In principle, I agree, but I should point out that "No meetings outside regular daylight hours" and "My employer shouldn't care where in the world I do my job" are not compatible with each other.

In the course of a week, I collaborate literally with people in the UK, California, China, and Saudia Arabia. People are occasionally have to take meetings outside daylight hours. Best we can do is to (a) minimize the number of meetings overall (a lot more things can be done asynchronously that is often acknowledged) and (b) spread the pain fairly so nobody has to always take meetings at awkward hours.

Absolutely agree. Also, if you expect people to be switched on at 9pm, be flexible about them not responding first thing the next morning.

I interviewed with a company who is on the west coast. I'm in Ireland. We overlap for a few hours during their morning. Every interview was scheduled during their afternoon. I always asked to move it to an earlier spot. Seems like this conscious awareness of other people isn't automatic.

My view: if you're a global company, you need to instill in your employees a respect for time zones. You need your employees to be aware of where their colleagues are and what their "normal" working hours are. You to be intentional about this and actually say it. At a previous company the CEO actually took a minute during an all-hands to say "Look everyone, we're a global company now and we're hiring like crazy in Europe. Be respectful of timezones. If you need to talk to a colleague in Europe, do it during your morning". That was enough to ensure that most of my meetings happened before 5pm local time, and when they didn't, you'd have at least one person during the meeting say things like "let's cover X first so @raffraffraff can get off the call early" or "guys, we're going off-topic and we've got colleagues from Europe on the call". It normalised consideration.

> spread the pain fairly so nobody has to always take meetings at awkward hours.

That was my biggest issue; obviously a late meeting or two occasionally is fine. It's a distributed team, that's a necessary evil. It just bothered me that, after COVID, they made zero attempt at even trying accommodate the satellite offices.

> In principle, I agree, but I should point out that "No meetings outside regular daylight hours" and "My employer shouldn't care where in the world I do my job" are not compatible with each other.

Not if you're all in North America. I've worked for two large, distributed companies in the last several years, where I reside in Eastern time zone. There's enough overlap between me and teammates in the Pacific time zone that evening meetings are never necessary.

Yeah, I don't get that one. You need to be in some really extreme timezones to not have any overlap. I worked with both UK and US from Australia (not Apple) and it was possible. Occasionally I'd do a meeting at night and start later the next day, but it was always my choice.

I used to work with people from PST (-8), CET (+1) and KST (+9). The meeting planner [0] shows no "acceptable" overlap, but we made it work by doing meetings very rarely, planning them far in advance and essentially taking turns which timezone gets the late (22-23) or early (6-7) slots. This was despite the fact that there was a clear hierarchy - sometimes the boss got up at 4 or stayed up until 23 so we wouldn't have to.

[0] https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/meetingtime.html?iso=...

As I said, our team is literally spread evenly around the globe (though not nearly in equal numbers). Every hour of the day is bound to be awkward for someone.

In those cases we split the meeting and someone sent in the notes async. At the level where all those people absolutely must be present... I would hope they're paid enough and have enough agency in their roles to figure out the solution.

India is 10.5 hours from both coasts of the US (for most of the year).

If two employees work at the same local times, they have to work an 11 hour day to have 30 minutes of overlap.

Try UTC+12/13 and having to regularly coordinate with Europe :)

Working with the US and Asia is fine though, always have a couple of hours of overlap.

> This is why there is a decline button next to the accept button.

Depends on your MacOS version.

In Mojave there’s actually no meaningful way to interact with an invite through a notification. There’s a dropdown but it’s not reachable. It only appears if you mouse over where the “x” button should be, which causes the button and dropdown to appear. If you move the mouse off this button both the button and the dropdown vanish.

Also, I’m afraid to click that “x” because I’m still not sure if it dismisses the notification or declines the invite.

And I still can’t figure out how to decline from the calendar with a message. I have to go to my deleted items in Mail and reply to the invite there.

I do freely decline status update meetings at unreasonable hours, and most people reading this are probably in a position where they should too. The problem is with things like design reviews and planning meetings, where declining just means people are going to make decisions without you.

I didn't feel like that was really an option. It became recurring meetings three times a week, and I got the vibe of "if you don't go, it's gonna look bad".

It may or may not have been an option. If you never try it definitely wasn't an option.

