employee thinks I’m sending “secret messages” about time off, coworker is annoyed I won’t stay late, and more

by Alison Green on October 9, 2024

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. My employee thinks I’m sending “secret messages” about how much time off she has

I’m a new manager with less than a year of experience, and I manage one direct report, Sally. We’re both based in the U.S., while our director is in the UK.

Recently, one of Sally’s collaborators reached out to me, mentioning that Sally has been telling people I’m sending her “secret messages” about having unlimited PTO. This is inaccurate — our team gets 200 hours of PTO per year.

However, our department does have a flexible approach when it comes to things like half days, childcare issues, or doctor’s appointments, partly due to having team members in the UK who follow different guidelines. While I’ve encouraged her to take time off when she’s had childcare or medical issues, I’m beginning to feel that she may be taking advantage of this flexibility. I’ve never suggested anything like unlimited PTO. In fact, I recently made it clear by saying, “That’s what PTO is for. Use it!”

I plan to address this with her this week. While I’m obviously concerned that she may be taking advantage of the flexibility, the idea that I’m sending “secret messages” is more alarming. Could this be a sign of a potential mental health issue?

I wasn’t expecting your last line — that’s a big leap! It’s much more likely that Sally simply misunderstood something. It’s also possible that something got lost in the retelling — like that Sally didn’t actually tell the colleague that you were sending “secret messages” but rather said “Jane doesn’t say it openly, but she’s signaled I can take whatever time I need,” the colleague relayed that to you as “secret messages,” and you thought those were Sally’s literal words when they weren’t. Or maybe Sally did say “secret messages” but meant it as shorthand for something more like this.

Flexibility is a good thing, but it can also lead to people being confused about exactly what is and isn’t okay … and sometimes managers hesitate to spell things out explicitly because they feel that adds rigidity to something intended to be the opposite … but when you have an idea in your head about what is/isn’t okay, it’s a kindness to make sure everyone is on the same page, particularly once you see signs that they’re not. So just talk to her and clarify the expectations, and it will likely be fine.

2. Using a water flosser at work

I have adult braces, so I have to be very diligent about dental hygiene, and your previous answer about teeth-brushing at work assured me that it was not weird. However, sometimes food gets stuck in a way that is not conducive to braces. I have a small travel water flosser — is it weird to use it in a bathroom where other people can see? Something about flossing feels weird!

It’s fine to floss your teeth in the office bathroom. The bathroom is the right place for flossing to happen! Water flossers can be messier than regular floss, so just make sure you’re cleaning up any mess (not leaving water spray all over, etc.). If the area is clean for the next person, you’ve handled it appropriately.

3. Coworker in a different time zone is annoyed I won’t stay late

I’m having an issue with a coworker in another time zone. I work remotely in Eastern Standard and my coworker works in a time zone 2 hours behind me.

Lately, she’s been sending me requests to stay after hours at end of day (4:40-5:15). She consistently waits until my work hours are almost over to ask that I work late. I have classes three times a week at 5:30 and have told the team that I log off by 5:05. So, I’ve been saying no to her a lot.

I also know my coworker has made the request to my higher-ups that I change my working hours to accommodate her working hours, but thankfully they said it wasn’t necessary.

I don’t want to keep saying no, but I do not appreciate being asked to work late last minute so frequently. I would like to confront my coworker about this habit but as a remote worker, I don’t want to rock the boat too much. I feel like I’m expected to get the short end of the stick because I don’t have to commute in.

Is there a way to do this where I don’t come across as rude or a non-team player? Doing it over Teams feels dicey. I’m good at my job, I just want to do it during my actual work hours.

The next time she asks you to work late, address the pattern: “You’ve asked me that a few times lately so I want to make sure you know that I generally need to leave at 5 ET (3 your time). If you’re likely to need something from me same-day, please let me know earlier in the day if you can.” If you’re willing to stay late in very rare emergencies, you can add “except in very rare emergencies.”

One caveat: are other people on your team remote or are you the only one? When you’re the only remote person and especially if you’re in a different time zone, sometimes you do need to be more aware of the impact that has on their work. In many situations it won’t matter, particularly if you’re good at your job. But there are some circumstances where, for your own job security, you’d want to get ahead of any grumbling about it. I don’t have any reason to believe that’s happening here, especially since your boss shut your coworker down, but if you’re the only remote person it’s smart to stay alert for signs of it.

4. Contact doesn’t use reply-all when she should

I am running into a problem with someone I have to email regularly, Kaitlyn, who should reply-all so that everyone cc’d on emails can see her reply, but consistently forgets to do it. One other person, Mike, and I are Kaitlyn’s clients. For a variety of reasons I am usually the person who contacts Kaitlyn, but I always cc Mike since he also needs to see Kaitlyn’s response. Kaitlyn almost always replies only to me, meaning I have to add Mike back in my replies to keep him current on what is going on. We asked her once before a while back to “please reply-all so Mike can see,” but it doesn’t seem to have stuck.

My impression of Kaitlyn is that she is young and relatively new to the workplace. We have other frustrations with her (usually we are contacting her because something has gone wrong). Mike and I have not said anything else to her about the cc problem after the first time because we’re more focused on getting our problems fixed and we’re both worried about piling a complaint on a complaint and on getting snippy with our tone. But this is genuinely frustrating and annoying. What’s a polite way to ask/remind Kaitlyn to remember she has to keep us both in the thread?

You’re getting excessively worried about piling on or sounding snippy — probably because you’re feeling snippy because you’re frustrated. But letting that deter you from being direct about it just means that by whatever point you finally do say something, you’ll be even more likely to sound irritated because your frustration will have built up. It’s much kinder — and easier — to just be direct about this kind of thing as soon as you realize it’s a pattern.

So: “Kaitlyn, we’ve mentioned it before but it hasn’t stuck: we really need you to reply-all when you respond so we both see your responses.”

And then if it still keeps happening, it’s fine to get more terse: “Please include Mike on this response and others in the future.”

You’re her clients. It’s completely normal to let her know what your work needs are!

5. What’s the definition of “three business days”?

Last week, I was directed by a company’s customer service representative to contact their case manager. I sent the case manager an email early Tuesday afternoon and received a response later that afternoon saying that she had received the information, was in the process of reviewing it, and would respond back with a decision within three business days. Which in my opinion would be Friday at the latest.

After going most of the day on Friday without any response, I called the number provided with the email and asked to speak to the case manager, explaining that I was supposed to receive a decision within three business days and today was the third day. The receptionist told me that the case manager takes Fridays off so her third business day wouldn’t be until the following Monday. Is this normal? Isn’t “business days” based on a five-day work week excluding holidays? If the roles were reversed and they needed a response in three business days, could I claim I was on an extended vacation so it could be two weeks before I worked three “business days”?

It wasn’t a life-or-death situation but who gets to decide what is deemed a business day? Several business I deal with are now closed on Friday so this may happen in the future with bill paying/payments, filing/returning paperwork, etc.

Business days are understood to mean Monday through Friday, excluding holidays, unless something else is clear from the context. If someone means “three of my own workdays, which are different than the typical schedule,” then the onus is on them to spell that out — ideally by just saying something like “by Monday” rather than expecting you to do any contorted calculations.

What you encountered was just one weird practice, not something you’re likely to run into repeatedly.

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{ 317 comments }

{ 317 comments… read them below }

  1. NurseThis*

    Re: #1, Pre-pandemic there was a pattern of colleagues requesting to WFH because of child care issues. The manager thought it meant “yes you can work from home in this specific instance”. The coworkers thought it meant they could WFH whenever they wanted, blank check. It blew up when a coworker without kids noticed how often she was the only one in the office for emergencies and asked about WFH. She was told no and then she pointed out her coworkers were WFH 4-5 days a week.

    The manager had no idea that the reasonable occasional WFH had morphed into a staff working 80-100% at home. Then this snowballed to people taking time off without charging it to PTO. It all needed to be spelled out and consistently applied. Clarify clarify clarify what’s allowed and what’s not.

    1. Cmdrshprd*

      I think it also depends on if Sally is salary exempt or hourly non exempt.

      In a previous job, SME were salary exempt, and while they got the same amount of PTO as hourly staff, the rule for them was PTO had to be taken in full day increments (8 hrs) so if they did any work in a day they did not have to take PTO. So for appointments that they needed a half day or a few hours off they did not have to use PTO so in practice they had unlimited PTO to a certain extent. But they often worked over 40 hrs, when needed and on nights/weekends.

      In the same company, some managers would allow hourly non-exempt employees to flex their hours, as long they stayed at or under 40 hrs a week. So an hourly staff could take a half day and make it up the rest of the week, or start early/late and still work their 8 hrs. In that regard they also kinda had unlimited PTO.

      By unlimited PTO I mean that you could take more time off than we technically had and/or without having it deducted from you PTO bank.

      All of the above was within reason. If a salary person wanted to take a week off and not use any PTO by sending one email per day that wouldn’t fly. Or if an hourly staff wanted to take 3 days off and work 40 hrs in 2 days that would not be okay.

      1. Bast*

        “So an hourly staff could take a half day and make it up the rest of the week, or start early/late and still work their 8 hrs. In that regard they also kinda had unlimited PTO. By unlimited PTO I mean that you could take more time off than we technically had and/or without having it deducted from you PTO bank.”

        But it isn’t “unlimited PTO” and it isn’t being deducted from your bank because you’re still working whatever your normal hours are, you just aren’t working the same hour. If I work Mon-Fri 8:30 to 5, and I leave at 3:00 for a doctor’s appointment Monday, but stay until 6 on Tuesday and Wednesday, I am still working my 40 hour work week. I am not getting any “extra” time off, because I am still working my 40 hours, they are just slightly moved around. The 2 hours are just being reallocated to other days. It would be a different story if I were to just take those 2 hours off and never make them up — hence, I would be working a 38 hour week and not a 40 hour one.

        1. Cmdrshprd*

          Yes you are absolutely correct it is not PTO at all and not really unlimited.

          When I would take a half-day but planned to make it up later, the only person that knew the technicalities was my supervisor and payroll processing. Everyone else I would just tell I’m out on PTO for half the day on Friday.

          My greater point was that people often use words/ phrases not in their technical meaning (aka incorrectly/wrong) but in a broader sense that feels right.

          I get that shifting your hours is not technically PTO, but being able to say/know I can take a 4 hours off for an appointment not have to use 4 hrs of PTO and still get paid for my full 40 hrs a week of work, does feel like paid time off, even if only because you worked those hours at another time.

        2. Red Reader the Adulting Fairy*

          yeah, this isn’t PTO at all – this is standard for my teams. They are expected to work x many hours per week (40 for most, fewer for the part timers) and as long as they don’t work more than ten hours in a single day or less than 3 hours in a single shift (barring illness or something), I do not give a hang when or in what configuration they work their hours, they can flex those as they need to. That’s flex time, not PTO.

    2. r..*

      To be frank I am quite baffled with how the manager would have had no idea of this occuring.

      We’re obviously talking about a company culture with an expectation for onpremise work. Where is the manager? Are they not checking occasionally on the work environment?

      Do they not talk to their employees on a regular fashion? (I have a 1:1 with all my direct reports once a month and a skip-level with indirect reports at least once a year) If they do, and if they don’t notice most of their staff aren’t in the office most of the time, what exactly are they doing in this meeting?

      1. E*

        If it’s a very large company the managers may not be in the same location. My husband works for a 10,000+ employee company. We are in Florida, his immediate manager is in London. If you always blurred your background on calls, it would be hard to tell if you were in the office or not. A lot of companies have moved to checking badge swipes now to enforce onsite requirements.

        1. Czhorat*

          In order to appear professional, the background image I use when I’m in front of my greenscreen at home is a screenshot of my desk taken with my webcam, so it’s pretty much identical to the view you get if I’m in the actual office.

          That said, if being local rather than remote is an issue I’d be surprised if it’s never noticed; if it hasn’t been noticed for months than it is probably de facto not a genuine problem.

        2. r..*

          Physical colocation is a bit of orthogonal to it.

          As a manager you should check on certain things. You don’t have to physically check on it yourself, you can use trusted delegate, but you need to check.

          Additionally, regardless of where you’re located, you need to check and monitor work output and performance of your employees. Assuming that the that deviation did result in a degraded output, or reduced availability for ad-hoc communication, or other negative consequences, that is something a manager needs to have insight into. And if they don’t have this insight yet then they need to develop it, no matter where they are collocated.
          And quite honestly, if the direct manager of an employee can’t tell what the employee is up to without badge swipes then at least in white collar jobs I have serious questions about their management style.

          (Whereas if there genuinely was no negative outcome at all from the WFH a smart management would still look at the policy violation itself, but it would not stop there. It would also re-assess whether the current WFH policies are not something that should be reviewed. If allowing more WFH does not cost the company anything but provides value to the employees then a smart company will exploit this)

      2. doreen*

        Even if it’s not a very large company, the manager might not be in the same location. At a government agency with fewer than 1500 employees, I had two different assignments that had me in a different location than at least some of the people I supervised. In one position, I was the manager for eight locations each of which had a supervisor and in another, there were certain arrangements where someone’s physical location was separate from the reporting structure ( for example, every location has a payroll clerk but they all report to a person in a central office ). I never actually knew when they were at work – I wasn’t calling every one of them every day. As long as the work I could see was getting done (and not all of it was visible to me) , I didn’t know if they were in the office one day a week or four days a week unless someone told me. ( eventually , things changed and people in the second situation ended up being supervised by someone on site, which had its own problems)

      3. Yorick*

        Once a month isn’t very often. That might be an acceptable frequency for WFH. You wouldn’t necessarily assume they’re almost never in the office.

    3. ferrina*

      It’s all about direct communication. I’ve managed people in a couple places with flexible time, and as the manager, the onus was always on me to explain what flex time was/wasn’t (especially with employees who were new to this type of policy). It really, really needs to be spelled out. This isn’t a case of “you’ll know it when you see it.”

      So you can’t say “I understand, this is a hard scenario for you. How about you work from home today?”
      You say: “You can work from home today, but if this comes up in the future we’ll deal with it day by day. I’m making an exception for today.”
      (Obviously tailor it based on employee. If you’ve worked with Jordan for 15 years and Jordan knows all the nuances of time off, you don’t need to address it the same way that you would for Morgan who has worked there for three years and this is the first time this particular scenario has come up)

    4. Donn*

      Yes to clarifying what’s allowed, what’s not and then enforcing accordingly.

      Long before Covid, my then-employer allowed the professionals to WFH whenever they didn’t have a need (client meeting, big hands-on project) to be in the office. That quickly turned into most of them never coming in at all, which caused no end of headaches especially for the admins.

      Then with Covid WFH, more employees beyond the professionals started acting the same way.

  2. Oaktree*

    Controversial opinion: I know lots of people hate reply all, but more problems are created by not using it than the annoyance of extra messages.

    1. Nodramalama*

      I don’t think people hate reply all when there’s a business need for all those people to be on it. They hate reply all when someone does it for like, an organisation wide email

      1. londonedit*

        And when for some reason people then can’t just see the email, think ‘Huh, that’s not for me’ and ignore it.

        1. andy*

          I am getting 350 mails a day. Most of them are not for me. The argument for majority of these was “few mails in addition are better then someone missing a mail”.

          Guess what, I and pretty much majority of the team are missing emails constantly, because relevant ones are completely lost.

