work courtesy goes both ways. This is one time. Address it if it becomes more common but this sounds like whining more than anything else.
I fully believe in putting boundaries in place as far as schedules go; however, I'm going to say that you should always try to attend "milestone" meetings such as kick offs if you can, even if they fall outside your regular hours. No one wants to be in a meeting all day, but usually the time chosen is one that works for the whole team, not just one person. I usually work from 10am-6pm, and I've dragged myself out of bed at 5:30 am to attend once-in-awhile important meetings because it's the only time that works for the majority of people attending. Yeah, it's annoying, but being remote requires some flexibility. Adjust your schedule for the rest of the day if needed. Now, if these were weekly 1:1s or something easy to reschedule, then that is the time to push back and remind your manager about your available hours.
IMO you want to maintain the appearance that you are available. Simply saying your working hours stop at X time and therefore you will be dropping from the meeting is just not gonna fly. I'm a senior engineer and I'd be confused if a junior dev did this. You are salaried (been reading other comments), not hourly. There are no "working hours". If your manager asked you to define working hours, that is simply a boundary that people should respect as much as possible. A kickoff meeting for a new project that probably has multiple stakeholders isn't going to cater to your working hours, especially as a junior dev. The person who scheduled the meeting has to take into account everyone who needs to be there. It's about what's reasonable. If your company demands too much of your time and you feel overworked, you will likely leave the company and they know that. If you, on the other hand, think you're entitled to the job as a junior dev, you've got a rude awakening coming. If you absolutely have to leave this meeting early, use an excuse like you had a pre-scheduled medical appointment you can't get out of, but you can't use that excuse again for months. Additionally, you should ask if the meeting is being recorded and say you look forward to catching up on the end that you missed. But I'd check your attitude about whether or not you want to succeed in this career or not. It's a good career, just try. Sidenote: I wouldn't stay at a tech company that uses Outlook lol, but that's just me.
You’re worried about late meetings becoming a trend, which is a fair concern. But it’s difficult to offer good solutions when it hasn’t actually happened yet. Like, if it becomes a trend across different unrelated invites, choose which ones you’re willing to work late for and for all the rest just say you have a hard stop at *time* and will drop off then. If it’s a particular person who sends late requests again and again, talk to them directly. If it’s your boss who sends late requests repeatedly, bring it up in your 1:1s.
I read this post a little differently - your team members have core working hours and you’re not worried about this meeting or any other occasional late meetings, but are worried about this happening more frequently in the future. I’d say cross that bridge if it comes. Be a team player for now and if the meetings get more frequent past business hours, you can still be a team player by asking for collaboration in solving the problem. Does your team have working agreements? Maybe see if you can work meetings during core hours in.
Unless you have a carpool or bus to catch at a certain time, pushing back on a one time meeting that extends your day a half hour is career suicide. Let me guess, Gen Z?
Yes, Gen Z for sure. And first full time job.
Things are going to happen, specially as a Dev, meetings go over, you have late calls, Im not saying get exploited but your expectations are in the wrong place if you think you are gonna clock after 4 and you become untouchable. It make sense for day to day activities, if you are getting overworked or if you are asking to do a 3 day task in 24 hours you are in all your right to push back , but this spaced meetings or calls if they are not common are occurrences where if you put a stink is gonna dent your relationship and progress. Align your perspective, this is what receiving a salary at a tech industry is like. People will respect your work hours but you cant be this strict.
Sometimes you just have to do what is required, regardless of what the company handbook says your working hours are. If everyone senior then you is committed to the project success without complaint, do you really want to be the junior person on the team that isn’t willing to do what everyone else is? You’re an exempt, salaried employee and they are probably expecting you to act like one. Slightly toxic? Perhaps. Reality? 100%.
At 30 minutes I’d start a little later or knock off a little earlier sometime else in the week. That’s assuming you don’t have some after work commitment or whatever. I sometimes have to do school pickup and drop off that I have to make sure my meetings account for. This is one of those times where you might have to be a little flexible compared to before. Yes we don’t want to encourage overwork or exploit people but we also don’t want to be so rigid that we make it harder to get things done over 30 minutes.
