Imagine having a job with set hours, but your coworker keeps scheduling mandatory meetings after your work day was supposed to end. Would you be happy to get some overtime for attending these meetings, or would you be really annoyed to have to work late with almost no advance notice?

In this story, one person is in that exact situation, and they would rather stop working than get overtime pay. One day, they refuse to attend the meeting, and the boss gets involved.

Let’s see how the story plays out.

Entitled coworker tries to schedule meetings outside of contract time and criticizes my non-work plans

I have a coworker who is really disorganized and waits until the last minute to schedule things and so that frequently means calling a meeting at 4:00 on a Friday.

For reference, my 8 hour workday ends at 3:00, so these meetings make for 10 hour + days, and because the coworker is so disorganized and unprepared, we frequently have to cover things that they should have done ahead of time, like creating an agenda or desired outcome, at the actual meeting.

Because these are required meetings (usually only once or twice a month), I have to go to them no matter when they’re scheduled, and get extended pay for working overtime, but my co-worker is supposed to give at least a week’s notice, and I’d definitely rather have the free time than the money.

Typically if I don’t hear by Thursday afternoon that they have scheduled the meeting for 4:00 on a Friday, I make other weekend plans, like hiking or bicycling or going out somewhere.

A recent meeting was really scheduled with almost no notice.

Yesterday (Friday) the co-worker attempted to schedule the meeting at 4:45, but didn’t put it on my calendar until 3:05.

I should have been off by then but I had an end of day meeting that went over by a few minutes so I was doing a last check of email and then shutting things down for the weekend.

I saw the meeting request and responded that that wasn’t enough notice for a meeting that far outside the workday, and that I normally would not have even seen the notice until the following Monday, and cc’ed my boss just do they knew I wasn’t trying to shirk any duties.

The boss wants the meeting to happen right away, not at 4:45.

Of course co-worker is upset because they’re required to hold the meeting by law and it’s the absolute last day to do it without filing an extension (which they’ve been told by my boss they’re not allowed to do unless there’s extenuating circumstances) and they’ve known about it for 2 months, they just didn’t plan for it.

My boss calls at 3:10 saying can you please do this now and end at 4:10 and we will address it on Monday, fine. I was planning on leaving town but I can leave a little bit later.

Coworker responds to my boss by email and says they’re using personal time between 3:10 and 4:45 so they can’t hold the meeting until then, and that nothing I’m doing could possibly be important enough that I can’t attend the meeting at 4:45.

The boss isn’t willing to wait.

Boss calls coworker, coworker confessed that their child’s birthday party is at 6 that evening and that they have to go try to find a cake and party supplies for the party before the meeting, which is why they can’t be available.

Boss gets annoyed and says that we (boss and I) will do the meeting now and coworker will have to answer for it on Monday.

Boss and I hold meeting, it takes 20 minutes, I’m out of there by 3:45.

This coworker sounds very disorganized.

Coworker sends me a nastygram by text at 10:15 pm saying it’s my fault they’re in trouble and that they have a child so I should understand that people with children come first, and that my activities/hobbies are pathetic and it wouldn’t have been that hard for me to just attend the meeting they scheduled and that they’ll have to go back and fix everything my boss and I did incorrectly because they like to do it a specific way (my boss had already submitted it).

I responded that I hope they enjoyed their child’s birthday party and to have a good weekend.

They respond that they forgot to invite people so no one came, and thanks for rubbing that in their face.

I feel bad for the child. This parent must be really overwhelmed to forget to invite people to the party they’re preparing for at the last minute and to forget to hold a mandatory meeting until actually after the last minute.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

I think it’s more sad than funny.

I feel really bad for the kid too.

This would be a good idea for the boss.

Fingers crossed she gets fired.

Employees should not have to change their lives for one coworker’s disorganization.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.