          1. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

            In my organization, by far most of those excessive emails are sent by the organization to everyone. A few of them are sent to everyone by specific individuals who lack awareness of the effects of unnecessary emails. Very few of them are from people improperly using reply all, and most of those are recognizably cringe.

            If that’s the case in your organization, you might be able to create email rules diverting the types of emails you know you don’t need to see.

            I have some coworkers who feel compelled to tell everyone in the organization when they’ll be arriving late that morning or will be taking a couple hours off for an appointment (these are not people who need to be reachable every minute of the day). I take delight in creating mailbox rules screening out those totally unnecessary emails.

          2. londonedit*

            I was referring to the reply-all nightmare where someone sends an email to the wrong group, and instead of people seeing it and thinking ‘Hm, must have sent that to the wrong group’, you get a reply-all storm of everyone going ‘Remove me from this list!!! Why have I received this email?????’ etc etc.

            1. SpaceySteph*

              I call these “reply all events” and they are my single greatest joy in modern office life.

              I just love to watch them get more and more unhinged as the day goes on. I read every one and giggle myself silly.

              1. JustaTech*

                Interestingly, while I saw a couple of those in college (someone would accidentally reply all to a whole dorm list or a whole campus list and chaos would ensue), I haven’t seen one at my work. Which is a little surprising, given that we absolutely have some not-email-savvy people working here.

                Maybe some large organizations have IT systems in place to prevent reply-all storms? (Maybe we can’t reply or reply all to the giant email lists?)

                1. amoeba*

                  Yeah, I think most big companies do have that kind of restrictions! (I also have never experienced a reply-all-apocalypse and am honestly a little disappointed – will have to make do with the great stories on AAM!)

                2. Techie*

                  Individual emails can be sent to block reply-all. Sending to groups can be limited to a select handful of people. It depends on what software/email provider your company’s using but there’s better controls in place to prevent email storms these days.

      2. TechWorker*

        Right – discussions are different to announcements.
        If you’re sat in a circle having a discussion, it’s expected you talk to everyone. If you’re in a big meeting & they haven’t specifically asked for questions, reply all is like forcing everyone to wait at the end whilst you ask your specific-to-you question :)

      3. Yorick*

        We hate it when people reply all to say “congratulations” for an announcement or “thank you”

        1. JustaTech*

          Yes, this! Why do people reply all to congratulate someone? To me it feels very performative, but that’s at least partly because the people I notice doing it are the people who are off-site or field based. I’m like, are you making sure everyone sees your “congratulations!” so we remember you work here?

      4. Lacey*

        Yes, I don’t have reply-all when there are 4 people on a project and we all need to see the information.

        I hate reply all when the CEO sends a company-wide congratulations to someone I’ve never met and I have to spend all day getting replies that say “Congrats!”

        1. Orv*

          Ideally the CEO would use a company-wide email list, with proper reply-to settings, that doesn’t allow just anyone to post. But I realize a lot of places don’t have the IT chops to set that up.

      5. Sarah*

        This happens in my organization a lot, because for whatever reason people don’t think to use the BCC function when sending out organization wide announcements.

        For example, the organization culture is that when someone has a new baby (or even new grandbaby in some cases) they send out an announcement with a picture of the baby.

        Which is fine, I guess, but what is not fine is that they don’t BCC. So, for 2-3 days afterwards you get a number of Reply Alls saying “Congratulations” or “What a cute baby.” By a number, I mean at least 15-20 minimum.

        And then a temper tantrum from one particular manager who has since (forcefully) retired – we’ll call her Hagatha – who would blow up at everyone and yell in all caps about replying all.

        I totally understood her sentiment, of course, but her delivery was lacking. (Part of the reason she forcefully retired – she was a very unpleasant person to everyone around her.)

        Anyhow, the crux of the issue was that if they had just sent it out BCC, the reply alls wouldn’t have been a thing anyhow. I pointed that out to a couple of other managers after one of Hagatha’s diatribes, but nothing was ever done.

        Sigh. I eventually set up an Outlook rule to push all the emails and replies into a folder that I can look at periodically without being annoyed by the reply alls.

      6. LizB*

        My reply-all pet peeve is when people reply all to an all-staff email announcing a personnel change (a promotion, retirement, resignation, welcoming someone for their first day, etc.) instead of just replying to the person whose status is changing. The whole company doesn’t need to know that you, Jim, have congratulated Margaret on her promotion!

        1. Agreed*

          Amen! This! I hate this so much when people reply-all to congratulate. I know my coworkers aren’t doing it to show how nice they are, but it sure reads like that!

    2. CorporateDrone*

      Indiscriminately sending messages to everyone and having a high volume of email causes many problems too. I work in a job where it is super common to add people to threads on the off chance they might need to be informed. Most people are absolutely incapable for doing that much reading during the work day… so they don’t.

      Then we have to have meetings to ensure the communication is transferred, or send more emails as many from the same person is a signal that it’s might be important enough to read.

      If someone needs to be on the thread, I’d clearly tell your sender and add them myself. Getting upset about needing to add them seems a bit over the top. We recently calculated we could increase our velocity by 10% if we reduced the emails received to those we actually need to get.

      1. Putting the Dys in Dysfunction*

        I see it as part of my job to figure out who needs to be on an email and who doesn’t, and in my organization most people seem to operate the same way.

        If I take someone off a thread I’ll often let the other addressees know so that they might do the same when communicating outside the thread or responding to an earlier message in the thread.

    3. Falling Diphthong*

      I think it’s a sampling bias: “Used reply all, and shouldn’t have” generates a lot of visibility, from mild annoyance out to taking down the entire system as people furiously type “Everyone: Stop Replying All!” at each other. “Didn’t use reply all, and should have” often just inconveniences one person skipped and one person included, as here.

      A few instances of the first train one to reflexively hit “Reply” and you’ve got to unlearn it as a general rule, and only use it specifically.

    4. ecnaseener*

      I don’t think anyone hates it in the context LW’s talking about, where there are three people in the conversation. But it could very well be that Kaitlyn’s heard people grumble about reply-all without understanding the context and that’s why she doesn’t use it now!

    5. Pizza Rat*

      It may very well be because many people hate Reply All that Kaitlin is not doing it. If she’s brand new to the working world, she needs to be told when and how to use it. If this is her second or third professional job, she may have been told never to use it and that’s why it isn’t sticking.

      I think the LW needs to add “Please include Mike” until it sticks since they aren’t Kaitlin’s manager.

    6. I'm just here for the cats!!*

      People hate reply all when its a list serve thats going to large amounts of people. This is 2 clients and the employee. They NEED to do reply all.

    7. Thankfully no longer a manager*

      However, reply all to a company wide e-mail is different than replying all to a conversation that requires input and feedback from everyone in the conversation.

    8. I Have RBF*

      So, if people don’t look at the To: and CC: lines when doing a “reply all”, that’s on them.

      In Outlook, it puts the names in the To: or CC: as appropriate when you click “Reply All”, and then you can edit them! So you can actually “Reply Most”, but add or subtract people as you need to.

      IME, it’s easier to “Reply All” and trim that “Reply” and add others.

      Stuff from mailing lists should, by convention, have a list header in the subject. In Outlook it doesn’t. Instead, it has a list designation in the recipients, with a cute little multiple silhouette graphic and the list name.

      When you “Reply All” to a list email in Outlook, the list shows up on the “To:” line in bold with a “+” next to it to expand the list. You can expand it to insert the actual list recipients into your reply and then cull from there. In general, you shouldn’t “Reply All” to a list unless it’s something the whole list really needs to see.

      Also note that some of the list behavior in Outlook is set by your company email admins.

      I hope this information helps someone.

  3. Caroline*

    #1 – is this collaborator of Sally’s part of your team or subject to the same PTO flexibility your team has? Is it possible that Sally described your team’s unofficial flexibility and their work buddy is interpreting it more generously out of jealousy?

    I think I have similar flexibility — I’m exempt and work plenty of overtime, so I don’t use PTO for small things like taking a long lunch or popping out for a dentist appointment – my team is the same. We also work with groups that are paid hourly and coverage-based and short-staffed, with very little schedule flexibility. I can see someone misinterpreting my team’s flexibility from the hourly group’s point of view as extremely generous, if they’re not understanding the stress/late hours with no extra pay/travel expectations that go with it. When I hire new people, I give them a little spiel about how to make decisions about whether to burn PTO or not, and give them extra guidance the first few times they need some flexibility. I also coach them not to rub it in with the hourly teams, but I can’t always control that (it’s a small town so some of my people have personal relationships with the hourly group, and talking happens.)

    I would consider just sitting Sally down (or your whole team if there’s a chance of confusion elsewhere) and giving a talk about PTO usage. You could do it close to the end of the year and frame it up as a 2025 expectations conversation.

    1. Cmdrshprd*

      OP4 I think you just unfortunately happened to email the case manager on the 1 day out of 5 that interferes with their Fridays off, and you got a boilerplate response or maybe an auto response.

      if you had emailed on any other day it would have been fine, Monday email response would have been due on Thursday EOD, Wed. email response would have been due Monday etc…

      I would say customer service response deadlines are more guidelines are like job hiring process take the time you are given and double/add a day or two to it. So if they said Friday, I wouldn’t expect/worry until at least Monday or Tuesday.

      I get it’s frustrating as a customer, but often things take time, and if they spent time sending updates at every deadline things would take longer. would you rather they take 2 mins each to update the 40 requests that it is taking loner aka 80 mins, or spend that time actually working through the requests?

      1. KateM*

        I’m not sure about your math. Wouldn’t Wednesday mean due Tuesday instead of Monday, Thursday mean Wednesday instead of Tuesday, and only Monday be Thursday as expected?

        1. Cmdrshprd*

          You would be right if 3 business days really meant 3 working day for the supervisor, but I don’t think it is. My guess is that the 3 days language is stock to give people a timeframe, and that questions emails from Tuesday and Wed would get responded to on Monday.

          But that could mean a lot of responses due on Monday.

          I think the receptionist just said 3 of the supervisors working days to cover for them and get OP off the phone but 3 working days may not be an official policy.

      2. Emmy Noether*

        Mh, if they are really interpreting “workdays” as ” days I work” at this place, then everything except mon-thu would be affected. For Wednesday it would be a response Tuesday, etc. And if this is because it will genuinely take three days of work to do, then that sort of makes sense (except it should be communicated as “by Tuesday”, not expressed in working days.)

  4. Rev Sev*

    #3 – One option would be to offer to connect with her first thing in the morning, 9am your time and 7am her time.

    1. Sleve*

      Or you could split the difference. You’ll reciprocate with a 7pm finish for every time she does a 7am start. Oh and it looks like it’s her turn, since you’ve already done yours.

      1. Isben Takes Tea*

        I might go for this if somehow this were a work requirement, but why would OP need to adjust their schedule just because a coworker asks them to?

        OP, I would consider it in the same way as if you worked at a retail store; it may be more convenient for your coworker if you stayed past your scheduled shift and helped vacuum and close up the shop, but you were assigned to be there early to open. It is not your responsibility to stay late just because they want you to; in fact, you could get in trouble for triggering unscheduled overtime. The ask itself is unreasonable. You should have NO qualms about giving a flat no or routing it back to their manager in the future.

        I work remotely with people across multiple time zones. I cannot fathom asking a colleague to work late last-minute to accommodate my schedule/workload, let alone regularly!

        1. Rusty Shackelford*

          I might not actually adjust my schedule, but I would suggest this to the coworker just to show her what she’s actually asking me to do.

          1. Observer*

            I don’t think that this person is going to care. She knows what the time zones are, and she refusing to work with it.

            I think that it’s worth noting that she went above the LW’s head to try to force the issue, and have the LW’s schedule changed.

            1. I Have RBF*

              Yeah, the coworker in this situation seems to have a lot of main character syndrome, to the point of asking management to arbitrarily change someone else’s entire schedule to accommodate her.

              I am on the US West coast. I work sometimes with folks on the East coast. This is a three hour time zone shift. I will occasionally work early if there is a critical, time sensitive need, but I am not a morning person and am very short with people if it turns out to be frivolous.

              I would not dream of asking one of my East coast colleagues to stay late without at least a day’s warning. The idea of asking them less than an hour before their day is over to stay late is so much of a non-starter that my flabber is gasted that anyone would do that. If I were to do so, I would expect a hard “NO”. If I did it twice I would expect them to complain to my manager who would have a “talk” with me about respecting other people time and schedules.

              This level of discourtesy from a coworker needs to be shut down by management.

          3. Sleve*

            This is what I was trying to imply. The co-worker sounds like someone who would refuse to ever do their turn, so either they understand and drop the requests or they don’t and the letter writer has the high ground for if she ever tries go above them again. By my estimation, the odds of this offer being accepted, leading to the letter writer having to miss class every fortnight, are exactly zero.

        2. Anonym*

          Yeah, this is giving in to the coworker’s unreasonable demands. Leadership approved OP’s hours, coworker needs to lump it. OP will, of course, be polite and professional.

          I would only make this kind of exception for someone who is very senior and thus presumed to be extremely busy. But I’ve also pushed back on recurring requests from execs for meetings outside my working hours. I’ll do urgent exceptions but not for regular, non-urgent stuff. (I’m a mid-senior subject matter expert, two levels down from the execs.)

          OP, don’t give in to this coworker. She has some weird view of the situation and is demonstrably willing to cause you stress and extra work for no good reason. She is not reasonable and should not be accommodated. When you push back, I’d just give your manager a heads up so they can weigh in to you if they need to. And if you’re concerned, maybe confirm with your manager first so you know they have your back.

        3. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

          I don’t think we have enough info to say the ask itself is [per se] unreasonable, particularly if most people/the rest of her team are in one time zone and she’s in another. The number of times it’s being asked is most likely unreasonable, but that’s different from always being unreasonable. E.g., I manage lawyers, sometimes we have filing deadlines, and those things almost always get filed late afternoon (4 or 5 pm). If someone needs to be available for reasons related to the filing, it might be a stay until the filing is in kind of situation.

          1. Observer*

            I don’t think we have enough info to say the ask itself is [per se] unreasonable,

            Actually, I think that we do have that information. For one thing, it’s really not reasonable to assume that *this* coworker, and *only* this coworker has so many emergencies at the end of the work day. And it’s even less reasonable to think that going to someone’s manager to make them change their schedule without ever having a discussion about the issue with the person involved comes from a place of being reasonable. And the fact that the LW’s manager turned her down says that, no the CW *should* be able to manage with the existing schedule.

            And yes, the frequency of the requests is a *strong* indicator that most, if not all, of the requests are unreasonable.

          2. Yorick*

            In some cases, asking a coworker in another time zone to stay late wouldn’t be unreasonable at all. LW has a hard stop due to plans after work, but not everybody does and some people would easily be able to stay until 6 rather than leaving at 5. But it’d definitely be better for the coworker to plan ahead and ask for this in the morning or even a couple of days in advance if possible.

            1. Isben Takes Tea*

              I agree from that perspective; I also take early/late meetings on occasion and am happy to do so. And if the requests are actually “Hey would it be possible for you to meet later today for Project X, no worries if not, we’ll try again tomorrow”, that’s eminently reasonable. I was definitely making assumptions about the tone of the requests based on the context provided, and that influenced the strength of my response.