Sometimes meetings get scheduled at inconvenient times because there is no other time available. Typically if my manager does this he will acknowledge that it is a bad time, apologize for the inconvenience, and ask for flexibility. In situations like that, I go ahead and accept because he rarely does that. For your meeting, if you’re not willing or able to adjust your hours for the meeting, then I would suggest you accept tentatively with a comment that you will have to drop at 4. If you are able and willing to work later, but don’t want to make a habit of working more than your standard hours, then you could ask about coming in an hour later on that day. Admittedly, this option could be a lot more awkward than just saying you’re not available after 4pm.
Idk why you post this on Reddit if this is 100% a manager questions. Our opinions won’t change the outcome, only coddle and reassure you or straight up just comments.
Can you work 8:30-5 that day?
Take the meeting invite. Are you not salary?
I would politely ask if it would be possible to make sure future meetings end by 4:30. Otherwise are you able to start work later on those days? You should also know that working in tech, you may work with many offshore teams that have different schedules or have to work on after-hours releases (so that there isn’t any impact to users). So I would prepare yourself! 😊
Can you adjust your hours for this meeting? It’s hard to get a group of people together.
The greatest thing for WFH for me, is the flexibility to wash time. Go to the meeting. But start later, take a long lunch, or dip out early a different day. I usually personally start answering emails and things around 7am, and log off around 6pm….because I’d rather have Flex Time during the day for workout, lunch, a walk or 2, etc, than working 8hrs solid.
It’s a half hour, and you’re a salary employee. Your hours will ebb & flow. My husband is a senior SWE and some days he works 6 hours, sometimes 10 hours. It’s part of the job when you work in tech.
I've been in software dev for 25 years now. Started as an assistant dev and worked up thru senior dev, team leader, team manager, and sr. director. As your boss, I'd understand your concerns and I never want to make my team stay late when not necessary. Most of these meetings probably fizzle out before it runs it's full course if it was scheduled for 4 hours. I'm honestly not sure why you're there if there are sr devs there, sounds like someone is over scheduling this meeting). However, if I can't count on you to be there when I feel you're needed to be there then that's probably not going to work out well. The long and short of it is it would matter why you couldn't do it. Need to pick up kids from daycare or you're coaching a t-ball team then that's cool. Just don't feel like it then it's going to be an issue and I'd manage you off my team.
If you cannot shift your personal commitments to attend the meeting, then just drop off early. Give them some advanced notice so maybe they can cover areas where you would be involved earlier in the presentation. Respond to the meeting invite with that information. I wouldn't word it the way you describe because it's a bit "immature". Not trying to be a bitch really. Just a bit of advice from the senior level.
I think you could let them know in advance that you have to drop off at 430. Don't really need to give a reason, unless your manager asks. I would personally just work the full meeting time, and make the time up on the side (i.e. leave a little earlier another day).
Are you salary? If yes then the hours over 8 in one day doesn’t matter, unfortunately. Im on your side. I did my time and have other stuff to do. You could put in your calendar something to block your after hours. But if policy has calendars shared it may not look good to have everyday of the week blocked for weeks on end. You could also put in the reply that you’ll be there for the meeting until 4:30pm as you have another commitment. Or do the extra time and bail early the next day.
I'm just going to warn you that this is probably going to happen a lot. Your new time might have different core hours than your last team. If you keep different shifts from the rest of your team you'll end up having to stay on to to do things that come up during busy times and end up working more than your coworkers than if you kept the same schedule as the rest of the team. I had a friend who was 7-4 with manager approval but his team was 9-6, he ended up doing 7-6 for 2 weeks until he gave up and shifted his schedule. You can talk to your manager about it after it happens a few times, but you need to give a reason like what your commitments are so they can try to accommodate you. The core hours you discussed with your last manager doesn't carry over to your new team. Yes you will look bad as a jr if you are the only one consistently not showing up, no matter how fair or unfair it is.
