When a manager refuses to respect your time, sometimes the best move is to give them a taste of their own medicine.

So, what would you do if your boss expected you to be available at all hours, even when you’re already stretched thin?

Would you just go along with it?

Or would you find a way to make them rethink their approach?

In the following story, one IT employee finds himself in this very predicament.

Here’s what he did.

Schedule a meeting at 12 AM?

I’ve been working as a lead in an IT firm from India that supports a US client.

I have a manager here in India who approves my PTO, handles performance reviews, and meets with us a few times a month.

He and the management believe that the work we do is for the client, but we should also contribute to the organization.

So, we’re encouraged to take on additional tasks like recruiting or preparing business reviews.

Essentially, we need to be available during the day.

I also have another manager in the USA, who is Indian as well.

He coordinates with the customer and handles any escalations related to our work.

His main concern is ensuring there are zero escalations from the client.

Generally, they have set hours for work.

The clients assign us projects, and we interact with them directly.

We have meetings every day, usually lasting at least two hours.

Since we’re paid a monthly salary, there’s no extra money for additional hours worked.

Both managers take advantage of this.

There are no strict working hours, but we must be available from 7 PM to 10 PM IST, which corresponds to 9 AM to 12 PM US time.

Typically, we start working at 10 AM, continue until 5 PM, and then resume from 7 PM to 10 PM.

Sometimes, meetings with clients extend an extra 30 minutes to an hour. Our US manager connects with us after the meetings with client.

The manager was a bit unreasonable on this day.

One day, I had a lot of work to finish and decided to work from home instead of commuting.

I had a 3-hour client meeting followed by a knowledge transition session, so I was fully occupied.

The on-site manager asked me to schedule a meeting with him.

I told him my day was packed until midnight.

He refused and said he needed 30 minutes of my time.

I asked if he could join a little earlier before my meetings, but he said no.

Then I asked if 12 AM was fine for him.

He said yes and scheduled the meeting at 12 AM.

All this happened over Teams Chat.

I decided to take his own words against him, so I scheduled the meeting for 12 AM his time, which was 10 AM the next day for me, thinking, “If you expect me to be available at midnight, why not you?”

That was the last time he expected me to be available at midnight.

Yikes! That’s late for a meeting.

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit relate to this situation.

There sure are!

This person changes their schedule so other people don’t have to.

Here’s someone with a good sense of humor.

This woman’s husband prefers late meetings.

That’s one way to show him.

And shame on the manager for not considering someone else’s time and needs – that’s just rude.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.