              1. Hannah Lee*

                It seems like the issue in this case is that one co-worker in a later time zone is assuming, expecting that LW can just stay late. Which leads them to not manage their workflow realistically given the schedule of resources they are depending on.

                For example, I worked with someone who had a hard stop at 5:30 on their normal workdays and was out every Wednesday. If I had something to do that was urgent and depended on their input, if I didn’t get it to them in time for them to complete their part before they left on Tuesday, it was on me that it couldn’t get completed until Thursday. And if it absolutely had to get done before that, it was up to me to figure out a work around.

                It was not on my co-worker to completely change their work schedule because I failed to plan and prioritize correctly. Like maybe once in a blue moon for extraordinary circumstances? (The server / power was out and delayed things, unforeseen critical client’s critical systems needed something urgently so it was a last minute rush for everyone on the process chain, or a life or death situation) But then it’s an ask. Not an expectation or demand.

          3. Cmdrshprd*

            “I don’t think we have enough info to say the ask itself is [per se] unreasonable, particularly if most people/the rest of her team are in one time zone and she’s in another.”

            I think we do because coworker even went to OPs boss and asked for a change to OPs schedule, that request wad shut down and OP was not talked to about staying later. it might seem reasonable/frustrating to coworker, but the powers that be have decided it is not a problem worth acting on.

            But I think for lawyers staying until the filing is done is an industry norm that is widely known. Even then it wouldn’t hurt to spell it out specifically for new hires.

            I work for lawyers and was hired and told during the interview process they were looking for someone that could stay late when needed and not out at 5pm on the dot. There are times that I have to leave and 5 pm or even 4:50 pm, and I have pushed back on staying late but generally stay late if I can.

            In OPs role it does not seem they were hired with the need to frequently stay late/past their working hours.

        4. Observer*

          I might go for this if somehow this were a work requirement, but why would OP need to adjust their schedule just because a coworker asks them to?

          I’d go further and say “because a coworker is being weird”. Because she does this consistently, even though she’s been repeatedly refused – and *her* response was to try to force the LW to stay late by getting the LW’s manager to make them change their hours to accommodate her. That’s not just someone being a bit scattered.

          I work remotely with people across multiple time zones. I cannot fathom asking a colleague to work late last-minute to accommodate my schedule/workload, let alone regularly!

          Yes. And worse – going over a coworker’s head to *make* them accommodate you by *changing their schedule*.

      2. Everything Bagel*

        She can’t stay until 7:00 p.m. unless she plans on skipping class, which I think is an unfair request. The other co-worker should consider the timing and get requests to her earlier in the day more often

        2. Sleve*

          I was trying to imply that I don’t think the co-worker would actually do her turn. Therefore, the letter writer is off the hook forever! And the co-worker can’t push back without looking like the unreasonable one.

    2. EllenD*

      It depends what the colleague 2 hours behind wants. I had a team member who worked very different hours to me. He 6.30am to 3pm and me 9.30 to 6pm. Initially we had teething problems, but then we built up a rhythm. If he wanted my comments, he’d send before 3pm and I’d respond before I left so it was waiting for him when he arrived. Equally, I could delegate stuff to him at 6pm and by the time I arrived the following morning it would be done. It cut down waiting time. Meetings had to be arranged between 10am and 2pm. Once we got this rhythm going it was very efficient, as it cut down waiting time.

      1. Emmy Noether*

        Yes! If one is smart about it, offset schedules can actually be an advantage in a lot of jobs. It just requires some planning.

        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          Core hours are becoming more and more common with dispersed workforces and it works great. You just have to respect calendar settings – the same way you would if someone was booked with meetings and you couldn’t find an afternoon time.

        2. mreasy*

          I am in ET and have team members in the UK, Europe, and Los Angeles. You just have to think ahead a tiny bit to manage.

        3. I Have RBF*

          In IT offset schedules are definitely an advantage, but do require some coordination.

          One place I worked had a 24×7 ops team, with half in India, with everyone on staggered schedules to get full coverage. So local folks started anywhere from 7 am to 10 am, so we had coverage up to 7 pm, and the India team did likewise. Meeting requiring both teams shifted one time to the next so it wasn’t always the same people having to take a meeting out of hours.

      2. WeirdChemist*

        My office has very flexible hours, and this general strategy works well for most of us! There’s always going to be a few people who assume that “this person is not working the exact hours I do, therefore they must be working less than me and I’m mad about it” however… wonder if that’s playing a role with LW3’s coworker?

        1. Peter the Bubblehead*

          The office I work in has a flex hour plan – the office is open 5:30am to 5:30 pm and as long as you work 8 hours/day or total 40 hours/week it really doesn’t matter what time you start or what time you leave.
          We have one co-worker that is here every morning at 5:30. He comes in, talks to other early co-workers for about half an hour, makes his breakfast and coffee, starts his computer, eats, talks to a few more people on the way to and back from the bathroom, and generally actually starts to work around 6:30 to 7-ish.
          Other co-workers come in at 7:30. They don’t dilly-dally about talking to everyone for an hour. They start their computer, grab a cup of coffee (they ate their breakfast before coming in) and start working in earnest by 7:45… maybe 7:50.
          Co-worker 1 will complain that the other co-workers aren’t getting as much work done (in his eyes) as he is because they work two less hours than himself. (He has verbally expressed this opinion more than once.) Even though the other workers are there until 3:30pm and co-worker 1 leaves the office every day at 1:30pm and the other co-workers accomplish more real work in the eight hour period than co-worker 1.
          It’s all a matter of perspective. “If I don’t see you working, you aren’t working as far as I’m concerned.”

      3. Slow Gin Lizz*

        I had a similar setup with my old boss. He was (still is) an extreme morning person (like, wakeup at 4, start work at 5) and I was a night owl (not anymore) such that I usually started around 10am and worked later into the evening. It was nice that I could count on my late afternoons to be quiet with no requests from him so I could concentrate on whatever he’d assigned me, and it’d be waiting for him when he started work the next day. OP, maybe you could suggest something like this to your coworker, that they take into account your offset hours by giving you tasks to do that you can accomplish before she starts working the next day.

        I do think that OP needs to get their manager involved again. First use the wording that AAM suggested with the coworker, but maybe mention to their manager that the CW still keeps assigning work to OP at the end of their workday. Ask the manager what they think OP should do when CW assigns OP work at 5:00. Since OP said the higher-ups already said OP doesn’t need to change their hours, I’d hope OP’s manager would have OP’s back in this situation.

        OP, you absolutely should NOT work late and do not skip class just because CW thinks you should. You have a standing appointment at 5:30 and need to be done with work at that time. Think about this: if you were picking up your kids from daycare, you wouldn’t be able to just leave them at daycare an hour longer because CW needed something from you. This shouldn’t be any different – you are still taking care of someone at that time, it’s just that the someone is you. And even if your 5:30 appointment were dinner, that’s also completely valid to stop work to take care of.

      1. MaryWinchester1967*

        The co-worker should be the one changing her habits. It’s very rude to drop a last minute request to work late on someone all the time. The co-worker already tried escalating and got shot down. That means that co-worker needs to be an adult and learn to manage her time and learn to respect other people’s time.

        1. evens*

          True, the coworker should be changing her habits. However, most of us live in the real world, where a proactive “Hey, I’m leaving in 30 minutes. Do you have anything you need before I go?” would be both effective in getting everything done AND changing the coworker’s habits. I’m not sure what your solution is.

    4. learnedthehardway*

      I think the OP talk to her manager about the situation, inform them she is going to have to deal with this a little more firmly, and then cc her manager on a response to the coworker to the effect that she (the OP) works 9-5 HER TIME and is not available to be scheduled for meetings or work outside of office hours, except in emergency situations and only with prior notice. Then suggest that since her and the coworker’s hours overlap by at least X hours a day (from 12 – 3 or whatever), that they meet during those times. Also, that the coworker can be assured that she will respond promptly to any messages sent after her work hours the next business day.

      Pussyfooting around the fact that the OP is remote isn’t working, and it sounds like upper management are in agreement with her that the coworker’s demands are off base. So, use that support and set a boundary, and let coworker know that her manager supports her in this.

    5. Peter the Bubblehead*

      I came here to say the same thing. Every time your co-worker requests you stay late, offer the compromise of her starting the next day early at your 9am. I am almost positive the stay-late requests will stop.

    6. Camellia*

      This is my go-to response. “No, I can’t stay after 4:00, but I would be happy to meet with you at 7:00 AM!” That shuts them down real quick.

  5. Thepuppiesareok*

    OP3 is it normal in your industry for coworkers to ask each other to stay late? Because it’s not in mine. It’s actually considered rude and unprofessional. The few times it’s happened I’ve just ignored it because it’s so far outside of the norms for my industry. I work on mountain time and would never dream of asking my east coast coworkers to stay late. If I happen to be speaking to a client of theirs and it’s a question I can see they’ve been working on I’ll check if they’re still online and if so send a quick message, but that’s it. If I need something from them and they’re done for the day I send an email for them to get to when they’re back at work. Just like they don’t ask me to come in early I don’t ask them to stay late.

    1. Cmdrshprd*

      I would say the more relevant question is “is it the norm at this company.” It may not be the norm for the industry but could be the norm for the company.

      With that being said, it does not seem like the norm since the boss officially denied the request for OP to shift her hours.

      I do think it could be a valid question if most of the work/company was done on mountain time, but OP was remote on Eastern time.

      I have seen some remote positions that explicitly say the job is based on 9-5 EST, so a person in PST could apply but they would have to work 6 am to 2 pm PST. I could understand the frustration if OP and coworker had to frequently collaborate and they work off hours. OP might be a unicorn candidate that the company/boss has decided the trade off is worth having OP on board and coworker needs to realize the decision has been made.

      1. Nodramalama*

        Yeah I think company norms really matter here. At my work people aren’t usually asked to work late but it would also be pretty uncommon to have a regular hard out by 5.05 and theyre not planning on logging back on after (i.e if they have to do a a school run)

        1. MistOrMister*

          Except this is the end of OP’s workday. If it’s not the norm for people in their company to have to work late, then it’s not at all odd for them to have a hard stop on certain days and to not log on later.

        2. dontbeadork*

          What time do you start? Or at your work does everyone start later? It doesn’t seem strange at all to log out at the end of the work day and be done for the day.

          1. Not That Kind of Doctor*

            Having a regular hard stop would be unusual and frowned upon at my workplace. We aren’t workaholics, and actual late nights are supposed to be for exceptional circumstances only, but the general expectation is that sign-off time will flex a bit, to the extent that I’ll alert my teams if I have a hard stop at 5:30 even if I started at 8:30.

            1. Learn ALL the things*

              That’s weird. You should be able to end your work day after 8 hours without making a special pronouncement.

              I leave work at the same time every day and the world has not ended yet.

              1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

                Just because you don’t work in an environment like that doesn’t make it weird.

                1. Sacred Ground*

                  No, it’s because nearly all workers across nearly all sectors don’t work in an environment like that does makes it weird.

                  It is really, really normal to have an end time to your work day and to be actually done with work.

              3. Baunilha*

                Same here, especially because many people have classes, childcare arrangements and other errands that need hard stops. And if we are asked to work late, it’s always asked in advance (and I mean days in advance) so everyone can plan accordingly.
                But being asked to stay late just minutes before you’re supposed to leave only happens if it’s an emergency (and that’s like twice a year, if that), which doesn’t seem to be LW’s case.

              4. Blue Pen*

                I’m the biggest proponent of signing off when you’ve finished your working hours and being done for the day, but I know there are some industries where predictable hard stops aren’t always the case—e.g., emergency medicine.

            2. Miss Muffet*

              This was how it was when I worked in the office – it wasn’t worth it to come in early because people still looked at you sideways if you had to leave “on time” at 5 or 5:30ish. They didn’t see you in early so they don’t “see” you working late. It’s totally absurd but it was just how it was. Unspoken, of course.
              Now I work in Mountain time but shift my hours to be more CT/ET so I can leave earlier in the afternoon (hard stop for at least a couple of hours to run kids around). If I have to log back in later, I do, but at that point I don’t expect anyone else to be around!

              1. Blue Pen*

                I completely agree, and it’s incredibly frustrating. I’ve always been an early bird—I just prefer to wake up early and get a head start on things when most people are still sleeping. I’m not tooting my own horn, it’s just that coming in early helps me focus and get/feel ready for the day.

                But a lot of coworkers didn’t know or see that I was coming in at 7 am. So when I’m still there past 4 pm, 5 pm, etc., I’m coming up on a 12 hr-workday when they got in at 8 or 9 am.

          2. Nodramalama*

            This is why I started with know your company. It might not the strange to you but it is in my line of work. Urgent things often pop up during the afternoon and they don’t vanish because the clock hit 5

        3. Learn ALL the things*

          Almost everyone where I work is out the door by 5. We have a handful of night owls who start later in the day and leave at 6 or 6:39, but even the people who work 4 10’s usually come in around 6:30 or 7 and leave around 5.

          Are you in one of those companies that regularly expects people to work more than 40 hours per week?

          1. Learn ALL the things*

            OMG, that typo resulted in an extremely specific leaving time, I meant 6:30 not 6:39.

            1. Anonym*

              I enjoyed the idea of people checking the time and saying, “Oh no! It’s 6:38! Gotta run!”

              1. Jackalope*

                I’ve had a job like that. If you logged in at, say, 7:00, you would log out at 3:30. If you logged in at 7:04, you would log out at 3:34. You would not log out at 3:33, nor would you log out at 3:35. It was 3:34. Which was actually pretty nice, since there was no expectation that you keep going after your 8.5 hours (including a half hour lunch) were done. So 6:39 seemed very reasonable to me.

          2. Nodramalama*

            No I’m just in a field where sometimes urgency and importance take precedence over a hard five pm out. It’s not weird, it’s just reality.

            1. Radioactive Cyborg Llama*

              +1. I’m a lawyer and people file things late in the day. It doesn’t mean we have to work 4 hours more, but we will usually make sure the pertinent people know and get a sense of what the thing is, so 30-45 minutes maybe. Sometimes the person you’ve been trying to get on the phone for 3 days calls you at the end of the day. That sort of thing.

    2. Educator*

      Another perspective on #3: I work across several time zones, and occasionally coming in early or staying late is a really normal business expectation. If we all stuck to just 9-5, we would have trouble moving essential projects forward. Everyone understands that, and tries to share the burden of working outside of typical hours equally. Someone who was overly rigid about logging off at exactly 5:05 would really be out of sync with that culture of mutual compromise. You’ve got to know your company’s vibe on this stuff..

      1. Myrin*

        That doesn’t seem to be the case at OP’s company, though – after all, the manager her coworker went to (which I think is in itself pretty outrageous, honestly – you don’t just go to supervisors and tell them you want another person’s hours changed!) said bluntly that it’s not necessary.

        1. Jackalope*

          That’s such a weird thing to do, and is making everything else that coworker did suspect in my eyes. If you know a coworker has a set schedule and is out the door by a specific time, the way to handle it is to adjust your expectations and work around it, not go over their head to a manager and try to unilaterally get their schedule changed. Maybe there’s a good reason that the coworker is always reaching out at the end of the day, but given that the OP didn’t mention it being emergency stuff, it sounds more like poor planning on the coworker’s part. (And I would be super ticked if one of my coworkers decided to go to my supervisor and ask them to change my work schedule without discussing it with me. Or if they were regularly asking me right before I leave to just change my schedule and stay awhile longer. I can be flexible when I know about it beforehand, but right at the end of the day I might already have things set; logging out of work programs, shutting things down, etc.)