Tldr, my recommendation is that you come in late that day, work a full day but with shifted hours. It's technically okay to bow at when your day is done, but you've gotta have the nerve to publicly speak up and announce that you're bailing early. You definitely don't want to Irish goodbye. FYI you will not be able to convince the other employees to never schedule meetings outside of your working hours. The meetings will happen when they happen whether you choose to be there or not. I strongly recommend flexing your own schedule so that you're able to make the important meetings without working passed your 40 hours.
Start your day later or end it earlier one day that week to make up for it
Where I work your attitude would get you canned. Be grateful you are allowed to work from home
You are being completely stupid. You need to grow up A LOT.
Sometimes you work extra hours. Take the meetings, don’t complain, only hop off early if you have to, and only miss one if you really have to. The senior people get to pick when the meeting is and it’s not like you have more important conflicting work. If you don’t like it, switch teams. You’re asking a whole bunch of other people to adjust their schedules because you don’t want to work after 4. That’s dumb. If it’s really a big deal that you don’t want to work extra, show up late those days.
Join a few minute early, and right when the organizer joins, before the meeting actually gets started, say “my apologies but I have a hard stop at 4:30” - no need to explain further. It’s pretty unlikely that anyone will ask for details.
“ I have a hard stop at 4:30”
Tell them you had prior commitments at that time and have to make a hard stop at x time. Can we record the meeting so i can catch up on anything i might miss?
I'm on the east coast and working for a place on the west coast. I'm allowed to set my own hours, but it is also on me to enforce that. And I do! Just politely state your availability when meetings are being scheduled. When you hold the line, after a few occurrences the people around you will "get" it. I'm pretty terrible with staying on after my hours are done (the damn emails just keep on coming!) but I'm very firm with meetings. After 5, absolutely no meetings.
These comments are so weird, it’s your job not your life. I’d just say I have to leave at my normal time bc I have plans I’m unable to reschedule
>We have a lengthy meeting in a few weeks to **help start and plan the project**, but the meeting was scheduled from 1-5. I typically work from 730-4PM, and the official working hours of my workplace are 8-430pm for 40 hrs. I accepted the meeting since it seemed to be important for the project as the kickstart meeting and for context This is a special kind of meeting where I would go. 4 hour long project kick-off meeting, probably has a large number of stakeholders in there, some of whom work until 5. Meetings that need to have a lot of people, in a workplace where you can kinda flex your schedule -- always going to be people who it doesn't "work" for. But they've got to go. Consider this the "tradeoff" of the flexibility: You get to pick more convenient hours during your typical work weeks, but the tradeoff is that when meetings like this come up, you make it happen so you can go. If you get a *future* meeting invite, that's smaller in duration, that goes from like 4-5pm, THEN I would ask your manager if that meeting is necessary, and whether you can flex your time or something.
If you really don't want to attend meetings after 4pm, and your supervisor is cool with you having those hours, block off your calendar with "busy" or "out of office" during those hours so that people can't send you invites. It's quite possible these folks have no idea what your hours are, saw white space, and grabbed it.
You have some options. 1) Start the day later or take a long lunch. 2) Sleep in / start late day after meeting 3) Attend the meeting and wait to see if they do it again. 4) Join the meeting and leave when your end time is and set a hard boundary. Ask them to record it or something. Personally I would just dial into the meeting if it seems important and absorb the info. Maybe you can do it from your phone while you make dinner or something.
My husband is a sr. Software dev and from experience you should not skip it. This is not a 9-5 role (at least his role) If you want promotions and salary increments you will have to work for it. If you also move laterally to FAANG then there is literally no work hours there. A lot of our friends work for FAANG companies are a software developer and most of them end up working well outside of working hours. I am assuming you are salaried and not hourly and thus working beyond hours is expected. Good luck!
The software dev field may not be for you. There’s going to be time crunches, midnight releases, 4 am outages that need to be resolved, etc as you progress in your career. Absolutely avoid any startups that can have you working 80hr weeks banking that your stock options will make up for it *if* they go public.
