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!

while I think OP's manager is crazy and unrealistic, some of the theories on this thread about people emailing out of hours are bizarre.

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

This is simply not true in most places in 2023. I often send and receive emails out of work hours for lots of reasons, NONE of which are highlighted above. Mostly it's because
a) I work with people in lots of different time zones
b) both I and many of my client contacts work flexibily to adapt to personal lives, working needs or even the corporate's requirements. I have a number of firms who strongly discourage meetings/calls over lunch time for anyone working at home, for example. And a lot of contacts who tend to either start and finish early or start and finish late.

In my case, I'm self employed and during the holidays, I've been working a few hours middle of the day usually then sometimes logging on in the evening to pick up comms I missed during the latter part of the "working day" because I was swimming with DD or at a movie with DS....

Quite clearly not talking about international emails are they.

Please point out to her that your employer isn't insuring you to work outside of your working hours. What would happened if something happened to you when you were performing your tasks ourside of your working hours?

She needs to stop this...emails should not be sent out of working hours....if she wants to draft them then, fine but send them within working hours. If she can't get the work done within the time frame...9-5pm.....she is inefficient. This is a classic move to appear more productive, it's not but some people fall for this.

It really depends on what your job is.

You are absolutely not being unreasonable! She sounds like an entitled has no life whatsoever, controlling, demanding tantrum nasty piece of work! I've worked with people like her, who to be fair have never been as direct. I don't know how old you are but I'm in my 30s and I promise you, don't ever succumb to this lowly nonsense ever. Work is just work. We exchange time for money. And you're just a number. The only time you should be almost always reachable, is when you're I'm a partnership, on the board of directors or being paid undoubtedly handsomely! 35k is peanuts!

Fuck no.
Agree to email her and get her to confirm that despite only being paid 9-5pm she wants you to be on call outside of work and do emails and work on your personal phone. Covers you, can tell next job you go to you left due to this.

What industry do you work in? Although yes, technically, people don't have to work past their legally contracted hours, in some industries you simply can't escape it and you would screw over your colleagues if you stubbornly stuck to 9-5. Agency-side work, law, big business etc. Sometimes you just need to be a bit flexible.

It's not usually expected in law, unless you are a duty solicitor or work for a law firm with a toxic work environment.

Even in a city law firm, I only ever had one client who rang me after hours. And she was a workaholic fuckwit. I moved on quickly.

If she wants you on call then she should pay an on call rate.

She's absolutely unreasonable. Clearly no life, sad really!

Unless anything like this was in your JD or contract then she's just dreaming.

I'd ask her to email you details of what she expects and then forward this to your hiring manager or your boss's manager.

What do your colleagues say/do about these demands?

I am aware of the cost saving decisions
(from the tec the network fees and asset management etc )

I am old enough to have went through the processes where companies moved from strong inhouse security systems to weak security on non-company assets.
Proposed solutions included Ee's giving IT staff free access to all the data personal phones and laptops with permission to brick the phone/laptop when the employee left. A compromise was reached and the companies spent the money to buy secure tec and/or web based solutions which managed access etc. on personal tec

Lots of people on MN use third party apps for work. Ones like whatapp still dont allow 2 accounts off the 1 number so what an employee agreed to in a data policy becomes important.

Standard policy these days is you use your own device
To provide work tools needed to carry out a role
And if system security is poor Ee obtains data in the course of employment not direct action in breach of law

Only very Senior people have a work phone, and that is due to the requirements on them.
To provide work tools needed to carry out a role

The only difference should be senior people are paid extra out of hours

However its a business risk when the senior people bring their business number to a new organisation because their phone log is IP and future calls inwards are to the new organisation

In the OP's case she is being asked to provide a work tool and to provide free hours work and be on call 24/7

I used to have one of those managers. He would send me an email at 4am and expect me to be ready with an answer by the opening hours that morning. My sleep was terrible, my stress levels through the roof.. it's a firm no from me, especially for the pay. They also seemed to think that it was OK to expect people to come in for training and staff meetings on their day off and not to be compensated for it in either pay or TOIL. Their argument was that they organised/paid for training and therefore we must be there. I since moved into public sector and, honestly, this has been the best decision. The money is rubbish but there is no way I will ever go back to private sector with its unrealistic expectations and constant demand on your personal time.
In fact, in my first month on the job I got a massive bollocking from my supervisor for checking and responding to emails in the evenings and weekends. They told me that if the workload is too much, I need to let the management know so that we can source extra staff. I nearly cried.