          1. Observer*

            That’s such a weird thing to do, and is making everything else that coworker did suspect in my eyes.

            Yes. That’s a really, really strange thing.

            I would be a bit put off by the fact that it’s so last minute pretty much all the time because that’s a bit strange as well. But given this, I really wonder if she’s doing this on purpose.

      2. Eldritch Office Worker*

        OP does know their company’s vibe on this stuff, this single coworker is the one imposing different expectations.

        1. Anonym*

          Yeah, coworker has demonstrated in multiple ways that’s she’s unreasonable. It’s bonkers to me that she asked management for OP’s hours to be changed. That’s wild, and speaks to either a misplaced sense of entitlement or something even stranger.

      3. Catwhisperer*

        I also work across timezones (and continents!) with stakeholders in other countries. In my experience, this is heavily dependent upon the team that you’re working on, even within a global organization.

        In my team it’s perfectly normal to have a hard stop at 6 p.m., despite most of our stakeholders in the main office being 8 hours behind. We reserve the 2 hours of overlap during business hours for meetings and do a lot of work asynchronously. I’m in the interview process with another internal team where the expectations are to adjust your schedule to accommodate stakeholders working in the main office, which may mean starting later or working a split schedule. I’ve also worked on teams in the same industry that expected you to work regular business hours plus take late night meetings.

        TL;DR: It’s not unreasonable for LW#1 to expect her colleague to prioritize meetings with her timezone during overlapping business hours when her boss has made it clear she’s not expected to work late, nor is it unusual to do that in global companies. The only thing I’d flag to the LW is to make sure she’s available for cross-timezone meetings during the business hour overlap and that she schedule meetings in her own timezone outside that window.

        2. Tessa Ryan*

          My fully remote org just works on the same time zone, regardless of where we are located (all employees are in the US). I’m in CT, but our main office is located in ET so we all work in ET. So my coworker in Virginia works 9-5, my work day is 8-4, a coworker in Wyoming works 7-3, and a coworker in California works 6-2. This not only makes scheduling meetings a lot easier since we aren’t fussing with time zones and but also ensures we aren’t asking people to work later/earlier than others. My coworkers on the west coast actually prefer it, they are self professed “morning people.” And we also have flex hours– as long as you are available during “normal business hours” (9-5 ET) one day a week most people can shift their schedules as needed. Flexibility is important, but having org-wide transparency about your hours/when you’ll be available is essential.

          1. amoeba*

            I mean, we have coworkers in both the US and China, so I feel like that would be a pretty hard sell for people… (Somehow we still all manage to work together!)

      4. Sacred Ground*

        Adjusting one’s hours as needed for particular projects isn’t unusual. That’s not what’s being asked. This is ONE coworker trying to get OP to change their regular everyday working hours to be in synch with a different time zone all the time, despite the fact that her own office doesn’t work those hours. They’ve already been told no by the bosses yet still persist. Again, they’re not asking for the once-in-a-while late night. They’re asking for a permanent change to the schedule of someone working in a different time zone and have been told flat-out that it isn’t happening.

        It’s pretty clear here that SOMEONE doesn’t know the company’s vibe here and it isn’t the OP.

    3. TooTiredToThink*

      Yeah, that surprised me a lot. I’m basically a project manager/semi-team lead for a group that all works different hours and on the few times I need people to work outside of their normal hours – it’s a discussion – not a request or a demand.

      1. ferrina*

        Yes! I work in an organization that spans the Western hemisphere, and it’s always a discussion if we need something outside of working hours in that particular colleague’s timezone. I’ve had plenty of meetings at weird hours, but it’s always a conversation, never a demand.

    4. Dust Bunny*

      This would be completely out of line in my workplace except for occasional and quite extreme situations. If you’re two hours behind me and send it at 2:45 your time/4:45 my time I’m going to handle it on the next business day unless there is a very, very, very good reason I need to do it now.

      1. Freya*

        This. If you send an invoice at 4:45pm my time there’s no way it’s getting processed and paid today; there’s a reason I give a deadline of lunchtime my time! (and why my favourite contact at one particular client tells their reports that the deadline for timesheets is 9am on payroll day, even though my workday starts at 11am)

        Legally, in Australia, an email (for the purposes of contracts) is deemed to be received when it is capable of being retrieved by the person the email was sent to, unless otherwise agreed. This is usually considered to be when it hits the email server modified by standard business hours in the recipient’s time zone (technically it’s when it hits the server no matter what, but the legal right to disconnect and the interaction of this particular law with that has not yet been tested).

        (I have had to inform suppliers that an invoice sent after close of business on my last working day of the week is never going to get paid before my next working day. I got very tired of one particular supplier calling me on Monday mornings asking why their invoice sent after I left the office the previous week hadn’t been paid yet when the due date on the invoice was Monday)

  6. The Nanny*

    100% this is just my personal bias but I am so curious if Kaitlyn from #4 is their nanny. Simply because this is a thing that comes up a lot in nannying situations where the nanny feels more comfortable contacting one parent (or one parent unfairly has all of the Child Knowledge so it would be useless to ask the other) and the other parent ends up sidelined in the communication.

    IDK! Something about Kaitlyn being “new to the workforce” and OP4 mentioning they have other frustrations with her as a unit is pinging Nanny Bells for me.

    I agree with Allison in any case.

    2. Not A Manager*

      I just re-read that, and I think you’re right. If it’s true that this is a domestic employee, I’d try to articulate clearly the reasons why it’s important for all the adults in the family to be included in every discussion. I’d also take a look at why one of those adults is primarily the one contacting the employee.

    3. len*

      If this happens to be correct and the LW was intentionally vague in order to anonymise the situation then this comment seems unhelpful. If it’s not correct then I suppose it’s also unhelpful.

    4. Emmy Noether*

      Mh, it didn’t read like a nanny to me. The use of the word “contact”, then having to email frequently about problems (wouldn’t there be more talking and less emailing with a nanny?), and having the “impression” she’s new to the workforce (would have seen a CV and been sure for a nanny).

      It does sound a bit like maybe Mike and LW are a couple. Maybe a daycare situation? Happens all the time to my husband and me that one of us will email someone about our children (daycare, extracurriculars, various administrative offices,…), putting the other in cc, and they will reply to just one of us. Since it’s usually one-off emails, we just forward it between us. It is kind of low-level annoying, though.

      1. CorporateDrone*

        There is technology you could use to solve this. Either provide an email that auto forwards to both parties when filling out forms at school/daycare etc or setup an auto forward under your individual emails whenever you get something from people at those locations (eg from your school board domain)

        1. Emmy Noether*

          We actually do have a joint email set up for this reason, but often write from our own out of… habit? laziness? We should really take the time to set it up so it’s less annoying to switch over to writing from the other account. As it is it’s still easier to hit forward occasionally than to switch accounts when writing.

          Auto forward won’t work unfortunately, because it’s frequently new domains. The school is actually fairly good about it now, so it’s mostly the miscellaneous other stuff.

      2. ferrina*

        I’ve seen this happen in quite a few childcare scenarios. Or they only ever reach out to one point of contact. This has happened on my kid’s sports league where a coach will just pick one person to email with updates. It’s super frustrating, because it’s not always the same parent/caretaker who is taking the kid to every single practice and game. So if dad does drop off for the Wednesday practice and mom is the only one getting the email that practice is cancelled, but mom is working and can’t check her email, then dad doesn’t get the notice that practice is cancelled.

        1. Silver Robin*

          I saw a suggestion in the comments here forever ago to have a joint parental/family email that gets used for all childcare things so that both parents always have access to those kinds of things and even though I do not have kids yet it struck me as so simple and brilliant. People are really really annoying about default parents (usually moms, both in assumption and reality). And having things in one place is also just easier logistically because neither parent has to root around their individual inboxes to find the email or whatever.

          If this is indeed a childcare scenario, maybe transitioning to that kind of email set up could help?

          1. A Simple Narwhal*

            That’s what me and my husband d0, and it’s been shockingly helpful. We set up a joint email when we were getting married since most vendors refused to contact my (now) husband/reach out to more than one person, and now that we have a kid we use that joint email for childcare-related things. We also use it for household things too, such as contractors, grocery rewards programs, etc.

            It’s so simple but it makes sure that we’re both included on things that both of us need to know and have access to.

          2. ferrina*

            That works for some people, but doesn’t work if parents are divorced or if there are other people involved in caring for the kid (grandparents, aunts/uncles, nannies/babysitters, etc.) who need to be contacted for some things but not others
            For example, one kid on my kid’s sports team is usually driven by his grandfather. Mom and Dad make it when they can, but their work schedule changes a lot and grandfather is retired. They put down all three of their emails as contact for the sports league, but grandfather isn’t the main contact for school communications.

            1. Liz*

              You can still have a joint email if you’re divorced (“Kid2010Parents@gmail.com” forwarding to parent A and parent B). Or even an email address specifically for kid-related stuff (“Kid2010.karate@gmail.com”,”Kid2010.music@gmail.com”) with a rule that auto-forwards to whoever needs it.

              1. ferrina*

                You technically can, but every divorce is different and there isn’t a blanket solution for all of them. This would cause all kinds of issues with my ex (source: we tried to do this for a wedding email, and it was chaos. I would read an email, talk about it with him, and respond, then later he would get upset that he never saw the email. Or he would get to it first and respond back without ever consulting me)

      3. The Nanny*

        I’ve worked for families that did a lot of emailing, especially in scenarios where I was picking kids up from school and handing them off at dinnertime – not a lot of space there for in-depth conversations. IME text or in person has been for stuff like “Did Child poop today?” whereas email was for things like “Hey My Bosses, I’m noticing that Child is hitting X developmental goals and may be ready for Y new materials in the playroom. Here are some links and background reading.”

        It could also definitely be a daycare situation, but I will say that the general impression of nannies is new to the workforce 20somethings so that’s where it clicked for me. That’s not all of us! I have a degree in early childhood development and have been in the industry for over a decade. But for many people that’s what they picture when they think ‘nanny.’

    5. Media Monkey*

      i was assuming an agency role – advertising/ media/ marketing. but you are the client, you can absolutely tell her she has to remember, or escalate it to her boss. it would be taken seriously and you aren’t being unreasonable to have everyone in the loop. i’m on the agency side and it is an issue when clients do it to us as well!

    6. Sloanicota*

      Oh, interesting. Well, I’d still say the response is to just make this Really Boring: “Kaitlin, please go back and cc Mike on your response and we’ll go from there.” Make her do the extra work of the correction every time and she’ll eventually find it easier to do it the right way the first time.

      1. OrdinaryJoe*

        I do that! I correct/ask/educate the first few times and than after that, it’s on them. I go back to the person and ask them to redo the Whatever correctly or point out that they have X number of mistakes, please review their work, correct, and get back to me. I know it gets some grumbles from people but it also works.

      1. ferrina*

        If it is a childcare provider, it means that it’s harder to escalate the issue. IME daycares also have a higher rate of “I’ve always done it this way” mentalities- childcare is a high-stress, low-pay industry with very high turnover, so the bar is lowered for what constitutes bad behavior. There may also be very limited options in childcare providers- you’re limited by proximity, cost (which can get suuuuper expensive), and the stakes are extremely high if mistakes are made.

        If it is a childcare provider and they aren’t responding to the direct ask, then I wouldn’t escalate it. The center director won’t care. Instead, I would rely on relationship building. Make sure Mike has more visibility with the provider. If you can, send Mike to do pick-up on a day when the childcare provider has left him off the email. Mike then asks “Hey, can you answer the question in the email? It looks like you never responded to that.” That’s likely to get results.

    8. My Useless Two Cents*

      Nothing about letter says “nanny” or “domestic situation” to me. “New to the workforce” and/or “Reply All nightmare experience” seem much more likely in my mind.

    10. Daisy-dog*

      I was getting a vibe that it wasn’t someone who is on a computer all day as part of their job and might be unaccustomed to email standards.

  7. Captain dddd-cccc-ddWdd*

    OP3 (work hours in different time zones) – So she’s continuing to make these requests even after officially asking for your hours to be permanently changed and being told no? I would be inclined to go back to whoever she made that request of and let them know it’s still happening – they probably think this is solved. I expect she disagrees with their decision so is now trying to take it into her own hands.

    It is tempting but ultimately unproductive to start sending meeting requests for 6am her time etc.

    2. M2*

      I wonder though is LW is not getting done what needs to get done and this is why she’s asking for these meetings?

      I travel a lot for work and unfortunately have seen this a few times. People sort of do some
      Or push off some work and then think they can sign off thinking someone else will get it done? Are you clear with this colleague about what you’re doing/ what is expected?

      I would maybe have at least a weekly meeting with this person or you send them an email and say this is what I’m doing today/ this week and working on if you have any issues please contact me by 3 PM my time so we can handle before I leave at 5.

      Also, working late is the norm in many areas especially if you’re exempt and especially if you have people in different time zones. What classes are at 5:30? Is it school or a workout class? Working an extra 30 minutes here and there is not a big deal but if you are expected to do it then your colleague should be expected to sign on 30 minutes early some days also.

      I have been on both sides. I worked overseas on a Sunday- Thursday schedule (it is a MENA country that had Friday and Saturday off) and was expected to basically also work Fridays or sign back on so we could talk to DC when they were online. But by the time people signed on it was the end of our day. So we had to figure out certain days DC signed on very early or late (12 am or sometimes 6 am) and usually I stayed online late. There was one day I went to a very specific yoga class so that was my boundary and I told them Fridays I would only sign on to check emails or take a call if I went for a long walk. I have also been on the other side of people not finishing work signing off at 5 and expecting someone in a different time zone or even in their own to do that work. That is also a major issue. So communicate with this person maybe with your boss also on the call to come up with something that will be good for both of you.

      1. AMH*

        Does what kind of classes it is really matter? I don’t think anyone should be making value judgements about whether OP’s classes are a good enough reason to decline to work outside of their scheduled hours.

      2. My Useless Two Cents*

        I wouldn’t go to OP not getting work done/done on time. It sounds more like co-worker is putting their work off until the end of day and then trying to make OP stay late so they can finish. What is that saying… “your poor planning does not constitute an emergency on my part” or something like that. OP has a hard out at 5. End of story. The reason why doesn’t matter.

        I would suggest OP start replying to requests for 4:45PM meetings with something like “Sorry, can’t do 4:45PM but can do 9AM tomorrow morning” just to make sure co-worker can’t argue that OP won’t meet with them (which I wouldn’t put past someone willing to go over OP’s head and try to get their hours changed!). And I would definitely loop in manager that co-worker is still being persistent and unreasonable with meeting requests just to CYA.

      3. Observer*

        I wonder though is LW is not getting done what needs to get done and this is why she’s asking for these meetings?

        That doesn’t compute. If the CW needs something that the LW should have already gotten to her, she can ask earlier in the day.

        Also, there would be absolutely *no* reason to try to get the LW’s schedule changed in this scenario.

        you send them an email and say this is what I’m doing today/ this week and working on if you have any issues please contact me by 3 PM my time so we can handle before I leave at 5.

        This person is not the LW’s manager or in their chain of command. The idea that they need to tell the CW what they are doing is really off base here.