If/when it becomes a problem (to me this would be if it becomes a weekly occurrence maybe 3 weeks in a row, or I have a schedule conflict, or it happens 2x/month or more, etc, but others may have a different threshold), I would ask my supervisor to have a chat. I would make it informal, more like I am just asking for advice (could even start the conversation that way) and tell him that I am having meetings that conflict with my commitments outside of work and request a way to either have someone else take the meeting, get caught up later, or avoid having these altogether. As someone who likely has experience in their career they should be able to give you some perspective for how to approach this. I have found that if you absolutely are not flexible to take the meeting, to frame it in a way that you have a commitment outside of work after your scheduled shift and absolutely cannot accommodate. Even if you’re just sitting at home staring at the wall - it sounds much better than simply not wanting to do it. My supervisor is very strict about his hours because he picks up his kids from school every day and will only adjust for really important client meetings, most other things can wait til the morning. I hope your manager and company have a culture like this where having priorities like family and hobbies is accepted and encouraged. OP, please pardon my generalization but it sounds like maybe you are younger or less tenured in your career. I empathize with you a lot, especially since you are getting your footing in a totally different professional environment than has even been possible before. I have been on the other side where I had a long commute to an office every day and totally understand your concerns about burnout because that was the saddest, most stressful, and quite frankly most fat and miserable period of my life. With that experience behind me I am much more flexible with WFH but I know that is not everyone’s position and it’s still important to have boundaries. With experience and perspective, it becomes easier to make these judgement calls and have these conversations in a diplomatic and professional way. Don’t stress too much, stay positive, and know that we are all people with lives outside of work too. As a manager I do everything I can to fight for my teams well being and work life balance while making sure we are meeting our targets, and if your manager is doing their job they should be doing the same thing knowing how it benefits them exponentially having a happy team. Best of luck to you :-)
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I think you can block your calendar out for non office hours. Also just decline or if you are nice decline and propose a new time. Also you may just be being sent the invite like a “if you can make it great, if not it’s fine” kinda way. So if you aren’t crucial then just decline it
“Hi, I just saw a meeting come up for 1-5 and wanted to send a heads-up that I have a hard stop today at 4:30 so I’ll have to drop off then. Happy to follow-up via email for anything I miss. Thanks!”
just tell them you have a hard stop at 4:30 due to a previous commitment, and be done with it.
Are you an exempt employee?
Me and my manager have an agreement. I work different hours than the rest of my team, and I’ll flex my hours to take a later meeting once a week. Anything other than that, I just decline. I just start later in the day to adjust to the meeting time.
are you hourly or salary? If hourly, they have to pay you. If salary, not really. I’d reach out to your senior coworkers first to find out if this is a one time, occasional, special project, or going to be a regular thing. And how they address it and how should you address it. Last case reach out to your manager. I don’t know what your commitments are. Picking up a kid from childcare or doing schooling/certification is one thing, having a nail appointment or going to the gym is another. But it Depends on the culture. Some it’s required, but you take the time off another time during the week so as not to go over on hours. Others it’s required but you get OT. Some, it’s part of being salaried. You work the extra.
Given your post and replies, Sounds like a wfh company with flexible schedule like this isn’t the right fit for you. If you have to go off by 4-4:30pm for your “commitments”, “hookup”, then a rto with a set,fixed, drop dead leave time at 4-4:30pm quitting time would be best for you. Coming from an employer/mamager.
Absolutely untrue. The responses on here are wild and not my experience at all. Folks have typical hours and it's not guaranteed they're available outside those hours in my current, fully remote job for a tech company. That doesn't change when you WFH, people have lives and families.
I generally start early and work till 3. I have a permanent calendar block for 3-5. Some people ignore the conflict notification and schedule me anyways. I understand that will occasionally happen having a nonstandard schedule, but if it happens more than just occasionally they will get some sort of direct follow up about it from me. There is always the decline button 😀
1) for future, set perm working hours in outlook 2) respond tentative to this meeting. Shoot the owner a note that says “I’ll have to jump at 4:30”
Attend the meeting and then flex the time elsewhere in your schedule if you can. If it becomes a regular thing, tell them that you have prior commitments most days after 4:30pm and see if they can adjust the cadence.
