Man ‘Politely’ Asks Boss Not to Contact Him After Work Hours, but Manager Fires Back

YOU NEED TO KNOW

• A man gets angry because his boss calls him every night after work

• When the man asked his boss to stop, he was told “if you want to grow here, you have to be available.”

• Man asks Reddit community for advice

The boundaries between work life and home life sometimes begin to blur.

A man takes a stand against his boss who doesn’t respect his boundaries outside working hours. One Reddit postThe man shared that he works as a contract employee in marketing, and his work hours fall from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. most days.

“My boss calls me almost every night around 8pm or 9pm ‘just to quickly check on something,’” she wrote. “Sometimes it’s a single question, sometimes it’s a 30-minute brainstorming session.”

Constant calls and work discussions meant the poster could never fully relax, so he asked his boss if he could limit his contacts after 6pm unless necessary.

“Last week, I politely told him that I prefer to hold business meetings during working hours unless it is urgent,” the man said in his post. However, it didn’t go as planned.

“He said, ‘If you want to grow here, you have to be available,'” he recalled.

“Now I feel guilty, like I’m lazing around but at the same time I haven’t had a decent evening in months,” he wrote. “Am I overreacting because I want a real boundary, or is this just normal corporate culture now?”

People in the comments section were sympathetic to the man and agreed that he should be allowed to set his own work boundaries.

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“No, you shouldn’t have to answer calls/mails after hours… nothing. Even if they come to your house, close the door on them. Your contract is 9-6. You can if you want. But you don’t have to. I hate these types of bosses or colleagues,” one person commented.

Another person noted that Australia has a “right to disconnect” law that prevents employers from contacting people outside working hours.

“I suggest you don’t say anything directly. Just don’t take the calls. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I went to the movies last night. What was the emergency?’ (Non-conflict excuse: He can’t get mad at the current point of the topic, which changes the subject from your lack of response to the topic and also subtly highlights how urgent or not the topic is.) ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I was having dinner with my friends and we put our phones away. What was urgent?’ ‘Oh, sorry, my phone was charging in the other room. What was urgent?’ Don’t give him anything to object to,” another person suggested.

“If your company has an HR department, report this behavior. Your job doesn’t have to be and shouldn’t be your whole life,” a third person said.

Read the original article People