        What classes are at 5:30? Is it school or a workout class?

        I’d be surprised if it were something trivial. But even so, what difference does it make? The LW has this on their schedule and their CW simply does not have the standing to insist that they change their schedule. *Especially* the repeated last minute requests.

        finishing work signing off at 5 and expecting someone in a different time zone or even in their own to do that work.

        None of that would begin to explain the CW’s attempt to change the LW’s schedule or the constant last minute requests. What the LW describes is clearly not “Hey, where is ~~Thing~~ I asked you for yesterday”, which might at least somewhat excuse the requests. It’s “Hey, I need this thing and I want you to stay late”, asked shortly before the LW leaves.

      4. Former Admin Turned PM*

        It seems to me that anything that is so urgent time after time that it cannot be done the next business day when LW works her normal work hours (before CW has started her day), there needs to be an examination of the work process and why these urgent things only happen at 2:45 PM CW-time. LW has not indicated that she reaches out to CW at the end of her own day to say “Log in at 7 AM your time to take care of this with me!”

        I work in an office in the Eastern US, we also have an office in Hyderabad. My India folks appreciate when I am willing to log on early to catch their afternoon, and I appreciate when they stay late to catch a meeting that I couldn’t get in during our overlap. It’s just the nature of a global organization; sometimes things have be asynchronous and response times may be 24 hours instead of immediate.

  8. Emily*

    I do think #5 was a tad impatient. If I was told 3 business days on a Tuesday, I would allow through all day Friday to receive a response and would then follow up on Monday if I had not heard. The case manager should have been better at communicating what her business days were though, since they weren’t the typical Monday through Friday.

    1. KateM*

      I was thinking the same as it was on Tuesday afternoon so even in the best case, three days would be pretty much Friday EOD.

      1. Former Admin Turned PM*

        Agreed. The clock starts on what constitutes Day 1 on the following day if a request comes in the afternoon, and then full business days are in effect. So a request on Tuesday afternoon it Wed/Thurs/Fri and an answer first thing on Monday morning would be reasonable.

    2. Nodramalama*

      Yeah I agree in my line of work cob Friday is basically anytime before beginning of business Monday. I certainly wouldn’t expect anything during Friday day.

    3. Joron Twiner*

      Normally I agree, but if the issue was really urgent, I understand following up as Friday draws late. Especially since in this case OP was instructed by someone else at the company to contact this person–this isn’t an initial inquiry, it sounds like a follow up/escalation to me.

      1. Nodramalama*

        I think the issue here is that LW interpreted it as getting a response on Friday by the LATEST. And that three business days is sometime not at the end of the day on Friday. But in reality a response at 5pm on Friday would have been within 3 business days so to follow up before then is unrealistic.

        1. Timelines*

          Nodramalama: Agreed. I don’t think LW allowed enough time to pass before following up.

          One of my work tasks is responding to certain requests for information, and we say the turn around time is 5 business days (Monday through Friday) which is always clearly communicated when we receive the Records Request. If someone “follows up” aka tries to pressure me to get it done sooner (which doesn’t happen very much), I just cheerfully reiterate the 5 business day turn around time. I do usually complete requests sooner than the 5 business day deadline, but I find it pushy/rude when people try
          and press for a quicker turn around time when the timeline was clearly explained to them.

    4. Shiara*

      The OP says they were told “within 3 business days” and so I can see the “within” modifying their expectations that they’d hear back Friday at the latest.

      1. Cmdrshprd*

        “they’d hear back Friday at the latest.”

        sure but at the time OP called the the initial timeframe had not elapsed, aka by Friday at the latest means by Friday 5pm, so following up anytime Friday before 5pm is premature. even if OP call at 4:55 pm, the time/deadline had not elapsed.

    5. fhqwhgads*

      I think yes and no.
      If the business is always closed on Fridays, then Friday is not a business day.
      In this case it’s just that one person was off on Friday. Friday is still a business day. She’s just OOO. Was on her to specify.

    6. Jason*

      LW here-

      The key was “WITHIN 3 (full) business days”. Wednesday was day 1, Thursday was day 2, Friday was day 3. So Friday by the end of the business day was when, at the latest, I was to receive a response and late in the afternoon I followed up. Within 3 business days didn’t mean to include Saturday, Sunday, or before the start of the business day on Monday.

      I was already not happy with this company and them misleading me on when I would receive a response just added to my dissatisfaction with them. If the case manger wasn’t able to provide an answer by the end of the business day on Friday when promised, they should have turned it over to somebody who could answer in the allotted time.

      1. Cmdrshprd*

        “So Friday by the end of the business day was when, at the latest, I was to receive a response and late in the afternoon I followed up.”

        But by your own admission you followed up before the original time had expired.

        I agree the case manager should have been clearer that it was really going to be Monday response. My guess is they maybe copy/pasted the response email or it was auto generated, but unless it was a life and death/critical issue (you said it wasn’t) I think giving 1 to 2 day grace period before following up should be followed.

        People get sick, have other issues.

        Also I don’t know that I would classify as “you will hear back from us/me within 3 business days.” as a promise in you will hear back by then no matter what.

      2. Slow Gin Lizz*

        I don’t think you were impatient at all and I think it’s fine you followed up with them on Friday. I bet the “within 3 business days” is a boilerplate response and she didn’t even think about the fact that the 3 business days would end on a day she doesn’t actually work, so that’s probably why she didn’t think to mention that the response wouldn’t be until Monday. I wonder if she is unable to change the company’s boilerplate “within 3 days” to something like, “I will respond within 3 business days, but I am unable to respond on Fridays.” That would certainly help clear up this kind of confusion and frustration with customers.

        I also think that it’s particularly frustrating to be waiting for a response on a Friday only for it to not come and for you to have to spend the weekend waiting. I totally understand that kind of frustration! I remember feeling it when I was waiting to hear about a job offer, when they’d said early in the week that they’d get back to me about it soon, only for Friday afternoon to come and go with no response from them (I did get the job, only they didn’t let me know until the following week).

        1. Cmdrshprd*

          “I don’t think you were impatient at all and I think it’s fine you followed up with them on Friday.”

          Maybe we define impatient differently, but I think following up before the deadline original time has expired is being impatient. Getting a response at 5pm on Friday is within the 3 business days, so following up anytime before then is impatient.

          I think similar to if boss said I need the TPS report by COB Friday. If boss follows up asking about it at 3/4 pm they are being impatient because the COB deadline has not passed. Obviously a boss has more authority to say actually now I want it done by 3:30 or 4 pm they can, but even if they do you have not made a mistake by working on the original timeline.

          I can get impatient too, and try hard to tap it down.

          1. amoeba*

            Or even at 6 or 7, people work different schedules!

            Also, outside of extremely important deadlines etc., I always give *at least* a day of grace – so if they say three business days, I might reach out after five. Four at the earliest. Monday morning still seems quite impatient to me, I’d probably wait until at least Monday afternoon, when they’re clearly quite a bit over their own deadline!

            (Honestly, if it’s non-urgent, I’d probably give it a week or two, just to make sure it didn’t fall through the cracks!)

            1. Bast*

              I realize this is industry and company specific, but for my field, if it is a non-urgent issue it’s a professional courtesy to give people a couple of extra days to reply. This changes how I see the issue. We do have hard and fast deadlines, but for the vast majority of things, nothing bad is going to happen by giving someone a little extra time. We do this purposefully because in the same situation, you’d want someone to give you the same grace period, because inevitably, at some point or another, YOU will be the person running late with something, no matter how organized or timely you usually are.

          2. Emily*

            “Maybe we define impatient differently, but I think following up before the deadline original time has expired is being impatient.”

            Exactly! LW, I think you are letting your frustration color your interaction with this organization. While the Case Manager should have clarified that they didn’t work on Fridays, you were impatient to follow up before the deadline, which by your own admission was end of day Friday.

      3. Archi-detect*

        it is also weird to me to use 3 business days at all on a Tuesday, unless you are trying to be deceitful. I see business days being helpful for either things that will take weeks or an automatic email response- like allowing two business days for processing so you know if you send it in Saturday no one is starting work on it

        1. amoeba*

          Honestly, I’d assume it’s just an auto-reply/boilerplate response that has a standard turnaround time in it?

  9. Nodramalama*

    For LW1 I seriously doubt sally meant she literally thinks you are sending her some kind of secret coded message that would suggest she has a mental illness. At MOST I think she means that she’s been intepreting your responses as wink wink nudge nudge take PTO whenever.

    For LW3 I wonder if any of this could be mitigated by contacting your coworker earlier in your day? I wonder if possibly she just runs out of time to factor in the two hour difference.

    1. londonedit*

      Thanks for this, because I really didn’t grasp what was meant by ‘sending secret messages’. So Sally thinks the OP has been doing a ‘nudge nudge, wink wink, technically you should stick to 200 hours a year but really you can do whatever you want’ thing? But why has she been telling people that? Is it a situation where the colleague has mentioned something about taking a day off and Sally has said ‘Oh, technically I don’t have enough holiday for my time off next week either, but Jane says I can take as much time as I want’ or something? The whole thing seems quite odd to me. I’m also not sure why the OP jumped to the idea of a ‘mental health issue’ (?) but I think they definitely need to clarify with Sally – is it a misunderstanding on Sally’s part about how the PTO works? Or was it a misunderstanding on the colleague’s part, and Sally didn’t say anything about unlimited PTO? Whatever it is, it definitely needs clarifying.

      1. Anon for this sensitive topic*

        if the words use were literally “sending secret messages”, I can understand why she wondered about a mental health issue. when I read it like it too.

        but even if that were the case, I’m not sure what OP could do differently. does she want to bring up the possibility to her report or what.

        1. Anon for this sensitive topic*

          man I keep forgetting to change my username. I don’t think this is actually so sensitive.

        2. hiraeth*

          Yeah, it’s that specific wording. Receiving secret messages from someone or something is quite a common form for delusions to take, so I can see how LW got there. It’s probably not actually the case here, mind you! And yes, I’ve no idea how LW could act on that specific possibility, not without a whole lot more to go on. She still just needs to be clear with Sally about how PTO works and go from there.

          1. CV*

            I thought of psychosis first off as well — but I have a close family member with schizophrenia. Before being diagnosed, she thought I was sending her secret messages telepathically, and became angry when I didn’t act on things she thought I had promised. Telepathically.

            So the LW might do well to ask exactly how these “secret messages” are being conveyed, because that could be useful in figuring out exactly what is going on even if it’s not mental illness.

            1. AnonymousOctopus*

              I had the same experience with a family member and reacted the same way to “secret messages”. Completely agree with your advice to bring the wording up with Sally; at best LW can put the mental health worry to rest, and at worst they will have a clear idea that something is going on with Sally.

        3. londonedit*

          Ah, right – I definitely didn’t assume the wording would literally be about ‘secret messages’, and I didn’t realise that could be something to do with mental illness. So that makes slightly more sense. But we still don’t know who is the reliable narrator here – did the colleague literally say ‘Sally says you’re sending her secret messages’, and if they did, did they literally mean ‘secret messages’ or did they mean a ‘nudge nudge, wink wink’ scenario? Or did Sally say something different and the colleague interpreted it as ‘secret messages’? Or did Sally in fact say ‘secret messages’ but not mean it literally? Who knows.

          1. Irish Teacher.*

            I’d guess Sally may have literally said “secret messages” or similar but in a context where it was obvious it meant “not telling me directly, ” like “yeah, I get 200 hours PTO, but reading between the lines, the secret message my manage has been sending me is that I can take what I like; it’s basically unlimited.”

            And the contact relayed it back as “Sally says you are giving her secret messages about unlimited PTO” and the LW is now concerned about delusions.

            Frankly, I wouldn’t read it that way, given the context where it does seem like Sally may have received mixed messages and it is far more likely she means those than that she thinks the LW is sending her secret messages in non-verbal form.

            1. Smithy*

              This is how I’m reading it.

              I’m based in the US, and recently was traveling with colleagues from outside the US – we all work for the same employer. I was telling them that in the US we have a contractor we use for rush visa/passport issues – but instead of contractor I’m sure I used a term like “fixer” or maybe even “a guy”. For my colleagues outside the US, I don’t know if this profession is even a thing – but combined with my more informal choice of words, it sounded super sketchy.

              As the conversation went on, it was more about how these services are a thing in the US and not how this person is a vetted contractor by our US offices. So if those colleagues were to go back to their home offices and ask about similar options, they might only be left with my original casual language of visa fixer (or worse “visa guy”) as opposed to private visa services contractor.

              I do think this is likely something that can be cleared up – but I also think that policies around discretion regularly assume a lot more business savvy and familiarity that just isn’t always as across the board as we think it is.

          2. amoeba*

            I’m reading it as “officially it’s 200 h, but secretly LW has been telling me I can take as much as I want!” – still a little weird choice of words, but I’d read it just as a synonym for “inoficially/on the down low”.

    2. Kaitlyn*

      Respectfully disagree about #1 – this type of misframing of communication as “secret messages” is not uncommon in paranoid folks. I actually wasn’t surprised the LW “jumped” to asking about mental health – I would have, too. I have no actual advice here, but validation for the LW that it’s not a wild line of reasoning.

      1. Sunlight*

        I agree; believing that you’re the recipient of “secret messages” is very often a symptom of mental illness. That’s mental illness, folks – NOT “mental health” although the two are often used interchangeably today! Mentally healthy people don’t think that they’re being sent secret messages that only they receive or understand.

        But on to OP1: Clarifying the company policy covering PTO is essential. One employee can innocently spread misinformation, not out of malice but because of an honest misunderstanding. Clear up any misconceptions about PTO ASAP!

        1. Cmdrshprd*

          Sure someone thinking they are being sent secret messages could be a sign of mental illness.

          I think the point other people are trying to make is that this could be a game of telephone situation. In that Sally didnt actually/directly say “secret messages” but the person talking to OP interpreted what Sally said as secret messages.

          Honestly I have had bosses that sent me “secret messages” or more like plausible deniability, like “I will tell you that company policy is XYZ, but I can also say that I won’t be here on Monday so I don’t know what I don’t see.” wink wink nudge nudge.

          if you are unfamiliar with telephone you get a line of people 5+ and one person writes done a phrase/sentence, and whispers that to person 1, they go down the line whispering the phrase/sentence, by the time you get to the end you end up with a very different message than was originally said.

        2. Anon for health issues*

          I understand why you find the phrasing “mental health” annoying when it’s referring to mental illness, but it’s not an error. “Health” can be used to refer to the whole range of health possibilities from well to unwell. I’m disabled by a chronic illness and routinely refer to my “health issues” which is a perfectly legitimate thing to say. I could say “my illness” but a) it’s no one’s business if I’m in a wheelchair due to illness or injury and b) it would sound strange and mysterious where “health issues” in the right tone conveys “you couldn’t have known but let’s move on to something else”. If it’s a valid construction for physical health it’s a valid construction for mental health.

        3. Saturday*

          When someone says, “mental health,” they don’t just mean the healthy side of the continuum.

          Also, it can be a symptom of mental illness, but for a relatively small portion of the population. Whereas miscommunication happens all the time. It’s much more likely that it’s not mental illness, especially if the LW hasn’t noticed other issues.