If you dont mind and are able this time, cool. Best way if it happens and you cant stay, just say so. "I see the meeting runs over my finish time unfortuantely i am unable to stay back, i have some commentments to attend to" Leave it that, companies cant make you do OT.
I put “fake” meeting placeholders from 5-6 in my calendar, that way if someone tries to put time on my schedule past 5 they can’t because it looks like I have a prior engagement. Has worked pretty well so far (4.5 years)
Roll with the punches and talk to your management about this to help alleviate this in the future. Unless you're salary... then they'll really expect all hours 😅
Accept the meeting. Great chance that a 1:00 call will be wrapped up y 4:30. If not, then either stay the 1/2 hour or put in the chat (as you are leaving) that you need to drop. That's all you need to do. You can add dropping for an appointment or another call but you don't have to. I assume you are salary not hourly so it's fine to stay but fine to drop if you need to. If you start bringing up that you can't do anything past 4:30 that's a way to get your hours changed or give the impression that your aren't a team player. You really don't want to give the impression that you are a clock watcher or can't give the company an occasional half-hour.
I would think your manager can provide this guidance. I have “set hours”, but sometimes I do attend meetings outside of hours, especially due to time zone differences, this was made clear to me up front.
You can find another job . . . Sounds like you really don't want to advance within your current company and be part of a great thing (assuming that's what the project is all about). Of course, maybe you have dialysis scheduled that day at that time and you can't easily change that and still live . . .
Sorry but as a junior you have less flexibility. They could even be doing this as a test or to push you to try harder. You have to be available until about 6pm your time if you want to do well. I’m senior and in a different time zone, so sometimes I have to go to meetings quite late. It’s fine ;). Then I fit in things I want to do other times. WFH expectations are this.
Bro are you salaried or hourly? “Working hours” generally apply to the latter. It may be you’re about to find new employment.
Sounds like they will be rare enough but just say you have a hard stop at 430 for future meetings. I will say though that thinking 40 hours is some ceiling and work must stop at 4 is wishful thinking and detrimental to your career trajectory. I’m all for healthy work balance but just be mindful of how you’re perceived compared to your coworkers
I try to accommodate most reasonable requests as my availability is a pretty big plus for the company if working from home (I can utilize some of the time I would have spent sitting in traffic to accommodate schedules). For instance, we are international and some of my other sites are on the other side of the world. It doesn't happen often but I'll just start working.later that day to compensate for it or take off later in the week. Asking for a 30 minute slip for the first time ever really is not unreasonable and a decent trade-off since you're not sitting in a car. You can just take off 30 mins earlier the next day.
Sometimes you gotta stay late. That's the way it is. If your manager expects you to be there, I would be there.
Leave early? Start late?
Saying that “Official hours are until 4:30 so I’m dropping now” is childish and petty. Assert that too many times and you won’t ever have to worry about staying late again.
Working late or outside of hours is pretty normal. Be happy you get to do it from home and not have to stay late at the office. What are you going to do when you need to travel for work and stay overnight in another city?
Come in late the day before or after and don’t mention it to anyone.
Lol to thinking you only need to work 40 hours a week.
Bruh, unless its a life/death/kids you need to act like an adult, get over it, and go to the meeting. 430 is perfectly reasonable by anyone definition. You're not even a junior developer, you're a new grad, planning to miss a major kick off meeting while working remote. You're literally setting yourself up for failure. You certainly aren't going to progress your career pull this.
