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?

I’m a Brit in America and if you said you’d phone after 5pm, which is noon my time, I’d have to make sure I didn’t allow anyone to book any meetings right at prime meeting time so that I could take your call. I’d consider it a basic courtesy for you to realize that, and call me by 5.15.

If you called at 6 I’d be royally pissed off, given that I’d have reorganized my calendar to save you reorganizing yours.

I agree with this.
The fact you specified you'd "call after 5 as I have meetings until 5" definitely implies you were coming out of the meeting, and the next job you would do was to call me. I wouldn't be bothered if it wasn't until 10 or 1/4 past as I'd presume the last meeting over ran or that you needed the toilet or to get a drink or something, but I'd be very annoyed if you had said that then didn't call until 6.

As you were not planning to do that, you should have said "I can't speak to you now I've got meetings all day, I'll phone you this evening, here, so it will likely be 6 - 6.30 here which is about X o'clock for you" (depending which part of the States he was in, so what the time difference was, but knowing you were planning to drive home before doing it),

YABU

I could accept it was a misunderstanding/lack of precision in communication on both sides.
But the way how you defend it here sounds pretty bad.

If he wouldn't be even up before, the "some time after X" is extremely annoying - it forces the other party to be available. Can I go to have the morning shit/shower, or will you call the moment I undress?

Lunch break would be similar.

I wouldn’t expect a call exactly at 5. I would expect you to finish the meeting, take care of a few things then ring me by 5:30 ish. I would expect a message if it was going to be much later than that and would assume you had either forgotten or were too busy if I didn’t hear anything.

If in meetings until 5 it’s not reasonable to expect that to finish on the first second of 5pm and for you to ring within the 59 seconds left before 5:01pm. That’s just ridiculous. I would however have expected a call within 35 minutes or so of the hour, or a more specific time to have been given, such as ‘I am in meetings until 5, so let’s talk at 5:30’ or whatever. You sound frustrated with this man and one of you should have been more specific re a time slot. It feels a bit like a ‘but he started it’ situation and that’s not professional here so you should have pinned it down and not played him at his own silly game.

What did he do in response that led to this thread ?

I would expect to hear from you by 530. 6 is too late.

I would expect a call by 5.30 at the very latest. Or before that.

I agree with @FourSevenThree though, in her saying you could possibly justify the time of the call as a misunderstanding, your accusations / rudeness about him later in the thread are not good.

I'd expect a call by around 5:15 pm if you said that.

I'd be prepared to receive a phonecall from around 5:05, but I wouldn't expect to receive one until 5:15, 5:30, maybe even 6pm depending on the situation... If it's a personal call with no urgency then it could be any point in the evening tbh

I'd make sure I could hear the phone just in case you phoned on the dot of 5, but I wouldn't expect you to do so. I would be aware that a meeting might overrun, or that you might have urgent stuff to do once the last one was out of the way, or just need time to relax/have a wee/grab some tea or whatever. So I'd make sure that I had something else to do while waiting for you to call.

I'd probably expect a call between 4.30 and 6. I wouldnt wait about any longer than 6 though.

If it is a different time zone (like yours) I would want more clarity. Just saying "after 5" would not be enough for me. I'd need a clear between this time and that time.

In a work context if we were trying to find a mutual time and you'd said 'I'm in meetings until 5' then (in the absence of any other information) I'd assume your intention was to call very shortly after your last meeting was done at 5 and would keep myself free.

In this case I think, if you had to finish your meeting and go home first, it would have been more helpful for you to say 'I'll call you around 6' rather than 'I'll call you after 5' even though technically both of those things are correct.

I'd expect a call anytime between 5 and 6. People have to go to the loo, regroup, maybe travel home, etc. if you were going to do the call from home.

But if someone said after 5, I wouldn't expect them to call at 7,8. or 9. I'd expect them to call in the vicinity of 5, probably by 5.30, with a grace period of up to 6.

what exactly is the issue ? You haven’t said what it is you think this person is being ridiculous about.

I don’t care if you’re the Prime Minister or the Pope or the kid who bags my groceries - if you say you’re going to call at 5, you damn well better call as close to 5 as you’re able.

If I can manage it, so can you. Because you aren’t the president - are you.

In a professional work context, especially if it is the first time we were speaking and long distance, I would expect to be told exactly when you would call. For my part I would think about what needed to be discussed and be by my phone a few minutes before the allotted time. I would work at my desk while waiting, but after about 15 minutes of waiting I would get pretty annoyed.

I would be available to receive the call from 5 pm until 6 pm.

I would expect a call, realistically, by 5:30 pm or a message saying that the call would be later - approx XXX or later in the evening or the next day by XX.

However, if I received an initial message saying that I would be receiving a call later in the evening, due to you being in meetings until the end of the day, then I would be less likely to expect that you wanted to be promptly calling me soon after five.

You nominated the time of after 5 pm. This would alert me to be ready by then and waiting.

Next time make your initial message more casual, giving your self more time.

You sound pretty insufferable tbh: a combination of controlling and supercilious, and obsessed with literally meanings of words eg call vs meeting

In a work context I would think you were saying you'd call at 5, or as soon after as you could manage - which I would not expect to include more travel time than a walk back to a desk in an office building. If you weren't actually setting a time I would expect you to be more explicit about it, especially when connecting across time zones as there's a smaller window of mutual convenience.

I’d assume you’d call after 5, so anytime until 7-8pm, not bang on 5.01

Awww did getting all that out. Make you feel better ? Did you need a hug?