      2. Nodramalama*

        Ok but statistically it’s probably not, and as far as we know there is no reason to think this person is mentally ill, so jumping directly to this is a paranoid delusion seems pretty unhelpful

        1. Anon for this sensitive topic*

          it is unhelpful to the OP which is why I said even if it were true I don’t know what she intended to do about it. but I can still see why I crossed her mind.

      3. Smithy*

        I think where making this connection is a bit unkind is that the OP is a new manager and has heard this from a third party.

        To the point of the OP being a new manager – in communicating about being able to take off time for doctor’s appointments or leave early without using PTO, how exactly did they frame that message? Was it a case of “in our handbook it says X, and while I know it’s a bit unclear – I’ve had it explained to me by HR that X means ABC” OR is it a case that “in our handbook this is vague, so the way I am choosing to enforce this will be ABC until HR tells me otherwise. Other managers may choose to do this differently, but this is how I’m seeing this.” Or even – openly explaining that something is a policy they disagree with, but this is the workaround the OP is choosing to remain compliant but be as flexible as possible. This is all to say, the way the OP has shared this with their direct report may have made this seem more secretive than they intended. OR may have misjudged how their direct report is connecting with other colleagues at their seniority level with other managers that interpret those policies differently.

        Which goes to #2. The term secret message came from a third party. I think that the OP leaping to these conclusions may have been to distance themselves from perhaps getting themselves in hot water as a new manager. Essentially in not being over explicit with a direct report – who may be new to being salaried and more flexible time keeping – they’re now in hot water because that’s not how another manager is dealing has interpretted that policy.

      4. Sneaky Squirrel*

        Sure, it could be a symptom. But this is the employee’s manager who I assume has interacted with and/or seen their employee a few times? If the only signal of a possible mental illness was a one time 3rd party comment saying that the employee was saying that LW was sending them secret messages, perhaps we file away that as weirdly made comment and look for other explanations first before jumping to mental illness? I’ve definitely used the wrong word in conversation before and this reads as someone who maybe was trying to use the word “coded messages” or the like and instead came out with “secret messages”. Diminishing what could have simply been a miscommunication or a personality quirk to mental illness is harmful, not helpful.

      5. Filofaxes*

        Yeah, that would be my thought too– relatives who have dealt with psychosis, schizophrenia, etc have been convinced that they were receiving secret messages from all sorts of sources and through all kinds of methods. So if it was that type of wording, I’d be a little “…umm wait what???” too.

        But if it was more of a “well the handbook says we have 10 days of PTO but Sarah said that X, Y, and Z don’t actually count as PTO, wink wink nudge nudge” messaging, then that’s a totally different thing. So I can’t necessarily blame LW 1 for jumping to that conclusion especially if the former is something they’ve dealt with before.

    3. Anne Shirley Blythe*

      I’m just fascinated how people naturally fall into different camps with the interpretation. Like the LW, I took it quite literally. A few months ago, an LW wrote how an awful person tried to poison the LW’s references. I seemed to be the only reader to take it literally. I couldn’t believe it wasn’t being commented on. Still recovering!

  10. Collaterlie Sisters*

    I completely understand why OP1 thinks of mental health issues as if you spend a lot of time with someone in a crisis with schizophrenia or bipolar the secret messages can come up so much. It could just be an overreaction to the phrase but I wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand

    1. Sparrow*

      I actually have schizophrenia and I think LW#1’s conclusion was super weird (barring any other evidence that could suggest mental health issues, which I have to assume LW would have mentioned). I think it is extremely weird and harmful how quick people are to pathologize any kind of semi-out-of-the-norm behavior, particularly when that involves deciding that someone has an incredibly stigmatized mental illness and then viewing all their behavior through a biased lens.

      1. Eldritch Office Worker*

        Yes, thank you.

        For the average person in an average workplace, it’s a huge leap to ascribe something to mental illness that could be explained by miscommunication. Even if you worked a job that served communities that dealt with mental health difficulties, projecting the symptoms of those conditions onto your coworkers for minorly disruptive behavior would be a sign you need a long vacation to reset your expectations about working with other humans.

        1. Collaterlie Sisters*

          What if the intent is to approach the coworker with a more open mind and with greater empathy and compassion?

          1. I should really pick a name*

            That can be done without assuming some sort of mental illness.

            Approach the situation as “why are you doing/saying this” instead of assuming a reason.

          2. Eldritch Office Worker*

            Then…approach with empathy and compassion. Y0u can do that without fictionalizing a backstory or pathologizing everything they do.

          3. Nonsense*

            If the only way you can approach a coworker with empathy is to assume they have a mental illness, that says way more about you than them.

      2. Collaterlie Sisters*

        I don’t think OP has said anywhere that she has decided that the coworker has a particular illness or that she is viewing other behaviour in a particular way. For a lot of people with (often traumatic) experience with loved ones with these conditions, the thoughts would be about whether someone they know perhaps needed help, and there would be no other actions taken. (I’m explaining because you’re judging me here, not suggesting that this is OP’s point of view.)

      3. Fluffy Fish*

        Chiming in as bipolar – yeah bizarre read into a phrase. That’s simply not how mental illness works and we don’t need people feeding into the stigma and stereotypes.

        As a rule people should refrain from any sort of diagnosing any one in their life but especially people that the frankly barely know such as work.

        Deciding a one-off phrase is a sign of mental illness is gross.

        I see you kinda doubling down in further comments – when the people who are affected by something tell you it’s wrong and harmful, please consider what they are saying instead of trying to justify why it’s really ok and stems from a good place.

    2. Nah*

      Honestly a manager immediately jumping to diagnosing mental illness in their report for what sounds like the first hint of a misunderstanding is much more concerning to me than however the employee came to that conclusion.

    3. Generic Name*

      I know someone who exhibits symptoms of paranoid thinking (and other signs of mental illness), and the “my boss is sending me secret messages” phrasing definitely reminded me of that person.

    4. Sneaky Squirrel*

      Unless there were other signs, I think that jumping to mental health issues because of one comment that was made not even by the employee but a 3rd party on behalf of that employee is problematic.

  11. Artemesia*

    If the employee continually doesn’t CC, then don’t do it for her. Instead contact her and ask her to resend the message reply all. If SHE has to actually do the extra step she may remember and get in the habit.

    1. Everything Bagel*

      This is what I was thinking. After once or twice of being reminded, I bet she’ll catch on.

    2. Daisy-dog*

      Yes, good idea. I previously had this issue with someone who wasn’t in a typical computer job, but still needed to be on top of emails. Because she used her phone, she ended up clicking the “suggested reply” on the emails 98% of the time. It wasn’t until someone told her to stop her that she realized it wasn’t going to everyone on the message. So she may be using a shortcut like the suggested reply or something else and just doesn’t realize that she needs to take additional steps.

  12. RLC*

    LW2, you are so polite and considerate to be asking about water flossing etiquette in the workplace!
    Years ago I had a colleague (adult braces wearer) who would brush and floss whilst carrying on a conversation with me. We worked outdoors so no office washroom; I asked him to turn away or at least let ME wander off until he finished the process.

    1. Toothless*

      I have had dentures since I was a teenager (long story), and used to* have small panic attacks brushing my teeth at work (or really anywhere public). I usually tried to go to the single-stall accessibility washroom, and just hoped nobody would question me.
      *I still do, but working from home now, I rarely need to brush my teeth in public now.

      1. LW2*

        I have been trying to find the single stall bathroom on my floor but haven’t yet :/ glad WFH takes this stress away for you!

  13. r..*

    LW3,

    considering she already went ahead and talked to your higher-ups — and if she did that without first advising you, this is quite rude — and got told off, I’d say you should talk to your manager.

    If you were my report I’d like to know about this situation, because it tells me that I have one of two situations at hand:
    1) There’s a genuine problem with timezone differences where your coworker is facing impediments to her work she can reasonably expect to see solved and not have to put up with in a permanent fashion.
    2) Your coworker is disrespecting the fact that your working hours are agreed between you and your manager, despite that she’s already been effectively told she needs to accept your working hours as what they are.

    Both situations would be my job to sort out, either on my own or in conjunction with whatever others I’d have to loop in.

    1. MistOrMister*

      Well, except we don’t know that #1 is correct. OP doesn’t say in the letter that the coworker’s requests for them to stay late are valid. Maybe the coworker really does need input from OP, but given the bosses have said no to changing OP’s schedule, that gives the impression that the coworker doesn’t know how to effectively manage their own workload. I have worked with colleagues in other time zones and never had this problem! When you know someone is before or behind you, you make sure to schedule things accordingly. Shoot, I have worked with people in the same office building that have schedules that are off from mine by an hour or two and it is incredibly rare that anyone has to work late/start early to accomodate others.

      1. Applesauce*

        That’s why r… said – one of these two situations is going on, not both at the same time.

      2. Cinn*

        This! So much this! Where I work we have flexi, so people in my building can have hours shifted ±3 hours relative to mine, and then there’s colleagues in other European time zones and even American time zones. Most people are quite good at either making it clear how urgent their question is/isn’t so you can prioritise accordingly. (Some people are bad at this and will ring you just before you leave because they’ve still got hours of work left, but they’re actually the minority.)

        The co-worker to LW3 likely has at least five hours of overlapping work time, unless these are urgent issues that have just started happening at three their time, they can definitely coordinate better with someone only two hours different to them without much difficulty.

      4. SarahKay*

        Agreed, LW3’s co-worker just seems unwilling to accept there is a difference in time-zones.
        I’m in the UK, working for a global company, and I know if I need to get something from (or to!) a colleague in Europe I need to do it earlier rather than later in my day, since they’ll finish either one or two hours before me.
        And on the other side, if I have a request for or from someone in the US that can wait until later in my day as they won’t be around for at least the first four hours of my day.
        LW3, Alison’s advice is good, especially as you know your manager has your back – good luck!

      5. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        The fact the requests come at the end of OP’s day and only 2 hours until the end of coworker’s day tells me its a workload issue. Coworker realizing when the day is almost over that something still n eeds to go to OP so they contact OP to work late.

        Now whether its a coworker time management issue or a overload issue is not OP’s problem. This is on coworker to figure out. She either needs to plan her day better to stuff to OP sooner OR talk to her boss about priorities. The solution is clearly not OP working late because she has been told that is not happening.

        1. Jackalope*

          I know some jobs involve having last-minute urgent work come in at all hours, but in general I would consider this rude even with coworkers working the same hours as me. It’s not cool to assume that someone can just drop everything on the regular at the end of the day, or assume that the work you’re giving them is their only priority, unless there are circumstances the OP didn’t mention. I know if I have something I need from a coworker that I send to them at the end of the day, I normally assume I won’t get it until the next morning because they’ve probably already planned out their last couple of hours and what they’ll work on.

  14. Volunteer Enforcer*

    OP5- I use the working days framework in a different context, in case this helps at all. I am an Administrator in local government. I start to fill out a form, then send it to a caseworker colleague for completion with a deadline of 5 working days. The countdown starts from the next day.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      I also have generally understood the clock to start the next day.

      I’ve also just found if the window is that wide, there’s more room for error. If you already think something is going to take three days and it takes three and a half, that’s relatively normal overflow. that’s different than “I have a deadline of 3pm Friday”, which I’d expect to be more firm.

    2. Jason*

      LW here-

      The acknowledgement came on Tuesday, the next working day would be Wednesday. Friday would still be 3 full business days

      1. amoeba*

        Yes, but you followed up on Friday, so by definition before EOB on Friday. Doesn’t matter whether your workday was *almost* over by that point – they could have still sent it that day!

  15. Nebula*

    #1 I agree it’s probably just a miscommunication and due to the different norms in the team internationally. Though if I’m reading it right, you – or whoever is responsible here – might want to rethink the fairness of this. You mention that you think Sally is misinterpreting flexibility around doctor’s appointments etc. due to the different guidelines in the UK. The things you mention are mostly things that I, as a Brit, would not expect to have to book as leave, I would just make up my hours elsewhere (wouldn’t be true for all employers, but I’m guessing this is office work and you say there is flexibility in working hours). You say you have been encouraging Sally to take PTO for this. Is it really fair to expect her to take PTO for a doctor’s appointment if she has colleagues who do not have to do that? They might be in a different country, but you are all working within the same organisation. This could be why she thinks you’re discreetly telling her to just do as she needs – because she sees other people having flexibility that you are saying she doesn’t. This might be completely off-base, but worth thinking about if that is playing into this situation.

    1. A Girl Named Fred*

      I agree – one of the phrases that OP mentioned using is “That’s what PTO is for!” But that doesn’t read like flexibility to me, that reads like putting in a PTO request (or whatever their process is) and getting approved. So I think it’s definitely worth it for OP to go back and clarify – do you mean you’re flexible in that PTO can be used for whatever people need, or that you’re flexible in that someone can take an hour for their doctor appointment and make it up by working late instead of using PTO?

      1. Pastor Petty Labelle*

        I think OP needs to be clear. Saying that’s what PTO is for doesn’t really clarify the police.

        Could employee be just making up stuff? Yes. Could employee be a drama llama who wants to be seen as super special and she gets perks no one else gets? Also yes. Could employee who brought the issue to OP also be a drama llama? Yes. But the way to resolve that is to clearly spell out when taking PTO is required and when it is not. To everyone.

      2. fhqwhgads*

        OP mentioned using that phrase as an example of when she was definitely not implying unlimited flexibility. Ie a reason why OP was confused the employee seemed to think there was some unspoken thing, given she what she had, outloud, spoken.

      3. Caramel & Cheddar*

        Thank you, I was just coming here to say this. Using PTO for this stuff isn’t flexibility, it’s just using your PTO. Flexibility would be letting her take all her PTO for actual PTO, and then flexing her time for doctor’s appointments and childcare issues. So no wonder the employee is confused!

      4. Peter the Bubblehead*

        “That’s what PTO is for!”
        In my office I don’t need to put in a formal written request to take a few hours off for an appointment or long lunch or whatever. I simply speak to my manager and say, “I need to leave at noon today for an appointment,” and my manager says, “Roger that!”
        It’s known by both of us that I will either make up the hours I missed on another day during the same pay period or I will use PTO or SICK leave to cover the hours. It doesn’t occur to anyone I work with that we can work less then out scheduled 40 hour week and simply write off personal time away from the office.

      5. Mad Scientist*

        Not every workplace has a formal PTO request / approval process though. My supervisor often finds out that I had an appointment when he goes to approve my timesheet. I know that it would be fine to *not* use PTO and just flex the hours instead (and I often do), but sometimes I can’t or don’t want to work late for whatever reason, and I’d rather just use an hour of PTO instead. To me, that definitely counts as flexibility! I don’t have to put in any requests, it’s not a formal process, and I have the choice of flextime vs. PTO.

    2. londonedit*

      We might also need to remember that the vast majority of office work in the UK is salaried (we don’t have the exempt/non-exempt thing here) but it’s possible that Sally might be paid hourly if she is in the US, and therefore she might have to log hours and make up time in a different way (like you, where I work you either just make up the time later or if it’s a quick appointment tacked on to the beginning or end of the day then no one’s going to mind if you’re half an hour late or whatever). I agree that if you’re telling Sally to use PTO for appointments, and she’s seeing that the UK staff don’t do that, she might be confused about what ‘flexibility’ actually means.

    3. Cmdrshprd*

      “Is it really fair to expect her to take PTO for a doctor’s appointment if she has colleagues who do not have to do that? They might be in a different country, but you are all working within the same organisation.”