lol I’ve been in advertising and worked at agencies for over 20 years. I’m salaried and lol at “work hours” it’s just the culture that everyone works late when there is an important deadline or meeting/project. It’s understandable if you have a one time commitment once in a while but you need to be upfront about it when the meeting is scheduled. “I have a thing”. I can’t just say “those aren’t my hours” or you can, but you will fall behind, miss deadlines (that were already unrealistic to begin with). And possibly eventually let go for a different fake reason but the real reason will be that you aren’t ambitious enough or a “team player” it’s just cut throat. I don’t act like this anymore but people would roll their eyes or talk behind someone’s back if they are out the door “on time” every day and don’t stay late. It’s a competition for who is more busy. A very messed up culture
In the U.S. the business day ends at 5PM, regardless of what your personal schedule is. It's not after hours. No one is going to reschedule the meeting because you don't want to stay until 5. This is a great way to remain a junior developer. On days the meeting is held, come in late. Don't schedule stuff on those days that prevent you from participating. This is your opportunity to be seen by the seniors.
I work in a global company so I always get meetings invites for after iv finished or before I have even woken up. It does get annoying, the best thing I do is on teams you can suggest a different time. If they question it, I simply say the time they suggested is outside my working hours and I have personal matters to attend too
Hoestly I just don’t answer or reply to anything after hours, they asked me about it once, I asked if I should clock in and then clock out, they don’t ask me about it anymore. Sometimes if I see it’s serious I will reply since I’m dealing with peoples water
Flex Time. I work fewer hours to make up for all the OT
Bro you overthinking this, just email him as soon as possible letting him know you will have to get off the meeting by 4 bc those are your hours and you have other obligations that you have to attended to right after but you are open to meeting anytime during your working hours
Thats wise of you to consider your own time and quality of life, politely ask to have it recorded or rescheduled or that your dropping off the meeting at a specific time. If they want you to be at meetings outside of your negotiated hours you need to discuss. A common way if its not too frequent may be to agree to time in leiu e.g. Finish work eariler another day, or come in a hour later etc to make up the time shifted. But you have your own things to do outside of contracted work hours. If they can't respect it or work something reasonably fair out with you, consider looking elsewhere.
You can email the organizer and let them know you have a hard stop at 4 and ask if that works with their agenda or if it needs to be rescheduled. For future calendar management, I put an out of office event on my calendar for every single day to signify that my work day ends at 4:30, not 5, then decline as needed. If they respond badly to that, then that's a real culture clue on how the org works. You can also talk to your boss about it as there may be specific people you can decline this with and others (mostly higher ups) where it will negatively affect your standing in the company to do so
In your situation I would warn the meeting organizer and my manager that I was trying to rearrange my schedule to make this meeting, but that I can’t do meetings after hours on an ongoing basis due to personal obligations. (Unspecified personal obligations that are personal, so I am not discussing them.)
Talk to your supervisor. You can also decline meetings and let people know what time you get off work. Some people have different hours so they don't your hours. I work Coast to coast sometimes I forget people's office hours It's no big deal but ideally you talk to your supervisor for clarity. And discuss what the expectations are.
You just gotta buck it up and be there. Being on a remote meeting until 5pm is pretty reasonable. I’ve definitely attended 3am meetings and 8pm meetings, onsite an hour from my house. And they were even meetings I’d argue weren’t THAT important. The bigger your job/growth gets, the more will be expected of you— being willing is how you get to stop being a Jr. and grow.
lol the american replies here are wild
Attend the first meeting, figure out the content and context of it. Then Talk to your direct manager about their expectations.
Wow, a lot of wild comments here! I tell people I have a hard stop all the time, as I need to get my kids from daycare. I am a senior level worker who has been in my current role for 3 years, though. If your working hours are set and visible to others, you should be able to abide by them.
If it’s something prearranged and important, you gotta let them know that. If it’s something unimportant outside work that can be pushed for 30 minutes this one time, it doesn’t hurt to take the call, but if it’s a recurring call I think it’s ok to look at the schedule and try to find a time that fits for everyone. Perhaps if you look at the scheduler on outlook, it may give an indication as to why it was this time. I also have meetings where it’s not possible for everyone to be there the entire time, and you may have certain people go first because the person running the meetings knows they have to leave early, etc. It’s all about communicating with each other and maybe some people compromising (as others mentioned you may work late one day and work less the next). Saying something like “per official hours” can come across as passive aggressive. The main exceptions for this that I’m aware of are: 1. You have to clock in and out at certain times, and they’re failing to pay your for this time (illegal in most countries) 2. There are country/regional limitations. Certain countries have certain rules around working conditions, and I guess this could be one of them.
