I wish I had the guts back when I was working in corporate America to handle my boss contacting me outside of office hours the way this woman does.
Her boss particularly loves to send her emails at ridiculous times, such as 11 p.m. on a Tuesday evening or 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning.
Anything her boss has to say to her is never dire; it’s always something that could absolutely wait until she’s back in the office from 9 to 5.
She has attempted to subtly let her boss know that she’s not looking at her inbox after she clocks out for the day or the week, but he did not pick up what she was putting down.
“So, I decided to have a little fun and set up an auto-reply on my email and Slack that says: “404 Error: Employee Not Found. Please try again during business hours. If this is an emergency, please reconsider your definition of ‘emergency,’” she explained.
Last Friday at 10:30 in the evening, her boss sent her an email, and he was met with her auto-response.
The morning after, she got up and saw he had sent her an irritated email, calling her cheeky reply “unprofessional” while insisting she should show more dedication to her work.
She wrote back in the politest way possible, informing her boss that balancing her job with her life is extremely important to her, but if he does have a pressing matter, he’s welcome to call her.
“Spoiler: he’s never actually called because—shocker—it’s never really urgent,” she continued. “Some of my coworkers thought it was hilarious, but a couple said I might’ve gone too far and made things awkward with the boss.”
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“So, [am I the jerk] for setting up the auto-reply instead of just ignoring his messages? Or is my boss the one who needs to chill?”
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