      Eh I’d say yes it is fair that people in different countries with different rules/laws get treated differently, or eve. people that work in different states/cities. This is like apples and oranges.

      I think that part of the issue is that OP is trying to give Sally a little more flexibility. OP might mean you can take off 1 hour early for a Drs. appointment without using PTO, but Sally thinks she can take a half day without using PTO.

      1. Caramel & Cheddar*

        “We’re doing the legal minimum in our jurisdiction” may be true but also companies are certainly welcome and able to go beyond whatever the minimums are in one region to match what they are in another region when they have individual teams that have people in multiple locations* like this one.

        *I’m thinking specifically of the LW’s situation where they are in the US and their boss is in the UK, not situations where a multinational company has 10k employees scattered around the US, another 5k scattered around the UK, etc. Though I’d encourage those companies to be more generous than whatever their legal minimums are, of course.

      2. Nebula*

        I worked for a long time in a very multinational organisation, and it caused a lot of friction when people at the same level got treated differently just because they worked in different countries. When you’re talking salaries or something, people understand that there will be discrepancies due to different market rates, cost of living etc., but for issues where managers could have exercised discretion to ensure people weren’t losing out just due to their location – that was a major cause of resentment.

        I agree that Sally shouldn’t randomly be taking half a day off, that’s why I said I might be off-base. But if it is the case that it wouldn’t massively affect workflow/productivity etc for Sally to be out of office for a little while for a doctor’s appointment and make the time up elsewhere, and that is what her UK colleagues are doing, then I think she should be allowed to do that too. It wouldn’t negatively impact the employer, and would be good for morale for Sally and other US people.

        1. Cmdrshprd*

          I get where you are coming from, I’m not saying companies shouldn’t try to be better across the board. Maybe we define fair differently, but having people from different countries with different rules/laws follow different policies makes sense even if the company could choose to apply it across the board.

          Like if UK laws require 30 days PTO, but in the US if the standard is 15/20. Is it unfair for UK people to get 30 US people to get 15, I don’t think so.

          “When you’re talking salaries or something, people understand that there will be discrepancies due to different market rates, cost of living etc.,”

          If anything I would say if people can understand that salaries are different for the same role in different countries based on several factors they should understand that benefit/policies will also be different based on several factors.

          1. LL*

            I disagree. I think that for something like PTO, a multinational company should have a standard amount of PTO for everyone in the company. If that means they are more generous than is the case in the US because UK law requires a certain minimum, then so be it.

  16. Enn Pee*

    LW4 – if you and Kaitlyn are both using Outlook (and I suspect you wouldn’t necessarily know it), there is an option called “direct replies to” that can ensure that when someone responds, the email goes to a specific address or addresses. This isn’t an option in new Outlook but should be available in lower versions.

    That said, it’s an option you shouldn’t have to use — but if it’s not too annoying for you, and it’s absolutely important that both of you receive the email, it may be worth a try. (I’ve used it quite a bit when I want people to respond to a shared email rather than just to me.)

  17. HR Chick*

    For the employee who does not “Reply All”: If you are you using an email system like Outlook, you can set up the email to respond to all. There is a function at the top titled “Options.” If you click on that, there is a field that says something like “Direct replies to” and you can fill in the names of those who should receive a response. Even if the employee does not hit Reply All, everyone will still receive a response.

    1. Everything Bagel*

      I wasn’t aware of this, and now you and Enn Pee have both mentioned it! This is a helpful tool, but I think initially it is better to just email Kaitlin back directly the next time she does it and ask her to please resend the email to all. Doing this a couple of times should make her more aware and start doing it on her own. It sounds like she needs to learn to be more aware about this in general.

      1. Bike Walk Barb*

        Agreed. I appreciate knowing about this option and may find reason to use it, but it leaves the labor on the side of the person who isn’t doing something contrary to what was requested.

  18. MistOrMister*

    OP3 – I think the remote aspect of your position is a bit of a red herring in this situation. I have worked in the same building with people where we had an hour or two difference in our start and end times and it is incredibly rare that anyone was asked to work extra hours to accomodate the other person. It would generally be inapppropriate for a coworker who started later to constantly be askong one who started earlier to stay late even when both were physically in the office. That doesn’t change just because one or both is/are remote. Your lack of commute has nothing to do with your set hours. If it was expected of you that you either change your hours or work late whenever your coworker requests it, your manager would have conveyed that to you when your coworker complained. It sounds to me like your coworker is not managing their workload properly to make sure they are getting what they need from you before the end of your day and that is a them problem, other than if something comes up urgently at the last minute. You could speak to this coworker to try to find out what it is that they tend to need your help with and see if there is some way to proactively make sure they are set for the day when you leave, but that is taking on a burden that it doesn’t sound like should be yours. Perhaps speak to your boss and say this coworker is continuing to ask you to stay late and how many times a week it comes up and ask them how they want to handle the matter. Since they told this coworker once that your schedule is staying as it is, they are not likely to be pleased that she keeps trying to get you to stay late.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      It’s a red herring in that it shouldn’t matter, but it’s worth noting that there may be a sense of “other” or “they don’t know our norms” when it comes to remote employees. Don’t get me wrong, OP should protect their working hours and the coworker is being a jerk. But perception can be such a strong factor in these situations.

      Because the coworker clearly doesn’t have any intention of being reasonable, I wonder if this is something OP’s manager should bring up with coworker’s manager. It’s worrying that it’s continued after they’ve been spoken to, and it might not stop without firmer interference.

      1. Slow Gin Lizz*

        I definitely agree that it’s worth bringing to the managers’ attentions. It’s not good that CW keeps doing this even after she’s been told that OP’s hours are just fine, TYVM.

  19. Luna*

    If I spoke to someone late Tuesday, Monday would be my interpretation of three full business days.

    2. Pescadero*

      Not me…

      Within 1 business day = by end of Wednesday
      Within 2 business days = by end of Thursday
      Within 3 business days = by end of Friday

      1. amoeba*

        Well, yes, but that would mean I certainly wouldn’t check in before Monday morning because I don’t know the other person’s schedule – maybe they are going to send it at 8 pm, who knows?

        1. Decagon*

          To me, at least, 8 pm would be after the end of the business day and this wouldn’t count as “within ____ business days”.

  20. J*

    Regarding reply all – I recently discovered that my 30 year old son didn’t know what “reply all” meant. He never worked an office job, only used email in his personal life. A situation arose that required communication between multiple people who kept telling him to reply all. He finally asked me what it meant. Maybe this employee is also new to email?

    1. Tangerine steak*

      LW3 your bosses are fine with your hours so you’re fine. But I get why your coworker might be annoyed that you’re working shifted hours and never flexible if it impacts them (and that’s a big if as I don’t know your roles).

      If you’re remote because job requirements it’s one thing, but if you’re remote because it’s a perk for you – and that perk means you’re making it hard for your colleague to do their work – it makes sense they’re annoyed.

      A previous job had great flexibility. But it became unworkable when we had colleagues not working across typical hours – and we just couldn’t get them to meet in a timely manner. Great that 4-9 and 9-11 splits suit your family but typical hours are 9-5, so it really is unreasonable to expect others to start early or stay late because of a perk for you. Whereas the colleagues in a different time zone because their job had them in different time zones – well yeah then sharing the pain of annoying meeting times was fair.

      1. Cinnamon Stick*

        I’m not sure where you got “shifted hours” when the LW is leaving just after 5:00 on some days and later on the others. That’s the typical end of the business day.

        Regarding flexibility–asking someone to stay late a short time before you know their day ends isn’t reasonable, and it doesn’t matter if they’re remote. Neither is going to a coworker’s boss.

    2. Pastor Petty Labelle*

      I was thinking that she has heard so many horror stories of reply all gone wrong that she has it drilled into her mind to never use it.

      OP, just keep reminding her. Its tough because reply all is out of the norm. So you have to remember to do something you don’t normally do.

      1. Roland*

        Reply all is not at all out of the norm. Peoblem eeply-all storms happen when announcement emails expose a large mailing list – the problem is the large list being exposed. When an email is actually a conversation between a few people, reply all is the norm and that’s a much more common situation.

  21. Policy Wonk*

    OP 3, please do not tell Kaitlyn to reply all, instead tell her to include Mike on all emails. Where I work we often give young new employees the advice to avoid the use of reply all. Particularly important in cases where there are a lot of people on the original message – I have seen more than one person hurt their career by using replying all when sending a somewhat flippant response without realizing higher ups were on the e-mail chain. Her boss could be telling her not to reply all. By asking her to include Mike you are avoiding giving mixed messages.

    1. Eldritch Office Worker*

      Sure but there are times when reply all is appropriate and times where it isn’t. We should be teaching young professionals how to use the tool correctly, not scaring them away from using it at all.

        1. Eldritch Office Worker*

          HAHAHA

          Scare them in fun and seasonally appropriate ways. Not away from functional tasks.

    2. Seashell*

      I would think telling new employees not to put anything in email that you don’t want everyone in the office to see would be better advice than to avoid “reply all.” If you only reply to one person when a lot of people need to see it, that’s a problem.

      1. Seeking Second Childhood*

        In case my experience helps OP3–

        For a while I worked 6-3 at an office with a typical 8-5. When people made comments about me “leaving early” I would say it’s the one benefit to starting at 6am.

        For task requests and emails, it worked best to block out my schedule in MSOutlook. I entered my commitments after 3 as OOO meetings and included travel times. And I put my working hours so auto-schedule would suggest 7am.

        (Someone in California sputtered to me after Outlook suggested 4am their time which let me remind him that I was assigned to a project based in Europe.)

      2. HSE Compliance*

        Agreed. Better to use the tool effectively and appropriately rather than blanket statements of “never use reply all”…. because yes, there are 100% situations where you *need* to reply all, and situations where you don’t put what you want to say in writing.

  22. Delta Delta*

    #5 – Ugh, I hate when things feel like a secret handshake. Three business days means three business days. Not three business days but it’s actually one more day because Suzanne doesn’t work on Friday and you would never know that but we’re going to make you feel dumb because you didn’t. I’m an attorney and my jurisdiction actually recently defined what a “day” is in terms of counting days for filings and deadlines because of dumb things like this.

    1. Rusty Shackelford*

      Right? The response didn’t say “Three of Suzanne’s working days.” It said three business days, and business days include Friday unless it happens to be a holiday. That’s just how it works.

      1. Czhorat*

        Yes, and a “business day” is a normal thing which everyone understands. A “Suzanne day” not so much.

        It would have been better if they simply apologized and said that the responsible party was out for the day. Or if Suzanne had been responsible and gotten it done on Thursday because she knew she’d be out on Friday.

        This may be lower stakes, but I promise that if you have an SLA with someone that includes a three business-day turnaround you’d not be able to use “but the responsible party takes Friday off” as an excuse.

    2. Colette*

      Yeah, at a previous employer, I fought against people saying “48 business hours”. What is a business hour? Is it when we are open worldwide? When you work? Is it 2 days or a week and a half?

      1. Nebula*

        “48 business hours” is one of the absolute worst phrasings of that I’ve ever heard, what on Earth does that mean.

        1. Sacred Ground*

          My guess is people complain when being told something will take 6 days so they decided 48 business hours (6×8 hours) sounds better.

            1. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

              So they really meant “48 clock hours” and didn’t know it? I think some people get stuck with pairings that they’re used to, to the point where they don’t really think about the individual words’ actual meanings.

              1. Former Admin Turned PM*

                Maybe 48 business hours means two days, but accounting for non work days? Like, 48 business hours from Thursday at noon would be Monday at noon (while 48 actual hours would be Saturday at noon).

  23. Czhorat*

    I suspect part of the issue with Sally is the manager trying to hard to be nice; if someone says they have a dentist appointment in the afternoon it feels kinder to say “just get what you can done in the morning” than “OK, put in a request for a half day of PTO”. At some point that becomes the way it *should* work in fairness to the rest of the team, especially if the reason the company is giving five weeks of paid time off to accommodate things like this.

    Would the manager say the same if they need to leave an hour early to pick up a kid at school once? What if it’s every day? Once a week? This kind of flexibility can feel very much like a “I know it when I see it” situation; there’s a line *somewhere* where it crosses from “flexible manager” to “giving away free hours”. Finding that line is part of the art of being a good manager – and a good employee.

    As Alison and other have said, there has to be a line.

  24. Rusty Shackelford*

    #4, I would just start adding this to the end of every email. “Please be sure to include Mike in your reply, since he needs to be part of the conversation, thanks!”

  25. ecnaseener*

    LW3, I’m curious what you meant by this sentence: “I feel like I’m expected to get the short end of the stick because I don’t have to commute in.” Are you getting this feeling in other contexts, from people other than Sally? That affects how I would be thinking about the situation in your shoes — it’s the difference between “One person is always asking me to stay late, but the higher-ups said I don’t have to, so it’s fine, just annoying” and “working remotely on this team has some significant downsides [not feeling valued, getting least-desirable assignments, whatever’s giving you this feeling], I should think seriously about whether the trade-offs are worth it or whether I might do better on a different team.”

    1. Cinnamon Stick*

      There are a lot of people who think that someone working from home is inherently more flexible in their scheduling than someone in an office. Because of that, they have different expectations of their coworkers. Personally, I look at my calendar and laugh at this assumption.

      One success strategy for WFH is setting office hours, keeping them, and setting clear guidelines regarding when you can make exceptions. Everyone, remote or not, should be able to be a little flexible, but this coworker isn’t being reasonable or respectful Frequent asks at the last minute speaks to me of either time management issues, organizational issues, or prioritization issues.

      1. I Have RBF*

        One success strategy for WFH is setting office hours, keeping them, and setting clear guidelines regarding when you can make exceptions.

        Yes, absolutely.

        Everyone, remote or not, should be able to be a little flexible, but this coworker isn’t being reasonable or respectful.

        This is the conclusion I come to as well.

        Frequent asks at the last minute speaks to me of either time management issues, organizational issues, or prioritization issues.

        Absolutely.

        Furthermore, it’s not on the LW to have to manage these issues for her coworker, and she should not be the constant victim of them either.

        Management needs to have a strong discussion with the CW.

        In order for that to happen, LW needs to lay out the problem to their management: CW asks (demands?) that she stay late frequently to handle matters that should have been done earlier in the day, and is not respecting “no”, and is becoming a nuisance about it.

  26. Bookworm*

    Letter 3 – a bit more detail would have clarified things. Does the LW’s coworker depends on the LW for parts of her workload, help with things, etc.? It sounds like the coworker is disorganized and is asking for help late in the day when she should be asking much earlier.

    1. TPS Reporter*

      yeah I think a conversation with the manager would help to come up with alternative solutions (rather than staying late) to the co-worker’s issues. For example, maybe if there were a regular weekly meeting between the two that would be helpful.

  27. Trout 'Waver*

    LW#1,

    In the past, I’ve told high-performing salaried employees that they can have some flexibility in their hours as long as they get their work done. I also tell them that not everyone gets that flexibility so don’t talk about it. They’re professionals and I trust them to manage their time and work.

    I can see how that might come off as a “secret message about unlimited PTO” to some. Maybe that’s what’s going on?

    1. Mad Scientist*

      Yeah, I could see this being the case. I have a similar understanding with my manager. Although I don’t think he would explicitly tell me not to talk about it because that does sound a bit shady. It’s just that a lot of this stuff is at the manager’s discretion.