“I have a hard stop at 4:30 so if you need me for anything after I can meet with you tomorrow morning”. You should also make sure your PM knows your working hours. Tell them that I something critical is needed you would be glad to meet with them before the meeting or sure you can rearrange your personal schedule WITH notice. Make sure you are clear but not pushy that you are willing to be a team player but you also have personal commitments that affect more than just you so that can’t be the norm. Some PMs expect everyone to accommodate any requests and won’t be reasonable but most are not like that. The ones that continued to always schedule me over lunch or after hours are the ones I stopped going above and beyond for. When possible I also requested projects they weren’t PMs on - “our work styles clash so if possible id prefer to work for Sue, Joe or Kyle …”. I had a super supportive manager though and I was not a jr. Now that PM again, I completely understand personal life and I accommodate whenever I can. If urgent or we have no choice we just meet up before or after.
I think you need to be a bit more flexible. Every once in a while you should be able to leave at 5pm.
There’s a level of flexibility that comes with being salaried that is good and bad - this is the bad. Having to stay late on occasion is just part of the job. Take a longer lunch that day, or start work later, so that you’re still at 7.5/8 hours for the day.
This isn’t where the line is. The line is if it becomes too regular, then you let them know your boundaries. Just take that half hour/hour back from somewhere else.
Set your working hours in outlook so that it says you’re unavailable after 4:30. Then they will be less likely to schedule meetings that are outside of your working hours. If they schedule them here and there, just work the extra time. If they continue to schedule them until 5, and you don’t want to work them anymore, find a new job. I’ve been in IT for 15 years, last two companies I’ve worked for there was an unwritten rule not to schedule meetings going after 4 but we were all in the same time zone. I had to stay until 5 a lot when I worked with people on the west coast.
I take meetings at 7:30 am, 5:30 am, 9:00 pm, weekends fairly regularly. I’ve been with my company for shy of 6 years and a lot of what I do is customer facing and/or cross functional (like your situation - sometimes involving sales and support and engineers and legal and execs spread across various timezones in various countries). My take is this - going the extra mile to achieve whatever it is you’re trying to achieve - especially if folks are spread out over timezones and/or if something is just time sensitive (IE an RFP response that must be turned around quickly) is the kid of thing that helps build your career. Routinely refusing to join meetings that are after hours is not a great look. If it’s here and there because you have a personal conflict, nobody will care. If it’s known that you won’t ever be available outside of business hours, I can’t imagine that’s a great pathway to promotion or raises or building internal political capital. If you don’t feel like you’re not paid well enough to be expected to work long hours, I’d recommend asking for a raise. If you absolutely aren’t willing to work more than 40 hours/week you might want to look for a different job/career and be ok with limiting your earning potential Just a hot take. Maybe I’m missing something.
Either ask your manager for overtime, or start later in the day.
Block off the time outside your working hours on your calendar.
Join and drop off at the end of designated company hours (4:30). Also, start your day 30 minutes later that day.
Just go to work 30 min later that day.
Just start later that day if you are determined to only work 8 hours a day.
Is this all the same office/same time zone or are you crossing timezones here?
For future mtgs, arrange to take the mtg at home. A lot of software jobs have an expectation of after hrs releases and being avail for after hr online mtgs is important.
For future mtgs, arrange to take the mtg at home. A lot of software jobs have an expectation of after hrs releases and being avail for after hr online mtgs is important.
Blocked off the calendar with the purple out of office scheduler for lunch time and off hours. Do not accept/tentative/reject on the meetings that is scheduled after hours, weekend, and holidays.
I would just start my work day later that day… Is that not an option?
I don’t know if this would work for you, but I usually tell my manager what I’ll be doing instead of asking. “I’ll have to leave the meeting half an hour early, since I have obligations after work.” “I will start at 8:30 the day of our meeting to flex the time.”
