Time is the one thing you can’t get back from a job that cancels on you mid-drive, and this worker found that out on a Sunday morning he’d already given up for someone else’s convenience.

His boss had asked him to start earlier than usual so he could make it to a family lunch, which the worker reluctantly agreed to.

He set an alarm for 5:30 AM, drove halfway to the site, and got a call saying the wood he would be working with was too wet and the day was off.

So he drove back home having accomplished nothing except losing his morning.

Now he’s wondering if some form of compensation for his time and fuel is a reasonable thing to ask for.

Keep reading for Reddit’s consensus.

WIBTAH for asking my boss to pay me despite not working?

On Sundays I usually work a half-day from 9 AM to 1 PM.

For today, my boss wanted to move the workday earlier so that he could have an early lunch with his family.

I reluctantly agreed.

The new hours were 7 AM to 11 AM.

He further explains what the job entails.

For context, we are working with wood that is left outside overnight and it rained briefly early this morning.

The wood can be damp, but not soaked, for what we have to do, and I thought it would have dried enough by this morning to work.

So when he arrived at the agreed-upon time, things didn’t go as planned?

So I woke up at 5:30 AM, got ready, and was half an hour into the roughly 40-minute drive to the site when he called me and told me it was too wet.

This meant we would not be working today.

Would it be fair to receive even partial compensation for waking up super early on a Sunday morning and driving an hour round trip, despite not actually having worked at all?

This is a tough one.

What did Reddit think?

Paying up isn’t just the decent thing to do. In some places, it’s the law.

Maybe the better choice would have been letting his boss know about the situation sooner.

Surely he and his boss can come to some kind of agreement.

The employee can always ask, but this user isn’t so sure it’s going to pay off.

There’s a reasonable argument that weather is nobody’s fault and canceled work is just part of outdoor jobs.

There’s also a reasonable argument that when you move a shift earlier specifically to accommodate a personal request and then get called back mid-drive, the person whose convenience started all of this owes you something for your time.

Both of those arguments can be true.

Ultimately the decision comes down to the worker’s comfort level with approaching his boss about something like this.

He can always ask, but it doesn’t mean he’ll like the answer.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who wasn’t keen on contributing more to a coworker’s gift than originally planned.