Manage Your Time And Your Expectations

I used to work at an office, and we had other offices in a lot of states. I worked with someone from one of the out-of-state offices. My office hours were Monday to Friday, 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. Our department had set hours, and the company policy stated that we didn’t have access to company emails after hours and we were not permitted to work from home. We also advised whoever we were working with from the out-of-state offices of our set office hours. 

I came in one morning and my manager was on the phone. She looked unhappy. I heard her say the name of the colleague I worked with in the other office and tell her that she would find out what had happened. 

As I sat down at my desk to clock in, my manager approached me.

Manager: “I need to talk to you. I just got off the phone with [Colleague]. She said she emailed you some important documents that she needed done by 8:00 am, and you didn’t respond. [Colleague] has also emailed the higher-ups to complain about this. She’s mad as h*** because she had to do the documents herself.”

I was confused as I hadn’t received any emails from her before I left the day before, so after I clocked in, I checked my emails.

Me: “[Colleague] did send me an email yesterday at 7:30 pm. I left at 5:00 pm.”

I showed it to my manager.

Manager: “Well, that explains it all. I will call [Colleague] back and let her know that you left at 5:00 pm and she sent the email at 7:30 pm.”

My manager had a talk with [Colleague] and let her know that I always left at 5:00 pm, and if she sent any emails to me after 5:00 pm, I would not see them until the next morning when I came in. [Colleague] had assumed that I would be available to her at any given time. Where she got that from, nobody knows, as she had been with the company for several years, and she knew our policies; they had already been explained to her in the past. (She was the exception to the rule about working from home.) We were all in the same time zone, as well. My manager also emailed the higher-ups to explain what happened. 

Just a little fact: my emails included my office hours next to my signature. 

I did not get in trouble, but [Colleague] did from the higher-ups for sending out an email that late expecting it to be done so urgently when I wouldn’t get the email until the next day and she had already been advised of company policies regarding our department.

After that, [Colleague] only sent emails during office hours.