Who is being unreasonable, me or my manager?

[Kowaii]

My line manager absolutely loves our job. Which is fair enough.
She made a weird comment on Saturday about the person who worked there before me didn’t “care” about the job, just came in at 9 and left at 5 and that was that. I thought this was odd as it’s literally a 9-5 job.
On Monday morning I got to work and had a load of emails from her that has been sent the previous night. I thought maybe the time was just wrong in the emails.
Today she’s called a meeting with me asking why I didn’t respond to the emails sooner. I said I didn’t see them until I got to work.
She questioned why I want signed in to my work stuff on my personal phone as I then would’ve seen the email was urgent and responded.
Turns out she expects me to basically be “at work” pretty much 24/7. I’ve said I absolutely will not be looking at emails on my time off and directing my work number to my personal number (wtf!).

She seemed genuinely shocked by this. I said I’m paid 9-5 so I will be working 9-5 and no, I don’t think about work when I leave the office. She seems to have made her life about this job.

Aibu to think this is crazy and I’m not being a twat by not having any of my work on my personal phone? I don’t see what I could do from home anyway without my work computer in front of me!

I would DEFINITELY go and speak to HR about this. Also let them know about the conversation regarding the previous person as it had an ominous implication given her volley of after-hours emails and expectations that you would be available to meet her expectations of responding to her “urgency” after hours.

I don't think I'd be going straight to HR with an account of a verbal exchange if I'd only been there three months.

I'd consider putting what she said in an email to her and asking her to confirm that those are her expectations, citing her disappointment with your predecessor. Then you have some proof if she does confirm it in writing. If she declines to or tries to backtrack you'll know that she knows she's being unreasonable.

Someone needs to tell her about Schedule Send.

Emails at 2am are rude, signature or not

Emails at 2am are rude, signature or not

This maybe the case where you work. It’s never been considered rude where I’ve worked. Certainly not in an a company that spans many time zones, either.

Girl run for the hills! You will never keep up with these kind of people

The rule in my work is that if emails are sent out of hours, they are not considered to have been received until 9am the following morning. I don't have work stuff on my personal phone and make it very clear that once I'm finished that's me for the day!

There isn’t an HR haha!

A few things here.

1. what was her response when you firmly told her that you would not respond to anything outside working hours ?
2. is this a role where there are prospects for swift promotion? I ask because it’s not always a simple case of low pay= don’t do any work outside core hours, if you are playing a longer game and want to get ahead.
3. you say that you could not have done anything meaningful in response anyway, without being logged in in the office. Have you asked her what it was she was expecting you to do?
4. Is your line of work one where there are “vocation” factors at play, eg something medical, political, a startup company, a charity?

How is it rude to get something land in your inbox when you are asleep? It’s entirely normal in international companies, much ruder to tell my colleagues in Texas they can’t email me during their working day!

I used to work in PR, in the City. There is a certain expectation that certain things happen out of hours and you keep your phone vaguely handy.

But I still would most likely have missed multiple emails late in the evening. In a genuine crisis, my phone would ring.

Shes batshit.

Tricky one as you at new and want to make a good impression.

She is being unreasonable. It's exceptionally poor management.

I'd follow up with a friendly email explaining further to your conversation that you don't check emails out of office hours but that you will deal with anything that comes in out of hours as soon as possible.

It starts a paper trail then. No HR, does your manager have a manager?

YRNBU.

My email states that if it arrives outside of your normal working pattern then please only respond when back in work.

but yes-email her and get her to confirm that she wants you to work evenings/weekends

What's the job? And the pay? Some jobs have the sort of be at work 24/7 ethos, others don't.

E.g. my nephew is working at a City law firm and is expected to be contactable 8am-10pm

I would raise it with HR and nip this madness in the bud!

It would also be interesting to know what the company’s intention was when they enabled you to access work emails via your phone- was this because you are sometimes out and about during the working day, or did that in itself imply that you were expected to monitor emails outside the tine at your desk?

It sounds like you don’t have any WFH arrangement as you said you could not have done anything without being logged in at your desk? So quite an office-based 9 to 5?

I wasn't clear that op's company is an international one. If it isn't, there's no need for midnight emails. It takes a fraction of a second to click schedule send.

It's rude because

• it sets an implicit expectation/culture of out of hours working
• it's obliquely a way of signalling/bragging the hours you are willing to put in
• some people might accidentally open it and then get stressed out by something they can't resolve until the following morning

The above points are especially impactful if the midnight emailer is a manager.

Lots of companies, including the school I work at, have a rule of no emails between certain hours. There's evidence it improves mental health and collegiality. And it's so, so easy to implement.

Of course this is excepting international companies, which aren't the majority of workplaces

Even in an international company, if your email is directly addressed to 1 or 2 others who you know are in your own time zone, there's no reason not to schedule send. Op implies she is in this situation.

There is a certain retail company that expects its employees to check their watts app for messages even when they are not at work , and if they don't management want to know why. Employers do not own your time outside working hours .

There is a person who posts on Tiktok (I think it's under the handle Toodleoo) and she posts up like little role play things where an unreasonable manager is expecting staff to basically work for free and work overtime etc. etc.

You might find some tips on how to reply to the manager in your situation by borrowing some of the suggestions she uses.

There is another poster on Tiktok (think this one went viral based on what was discussed) calle KrisDrinksLemonade about how he became a 'fair market value employee'.

Their replies to management are what we need to be saying to Management going forwards.

Some jobs (high salary/responsibilities) there is an expectation of being available as needed. This sounds like a 9-5 job where you are paid for those hours only. Therefore it's unreasonable to expect more.

I worked in social services on a 22 hour contract. I had 12 children to visit each week plus write up each visit. I had to see parents fortnightly, write up each visit. do a meeting at school every term. plus a two hour weekly staff meeting. Plus a two weekly supervision, any training, cover the desk for a day a month. When I ask how I could I fit all this in I was asked how could work support me to manage my time better. I ended up having a breakdown and leaving the job. We need a break from work your manager is unreasonable to expect you to be on it at all times

Goodness me, this is a whole lot of overthinking. If I start work at my normal time and see an email waiting in my inbox I don’t think I’d even pay attention to when it was sent. I bet you don’t have any objection to people who are at their desks WFH by 7am sending out emails then. Or do you think we should all schedule send so that things only arrive after 9:15 at the earliest in case anyone gets stressed out by the idea that we started work before 9?

You said:

• it sets an implicit expectation/culture of out of hours working

or perhaps it is evidence of a truly flexible working culture, where people are free to pause work in the afternoon to do the school run and spend the evening with their kids, before catching up with a bit of work in the evening?

• it's obliquely a way of signalling/bragging the hours you are willing to put in

Working in the evening doesn’t mean you are doing extra hours or hours that are not convenient to you. Our colleagues’ working rhythms should not be our business unless they affect delivery of tasks.

• some people might accidentally open it and then get stressed out by something they can't resolve until the following morning

As long as there is a clear policy of not expecting people to read emails out of their core working hours this should not happen. If you choose to check them this is a risk you take.

Also, if you send something at night then even in a single time zone it’s possible that the people who like to start early will be glad that they had the info as soon as they logged in, to enable them to progress.

No they are not rude.
Schedule send is just stupid.

Also, scheduled send doesn’t work reliably in my organisation. I have tried it and found things sitting in my outbox long after the scheduled send time, which can be a problem if eg you had a meeting first thing so were not available so to make sure it goes out. Then it’s late..

Definitely do this so you have proof of her mad expectations and your polite refusal to comply with them.