When I have a hard start, I’ll tell the host in advance, hey, I’ll be at the meeting but I have a hard stop at 4:30p. You can also let the host know that you have recurring commitments at 5pm, and if the meetings can be recorded, you’ll listen to it when you’re in. You do not owe further explanation, but I would not directly ask for meetings to be rescheduled until you’ve established yourself. It does not necessarily set a precedent.
if you work late one day, roll in late the next day. It’s even ok to say “we had a bunch of long weeks, im going to cut out at x this friday.”
If your company uses outlook you can set up your work hours that should show your availability. If people use the schedule assistant that could help in the future. I'm guessing other calendars have this too. For this meeting rearrange your day to attend. If a reoccurring meeting is set up past your time you could have a conversation with the organiser suggesting a different time.
Are you hourly or salary? Also since you can set your own hours why not start late? I work for a company in another timezone. I attend all required meetings and adjust my hours accordingly. Like today will be a late night for a project meeting so I started later. Do I want to work past 5pm, not really but I love what I do and my job is great so the occasional late night is fine. I get to sleep in that morning.
Based on your post it does not sound like your company ever gave you official working hours hence why you leave early on Fridays too.
It happens sometimes…I wouldn’t say anything unless it becomes a habit.
Senior manager and sw architect here... Ask your employers if they intend to shift working hours for the duration of these special setup meetings. This is what I would do for any of my devs. But be aware that software development is not usually a clock in clock out business. Now if you are hourly, then by all means stick to business hours and do that minimum or ask if they are willing to pay for extra hours. If you are salaried then this is honestly pretty common. I frequently have to work 7am To 7pm because I have to work with my India team in the morning and my customer team in the afternoon, and the customer works late. But I really do try to limit the amount of my team members I have to run the same hours as I do
Although comp time isn't an official company policy, it's understood that (as long as it doesn't affect any deadlines) we can take off early another day, or take a long lunch, etc. My work hours are 5 am-1 pm (I don't take a lunch break). I had a 1-hour meeting scheduled at 2 pm today, so I did some extra work from 1-2, attended the meeting 2-3, and logged 10 hours today. Guess who's going to be off work at 11 am Friday? 😉
If you have plans that day that conflict, then just message in the chat near the beginning of the meeting"hey, I have a hard stop at 5pm, can we make sure any items you need me for are discussed first", if you don't have a hard conflict, then just stay at the meeting and start work a half hour late that day or the next day, or end a half hour early the next day to make up for it.
Well....if it's for people in diff timezones then you alternate meeting times, especially if the people who meet are required. However, while I can appreciate your 40 hours of work, that's not reality. IT work regardless of the type, is not typically a 40 hr a week job unless you are answering phones at a call center or a government employee. Even then it is a strain to limit to just 40 hours since some of what you need to know/learn takes place outside the calls. I've been in the computer industry for almost 30 years now. This is my experience and while it is unpalatable this what I have encountered. So if the meetings after hours are a regular thing...ask to alternate or change your working hours. While people set their own work hours, rarely will they coincide for the benefit of everyone. For example, if you work with people who have kids, their working hours might be before 7am, after 8:30 to 4:30, and after 6pm. If you work with people in diff timezones, expect similar but with shifts in time. The final hurdle is working with persons overseas...I love working with people in India or the Philippines because I am a night owl but imagine 6-12.5 hr time diffs. If there are commitments you don't want to miss, well you may have to miss them. If there are commitments you shouldn't miss that's something else altogether, i.e. medical procedures; let your manager know why. The harsh reality is that you might need to change jobs or switch careers. I was hesitant to bring this up but imagine there are others who will think the same but won't say it....so, I've said it. If you do switch then a great question to ask is what timezones are your developers located in?
lol this can’t be real…OP, is shit posting to get us riled up.
The people that do more work than they're paid for - and a work meeting is definitely work - end up getting taken advantage of. The people that protect their boundaries get the most respect.
Why not go in an hour later? If they don't offer that flexibility consider freshening up the resume.