Why should a manager have the emplyee's personal phone number at all? If they want to contact the employee about work then they should supply a work phone and pay for it. When mobiles were first being used in the '90s I refused to supply my employer with the number, they had my landline and that was enough.

I was much like your manager, in that I would have my work emails on my personal mobile, checking in on the business outside of my work hours, even took my laptop on holiday with me once! This wasn't any pressure put onto me by my boss, I just genuinely loved the company!

I still do love the company, but I've had to reign it in, especially after I had my daughter. My time with her is so precious, and others within the company wouldn't respect that (would facebook message me on the weekend about work stuff!) Now, unless I'm doing planned overtime, I switch off the minute I leave the building. A lot of my stress and anxiety has gone since doing so!

I work shifts and am low paid, by the hour. I do so because it fits around my other obligations.

A few weeks ago one of the managers got a bit uppity with me because when asked to download the latest work communication system onto my phone, I declined. Apparently I should be joyous about being able to scroll and scroll down what’s happening and join in, when I’m not working.

My company already gave me doing a managers job for no more pay. I do a good job, but as soon as my shift ends, my brain is elsewhere.

Some companies just don’t get it do they? Pay us properly and we may see it as a career, rather than a job to pay the bills.

Nah, you do what you're paid for.
I'm the same, switched off between shifts. There might be the very, very odd occasion where there's an emergency and I'd help out - I'm not a knob head - but it wouldn't be a regular thing.

My personal view is I'm not working if I'm not being paid those hours unless it is genuinely something that must be sorted out right at that time and cannot possibly wait. I don't think I've ever worked in a job where such an event could occur.

Your boss is welcome to keep her own hours, but she cannot expect others to keep them; truly professional people recognise this. I work with a few people who have email signatures along the line of 'I may sometimes email you out of hours but this does not mean I am expecting a response until normal office hours' and that's totally fair.

I do think jobs that expect all-hours response need to be transparent about this at interview stage (in my case so I can walk the hell away from them!) and I know that many places are. But I would always assume working hours are working hours unless told otherwise upfront.

Why should a manager have the emplyee's personal phone number at all? If they want to contact the employee about work then they should supply a work phone and pay for it.For me it is a two way street. My manager has my number and I have hers.It’s useful when she needs a shift stopping, telling me I can start later, skiing me to go straight to a venue ( thus saving me time) I can ring asking if I can swop a shift, finish sooner, take leave at short notice, let her know if something has happened that she needs to be ware of while I’m on shift ( eg one of our children taken into police custody, child being smitten to hospital, gone missing etc)
We happen to have an excellent manager who is fair, never asks us to do anything she wouldn’t do and has proven time and time again that she has our backs.
it’s mutually beneficial.

If your contracted hours are 35-38 hours and your usual working window is 9-5, then that's what you work. Oddly enough my own employer has just threatened to deduct 100% for 'working to contract'. They rely on staff goodwill - in my sector people are pretty dedicated and will usually provide it - well, they've just lost mine.

Any emails I send during the evenings I pre-set to send at 8 the next morning. It's never a good thing to be on call for anyone 24/7. Good for you, OP. Don't be a people pleaser: you never get any respect for this IME.

In my old job it was expected I was on call and monitoring emails all the time - I had a call once from manager as to why I hadn’t sorted out the emails from a particular client. I responded that it was Friday evening and I was at home. She told me to check my blackberry because that’s what it’s for. I left soon after.

current job is 9-5. I check emails outside of this occasionally on my phone. But generally stick to 9-5. No issues if anyone emails me outside of this though - I typically only respond once I get to the office.

She is nuts. But folk like her don't change and are a nightmare to work with. Can you apply for a different position in the company. I think its ok to send emails out of hours as long as you don't expect a reply.

So there’s no HR? Join a Union. I’m pretty sure they’d have a lot to say about this shit.

If you're contracted for specific hours, then that's what you do. It sounds as though you 'go to work' physically and your work laptop lives at work. So you don't have access to work email etc if you are not at work.
Check your contract though because if it says something vague like 'additional tasks as directed' or there's a hint of extra hours in busy periods, then she may well be able to expect you to work overtime.