Our late meetings buy me daytime flexibility. How do I ask for fewer of them?
Career / WorkWhen our regional team started a 7:30 p.m. call, I said yes. It was once a week, and my manager let me step away for school pickup without making it awkward.
Six months later, we have late calls on three evenings. Some involve a supplier who can only join at that time. Others are internal updates that used to happen in a shared document. I finish dinner, open the laptop and discover I’m still needed because somebody wants to discuss tomorrow’s agenda.
I like this job. The daytime flexibility matters to me, and I don’t want my colleagues in other time zones to absorb every inconvenient hour. But the arrangement has become harder to plan around. My partner now treats any evening as potentially unavailable, which wasn’t the bargain I thought I was making.
My manager says we can “work it out informally.” I’d prefer something more predictable, but I worry that asking for a firm limit will prompt a firm limit on school pickup too.
How would you raise this without sounding as though you want flexibility only when it suits you? Would you propose a maximum number of late calls, a rotating schedule, or something else?