Do you remember the days before the pandemic and during the pandemic? If you worked in an office, the days before the pandemic probably meant commuting to work everyday, but during the pandemic offices were shut down and everyone started working from home.

That was a big shift, and going from working in an office to working from home can really have a big impact on office culture and expectations.

In this story, an accountant recalls the days working before the pandemic. She worked long hours as a new hire to prove herself and get up to speed. But it was also expected.

Now, she’s pretty annoyed that employees who were hired more recently, when everyone is working from home, are not expected to work overtime.

Keep reading for all the details.

AITA [25F] for not wanting to work unpaid overtime because it doesn’t feel like hard work is rewarded? Promotions from within are rare and the department prefers to hire senior positions externally.

I worked in Big 4 accounting for a year and switched to my current corporate job in October 2019.

I’m the lowest on the totem pole as an Accountant I, but I’m also significantly younger than everyone.

My team has nice people, but before the pandemic the culture was to consistently work 11-13 hour days and go home for dinner at 8-9pm. Leaving before 6pm, even on a Friday, was frowned upon.

I did a lot of unpaid OT before the pandemic because I wanted to get up to speed, and it was also the culture. My then-boss was in the office at 7am and left at 10pm everyday. I was always there to help.

But the pandemic changed things.

Since we switched to remote work, the team’s hired two new people – one is a Senior Accountant (age 28M) and another is an Accountant II (age 26M).

Granted, they’re both older and have more work experience than me, but I had Big 4 experience and they hadn’t even worked in public accounting (they came from 10-100 person firms).

Both of them log on at 9am and log off at 4:30-5pm everyday. They don’t answer emails after 4:30.

Meanwhile, I’m getting calls from my manager at 8pm or getting invites for 7am meetings then being told to “manage expectations” if I don’t answer or reschedule.

I’m proud of the new hires for not adapting to this crazy workaholic culture, but it’s not fair to everyone else.

It seems like the higher-ups are finding it difficult to train the new hires, so they’re either doing the work themselves or delegating it to someone who started working pre-pandemic.

I know I’m the one who set the precedent for working 8am-7pm everyday, but it doesn’t make sense as to why I’m being contacted when there’s an emergency (aka my boss needs help) and not the other two new hires.

My manager seemed frantic the other day and even said that I used to be proactive about lending a hand when needed but is disappointed that I don’t do it as much anymore. She also said that Flexibility is encouraged because we’re at home. She even told me that one of new hires “has 3 dogs that need to be walked, so he’s not available after 5pm”.

Meanwhile, I was working 11-13 hour days pre-pandemic and not getting compensated accordingly (not even a bonus or free food).

That definitely doesn’t sound fair, but it also seems that OP wanted to work the extra overtime. It wasn’t required. She actually said “I wanted to get up to speed.”

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who works fast and helps her coworkers, but is met with disapproval from her supervisor because of this practice

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This is an interesting suggestion.

Another person points out what management did wrong.

This person has a question.

Another person offers some perspective about overtime.

She’s still fairly young and new to her job. Hopefully she takes this as a learning opportunity. Instead of feeling resentful that she put in so much overtime when the new hires don’t have to, she should realize that it’s not actually that important to overdo it at work. She didn’t really have to work such long days, and she should stop working overtime now. If she’s not getting paid for it, it shouldn’t be expected.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a team that agreed to work overtime, but then not everyone showed up, leaving the rest holding the bag.