      I do think some newer folks see my weird hours without realizing that it’s because I worked over the weekend or something, and they think that means that anything goes, unfortunately.

  28. Somehow I Manage*

    OP3 – I’m reading your letter generously and am making the assumption that you’re not so rigid with your time that you wouldn’t be willing to pitch in and stay late on days that you can, as situations warrant.

    With that in mind, I think the following: That you work remote and have class three days a week aren’t really even the most important part of this. They’re complicating factors to be sure, but they’re not the issue at hand.

    Your coworker overstepped in a major way by asking higher ups to adjust your schedule. That’s not something a peer does without checking in first. Also she’s overstepping by asking you to work late very late in the day. You’re paid for the hours you work, and being regularly asked to stay late just to accommodate someone else shows poor planning and prioritization on their part.

    I don’t think I’d confront her about this. I think if she asks again, and make it the first time she asks again, I’d flag this for your boss. Let them know that this is continuing to happen even after she was told that your hours are not going to be adjusted. Tell them that not only do you have class three days a week, you’re already working your scheduled hours and being asked to stay an extra two hours just to match her schedule is unreasonable. That doesn’t allow you opportunity to be done for the day when you’re supposed to be done for the day. If you’re hourly or non-exempt salaried, this could also be problematic for the company.

    1. bamcheeks*

      m making the assumption that you’re not so rigid with your time that you wouldn’t be willing to pitch in and stay late on days that you can, as situations warrant

      Just a note that there are plenty of jobs where this is not an expectation and it’s absolutely fine to have a hard stop at the end of the day: this is not rigid or a sign that someone isn’t “willing to pitch in”. You don’t have to be “generous”, you can just assume it’s not relevant to this letter.

      1. I Have RBF*

        Especially if the person is hourly, a peer requesting overtime would be a hard no. Most places want manager approval before overtime is worked, with manager approval sometimes able to be presumed in case of an actual emergency.

        IOTW, most likely the coworker is so far out of her lane she’s driving on the sidewalk.

  29. Czech Mate*

    LW 3 – I’m on the east coast of the US. My husband works remotely for a British company. Because they have employees on both sides of the Atlantic, the company has some ground rules in place to accommodate time zones, like:

    -Meetings are always in the mornings for US employees (afternoons UK employees),
    -US employees can’t send messages to UK employees past 12 pm EST, and UK employees can’t send messages to US employees before 1 pm GMT/BST.
    -There are trade offs for who has to work odd hours. Ex. if the British team has to take a client call at 9 pm their time, the American team will accommodate them next time and be willing to, say, take a client call at 6 am their time.

    Will you sometimes need to work a little later to help a colleague? Sure, that’s the nature of remote work. But your colleague can’t expect it all the time, and management should step in if it consistently becomes an issue–if necessary, they can even look at setting down some basic procedures for how and when that happens.

    1. ecnaseener*

      Oh, the “can’t send messages at certain times” rule would drive me batty. I don’t want to see work messages when I’m not working, so I don’t look at them. If I want a work app on my personal device, I mute notifications when I want them muted. That’s on me to manage, not my coworkers.

      1. Silver Robin*

        agreed; having to remember who is located where and then make a note to send them a message at the appropriate time…no, sorry. I will send the message with no expectation that I get a response until that person’s working hours and make a habit of checking their location if I feel like I am not getting responses as quickly as I need.

        And, honestly, I would prefer to show up to work with the emails already sent so I can triage instead of getting a flurry of messages in the first hour of work all asking for stuff that folks were waiting on since yesterday.

      2. HonorBox*

        Absolutely! Notifications can be muted or ignored. If something comes up outside of “messaging hours” it is more likely to be missed if someone has to wait to send it. Email whenever you want to email, and I’ll look at it when I log in.

  30. Dandylions*

    #3 Call this coworker the next morning and say. Hey you asked if I can work late again yesterday, what’s going on to cause these requests? Then just listen. Who knows. You may learn something about your role you didn’t know, or she may sputter about fairness. Worth a listen either way. With the info from the call you can then respond with, I won’t be able to work late most days but for anything due before 8am the next working day your time I can hop on it at 6am your time if needed. Or whatever you are willing to offer etc.

    1. HonorBox*

      I don’t know. It sounds like the LW is doing their job well and management supports them in working their assigned hours. I kind of feel like the “talk to the coworker” ship sailed when she went to management to request that LW’s hours be changed. I think the door was closed when management said it wasn’t necessary, so if it continues to happen, LW should just talk to their boss because whatever is happening on the other side of the equation isn’t theirs to figure out.

      1. Cj*

        she wouldn’t be changing her hours, though. hopping on it at 6:00 am. the coworkers time is 8:00 a.m. the OPs time. what she’s really saying is she’ll do it first thing in the morning.

        1. Cj*

          just realize you were commenting more on the talking to the co worker part, not the 6:00 a.m. part.

          I actually wouldn’t to talk to the coworker myself, because I think you’re right about that. I would just message them that you would start on it the next morning, what to be 6:00 a.m. their time so it’s possible they still might have it by the time they start at 8:00 their time.

          1. HonorBox*

            And I realize I misread what you were saying too. I was thinking OP would be jumping on early, but I see what you meant.

            I think the suggestion of messaging them is a good first place. If it continues to be an ongoing issue, though, I think management needs to shut it down and/or figure out exactly why the coworker continues to make this a habit.

  31. Salty Caramel*

    I’ve been in the time zone situation, though I asked the clients to give me 24 hours notice if it wasn’t an emergency (there was very little that could be classified as an emergency). It worked out really well.

    It’s something I would put on a PowerPoint slide at the kickoff call. My contact info and office hours and time zone. Setting expectations early helped me a lot.

    1. Salty Caramel*

      I just reread that this was a coworker and I talked about a client. Different strategy altogether.

      Please excuse me while I get more coffee.

  32. North Bay Teky*

    I’m with you Mist. I didn’t see how working remote has anything to do with being in different time zones. We have seen other letters from people with little to no time overlap and this coworker has, by my calculations, 6 hours of overlap. If they can’t get their collaboration started earlier in the day, it’s not on LW to fix it for them. My last job had requirements to work with vendors that were not in our time zone. We kept that in mind when we needed support, or whatever.

    LW’s manager needs to talk to the other person’s manager to shut this down.

    1. Pizza Rat*

      The coworker may be assuming that because LW is remote that they can be more flexible with their time, which is wrong. Remote people should have their office hours respected just like anyone working onsite.

      1. I Have RBF*

        Bingo.

        It wouldn’t matter if they worked at home or in an office. The two people live and work in different time zones, and the coworker is not respecting that.

        I work remotely. My approach to out of hours requests is the same as if I was in an office. My job often has on-call duties, and out of hours stuff is done from home regardless of whether I’m in an office for my regular hours or not.

        If the coworker is assuming that “remote” means “available to work 24×7 on demand from everybody”, they need to have their expectations adjusted firmly.

    2. HonorBox*

      You’re right. This is a manager to manager thing, because there’s something amiss with how the coworker is operating and their manager needs to step in to find out what’s occurring and to let the coworker know that it isn’t their place to request that a coworker adjust their hours as regularly as it is happening.

  33. Just Thinkin' Here*

    #3: Coworker in a different time zone is annoyed I won’t stay late

    OP3, it’s not for your coworker to decide your schedule, it’s for your manager. If your manager has approved your schedule, then you stick to it and inform them these are your hours. If you haven’t had this discussion formally, then do so, this way you can respond accordingly.

  34. Space Needlepoint*

    The case manager should have specified when she was going to back with the decision since she was out of the office on Fridays.

    “I’ll have it to you by Monday COB,” would have caused much less grief.

    Regarding the f/u. If the decision was urgent or if I was talking to someone I managed, I might follow up on the third day saying something like, “Quick check-in. You said three business days, will you still be able to get back to me by COB?”

  35. Observer*

    #3 – I haven’t seen all of the responses yet, so this may have already been raised.

    What are your relative demographics? I’m wondering because this seems to be a bit of an attempt to, I don’t know exactly what but something like “put you in our place”, “cut you down to size” or assert some dominance of some sort.

    The other possibility is that she’s got her own issues that don’t have anything to do with you – you could be a lump of clay – and she’s just a difficult person. Do you know anything else about her and how well she works with others?

    It’s just so odd to me that she keeps doing this, and that she even tried to go over your head to force you do change her schedule. That tells me that this is not about being scatter brained, or anything like that.

  36. Jason*

    LW here for the letter about 3 business days.

    I did receive a call on Monday. I mentioned/questioned about the lack of response from her WITHIN 3 business days. She hem-hawed a lot about it but never answered my question.

    I received a follow up survey email, was your problem resolved, knowledge of the customer representative, etc… and a place for comments. Which I commented on the lack of response within 3 business days. I actually received a response from a real person (I think) and was told that it they weren’t aware of this happening, yes I should have received a response by Friday end of business day, and it was an opportunity for training and improvement in their customer service to prevent it from happening again.

    1. Little Mouse*

      I don’t understand why some people are upset about you calling and checking on Friday afternoon. To me, it makes sense that if the business is going to be closed on the weekend that you would want to check before 5pm, if for no other reason than you can adjust what you need to do on your end before you go home.

  37. Frosty*

    For LW#5 – I worked in an industry where business days didn’t start until the next full day, and would include the full day of the final. We’d use the phrase “full business days” to try to communicate that.

    For example, if you called Wednesday morning about an issue and it took 3 full business days, you would hear back by Tuesday (Thursday, Friday and Monday being the business days). It sounds crazy if you’re not used to that but when I’d talk to people I’d try to let them know that it’s actually later than they expect.

    1. Jason*

      LW here-
      You are missing the point of WITHIN 3 business days.

      Switch your Wednesday morning for Tuesday afternoon (as with my experience) when the issue was acknowledged by the case manger. WITHIN 3 business days would be Friday by end of business, not Monday.

      1. Slaw*

        You’re kind of picking nits here. This interpretation of business days is not terribly uncommon. If I did it on a Tuesday, I would find it entirely reasonable that I’m hearing back by Friday or Monday, as each place handles “business days” differently. You’re being an unnecessarily squeaky wheel.

        1. Isben Takes Tea*

          I think that’s a bit harsh. “Within three business days” to me also definitely means by the end of the third full business day after I make contact; I would also expect a response by end of day Friday if somebody specifically said “WITHIN 3 business days” on a Tuesday afternoon, and would be a bit miffed if they meant Monday, because the response is now on the fourth business day.

          If I got a response as Frosty said about “full business days”, I’d still expect something by end of day Friday (the third full business day) if they used WITHIN, but could understand the interpretation of hearing back Monday morning if they did not use within.

      2. Have a Snickers*

        While I understand the distinction of “within” meaning response by EOD Friday, you seem very determined that there was an egregious misstep on the case manager’s part. Would you have been as irritated if the receptionist had said “Oh, she’s out today” but you hadn’t gotten an explanation that it was a planned day off? I suspect you would have given the case manager some grace for the fact that the 3-days-or-less task had to spill into Monday as that 3rd day. Yes, “within 3 business days” meant you were reasonable to expect an answer by EOD Friday, but you got the information in a reasonable time based on the case manager not being in the office and seem very invested in finding offense.

  38. H.Regalis*

    My knee-jerk reaction to “secret messages” was also wondering about mental illness, but I think that’s because I have relatives who have paranoid delusions and use similar phrasing. I really, really hope it is not that with OP’s employee, because that is a fucking nightmare to deal with.

  39. Having a Scrummy Week*

    I actually think it’s gross and weird that most people DO NOT brush and floss after lunch in the work bathroom – thank god I WFH now. Floss away!

    2. amoeba*

      No need to call other people gross here – my dental hygiene is fine, thanks a lot, and so is that of my colleagues, nobody has stinky breath or whatever. We all also don’t floss/brush after lunch (although I’d never judge somebody who does!)

      It would get quite crowded in our bathrooms as well if all dozens of women in the building tried to brush our teeth in front of the total four sinks we share at 12.30 after lunch break…

  40. What_the_What*

    I think if I were LW 3, I’d start scheduling meetings for like 8am my time so the time zone clueless colleague would have to be up and logged on at like 6am. I’m sure they’d complain “but that’s outside of standard work hours! I can’t be expected to do that!” And there you go. You’ve clearly illustrated the point that work hours are work hours for a reason, and except in an urgent “this tasker needs to be out the door TODAY type of thing, they should be adhered to. I would bet that after a few times of you asking HER to get up early, she’ll stop asking YOU to stay later.

  41. NobodyHasTimeForThis*

    This was in person, not remote, at a company that allowed you to flex a few hours around core hours. In theory we were a 40 hr job, in reality nobody worked only 40

    I worked 7 am to typically 6pm would race out to get to another commitment at 7 pm
    My boss worked typically 10 am to 7 pm, sometimes later.

    One night he brought a set of lab tests and told me it was urgent that it get done before I leave that night as he needed to review it that night.

    I called my evening gig to cancel, stayed in the lab running the experiment and emerged at 8:00 to find him gone for the night. I left the data on his desk and came in the next morning at my normal 7 am. He came in at his normal 10 am.

    I asked why he had me stay late to run it if he wasn’t going to review it until 10 am. “I just wanted to make sure it was done before I got here”. Which it would have if I had run it at 7 am

    He was shocked when I quit

  42. Former Young Lady*

    As a Mountain Time zone-dweller, I find it wild that someone in this part of the country would expect someone in Eastern Time to accommodate us — unless, as others have noted, the central operations/majority of staff are also in MT. Even then, though, it’s just bad form to spring a surprise request for help on someone who you know is on their way out the door.

    The request to change a peer’s working hours is even wilder. Since leadership told this person “no” and she went back to the old pattern, I’m guessing this is someone who has problems with boundaries/mistaking our region for the center of the universe (not unheard-of out here, I admit).

  43. Gateworlder*

    #3: Remote Workers in 2 parts of the U.S.: Ask your co-worker to get up 2 hours earlier when she has something urgent to work on with you.

  44. Daisy-dog*

    LW3 – I don’t think I saw it suggested – can you just put something on your calendar to black out that period starting at 5 on those days? That would prevent her from even requesting meetings for that period. You’d still be able to take a 5 minute buffer to finish out the day, but it’d be especially clear that it is not available.

    Obviously, she has been rude thus far and may try to circumvent it. But at least you’ve set your boundary in multiple ways.

  45. Grumpus*

    #4 was the bane of my existence when I was planning my wedding. I would cc my husband into emails with venues/suppliers, and they would inevitably just reply to me, excluding hubs from the chain. I think it is connected to declining competency with email.

  46. Head Sheep Counter*

    LW1: If the phrase she has used is “secret messages” and hasn’t been changed due to being second hand information then I see where your concern is. There are no “secret messages” for the average person at work. I think it important to get the bigger picture. Is this person “quirky”? Its possible that they are mis-using humor or they are simply stating something in a off manor but are otherwise fine. This is a great coaching opportunity on many levels. But its also an opportunity to document something that is outside the norm. And if it were a trend or indicative of something larger, it would perhaps be a kindness to find out how your company handles health issues.

  47. Head Sheep Counter*

    LW3: What are the core hours of your company? What is your agreement with your boss? If you are in compliance then your colleague is way out of bounds (and is also rude going around you).

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