If I said I was going to call you after five because I was in meetings until five

[Dollysleftnip]

Would you be sat waiting by your phone at 5 o’clock for my call?
I’m trying to decide who’s being unreasonable, but I’m not prepared to run the Gaunlet of Am I being unreasonable?

The wording was neither of those scenarios.
I’m in meetings until after five
So there’s no way in my mind he was getting a phone call at five because I’m in meetings until after five.

I say I think he’s just trying to act like he man 🙄
Deep rooted childhood trauma by the sound of it

I'd expect a call shortly after 5. I wouldn't expect to be waiting around for 1 hour+ for a call.

The word call didn’t give anything away then ?
There was no assumption that we’d be communicating online
He assumed that I was communicating with the people before him online
We all know what assumption makes

I would be expecting a call just after 5.

Haha I thought that too!

If I was calling another timezone I would have fixed a time or given a window when it would take place. If it was someone in my timezone who said they'd call after their meeting finished I'd expect it at some point before the end of the working day, unless they said they'd ring once the meeting finishes which I'd take to mean pretty soon after.

Generally though I would have let them know an approximate time.

I would have expected the call to be shortly after 5.

I’ve read all of your posts and it doesn’t sound as though the conversation is a priority for you. but maybe it is for him?

if you’d said to me that you’re in meeting until after 5, I’d take that to mean that you’d complete your meetings and then call. ie just after 5.

if you didn’t call until 6, i’d be annoyed at myself for not clarifying a specific time with you. But I wouldn’t be pissed off at you.

I'd also expect a call just after 5pm. I think you were being unreasonable here, OP.

Was scrolling to see if anyone else had picked up on this 😂

Although the term eggcorn is new to me, I had to Google it and can't believe I didn't know this!

No

Yeah, id be expecting a call pretty soon after 5 if it was work related but i finish at 4, and my boss in in a timezone ahead of me

If it was DH, id have said "im in meetings til 5, and will call when im home"

If you weren't available at 5pm - you needed some more time after your meetings - I wouldn't have mentioned that time at all. I'd have said "I've got meetings this afternoon but should be able to call you around 6.15pm" (or whenever). He wanted to know what slot he should keep free - not a run down of your day!

As you said you'd call after 5, that literally means anytime after 5, any assumptions people responding on here would make about how soon after 5, are only that, their personal assumption, based on their own views, not what you said.
I don't like it when people say they'll call me after a time, so I tell them I can't be free for a call all day/evening, and ask to agree a time for the call (approximate, to within 30 mins is fine).

As he didn't ask to refine to a specific time, he has no right to be snarky about you not calling when he imagined you might!

Check out RobWords on YouTube - he has a linguistic and etymology podcast and a whole episode on Eggcorns!

What is actually the problem? You haven’t really explained what the issue is…. has he kicked off or something that you didn’t call him in a timeframe that suited him? Is he not happy that you called at 5.58? What did he say about it?

I’d have assumed you were going to ring straight after the meeting and if you hadn’t rung by 5.30 I’d have expected a message of some sort to say sorry it overran.

But it does depend who needed information from who, if the call was largely for your benefit then I wouldn’t be so bothered, if I was the client I’d definitely expect to hear from you fairly soon after 5. Otherwise why say you are going to call after 5, if you need to travel, make drinks etc say after 6.

He should have sent a meeting invite if he wanted you to commit to a time.

👩‍⚖️

Same…if I hadn’t heard by then I’d maybe call them…but I wouldn’t be too concerned 🤷‍♀️

Meetings can run on.
You werr clear, meetings till after 5.
6pm was very reasonable.

No, I would wait a while and if no phone call, do whatever I was intending to do. If that is indoors, it will make no difference but if I wanted to go out, I would. They could always ring another time.

I would have called by 5.15 and put a meeting in calendar.

If its a work context, then I'd have expected you to have called by about 5:15, 5:30 at the very latest.

Are you in trouble for not calling when you said you would?

I'm not sure I understand the point of this post...

YABU. In a work context I would expect after 5 to mean between 5 and 5:15, but wouldn't follow up until 5:30, then I would check if you needed to reschedule.