I have never worked at a FAANG myself, so this might not be something that works in those places. But what I do is to simply put "Out of Office" on my calendar outside of my core working hours. I don't even have to decline. I can honestly say that it was automated and I never even saw their invite. If someone complained about it I would tell them that I can definitely make exceptions, just need to check w/ the SO as she might have a meeting she can't move and we have the kids to take care of. I also don't react well to invites over night. I have my calendar in my head well enough to know when to wake up/be home etc. for the first meeting. So something you put on my calendar "in between" will in most if not all cases not even be seen. I do not have notifications enabled on my cell. This has so far worked without fail and only a few people have ever asked me for a specific slot and moving something. Basically the OoO reply get them to rethink and at the very least they know they gotta talk to me first and can't just plug something on my calendar and I will show up.

That said, any regular meeting someone puts on my calendar in a free slot with enough notice I will simply accept, be there and do my best to contribute. Meetings someone puts in 5 minutes before (or worse, yes this has happened during the meeting) and then ping me "are you coming" will result in a very stubborn me. Yes I would quit over someone throwing a fit for my stubbornness. No it has never been necessary. They all backpaddled.

That no office communication on personal phone has worked wonders for me as well. And my personal numbers is for emergencies only.

Not turning up last minute meetings have also worked well. I mean I was shocked but people actually need to be told you’re not available at one ping and then they mend their ways. Start saying yes, it gets worse.

Back in the 90s, my father had a method of pre-vacation scheduling. He announced to all his colleagues that X day before he left was the last day he was accepting new work to finish before leaving.

Inevitably, someone would come by the day before he left, and ask him if he could do one more critical thing.

He reminded them what he said, explained he was finishing work others had asked of him, and didn't have the time for their work before he left, but he'd be happy to look at it when he got back.

Next vacation announcement, that person made their requests earlier.

Scheduling has its own cultural mores and Overton window, and there's no "right." If you're unhappy with its current coverage: push it in the direction you want. People will adjust.

You can say "No" nicely and without being an asshole.

Yep, just set boundaries. If your boundaries become a problem for someone higher up, they will raise it with you. Don't ask, just do.

Too many people assume they need to take meetings whenever and they'll put up with it quietly for years, never feeling confident enough to just assert themselves or set working hours in Google Calendar.

I completely agree with and get what you’re saying. It does feel like that. And if you think you won’t be getting another job you’d feel that way strongly.

But it takes just once. At the new starup I am working I simply pressed “Decline” for “all events” that were out of my timezone except the ones that happen 3-4 times a month total.

Blocked my calendar after 6pm with an automated message clearly mentioning that it was night for me and ask the person to reach out about it and that if it’s a recurring meeting I simply won’t be able to attend.

It’s been 6 months since and it has worked fine. Some other people started doing it in my country after that. Also US colleagues now ask us, earlier they assumed we will just be there.

And yes, I was ready to resign if someone even someone above me in hierarchy even so much as questioned the autonomy of my personal time that’s other than those 8 hours on weekday.

It’s not like I have too much financial cushion, I don’t. But I realised it’s not worth it and when you start saying yes to it, it keeps increasing, keeps piling up. Never stops, never comes down. Saying no sooner is better than saying no late.

Just like dictators and autocrats such companies feed on our fears. The moment we lose them they either run into the ground or they fall in line.

> Blocked my calendar after 6pm with an automated message clearly mentioning that it was night for me and ask the person to reach out about it and that if it’s a recurring meeting I simply won’t be able to attend.

> It’s been 6 months since and it has worked fine. Some other people started doing it in my country after that. Also US colleagues now ask us, earlier they assumed we will just be there.

I work remotely, and did something similar while I was in Europe for a month. Worked a mostly overlapping schedule (so I could take advantage of the morning / early afternoons), and then blocked off the late evening on my calendar. Never really was a problem, and helped ensure everyone was on the same page.

What does “look bad” mean exactly?

Never promoted? Fired?

It just means “fear and inertia”, mostly unfounded and even if not simply not worth it. It’s just that.

Suffered from it long. Then one day I did the opposite and never looked back.

Mostly the former, it's pretty hard to get fired at Apple. Still, if the managers don't like me they won't give me fun work, since my team was big on "you don't get to do satisfying work until you prove yourself with unsatisfying stuff".

Ugh, that sucks :(

This is unhelpful. Nobody gets total control of their time in employment, and some people get a lot less control than others.

Set boundaries.

Decide if someone violating them is worth quitting over. It's a competitive market, and frankly - Many of the FAANG companies are terrible to work for.

No one is saying you have total control of your schedule - but if I'm consistently asked to take a meeting at 9pm my time... I'll have a meeting with my manager, and it will consist of the following: "I will quit if they keep asking me to meet when I'd like to be reading bedtime stories to my kid".

So far - I have not had to quit, and I don't take 9pm meetings. I find your meek & bleak acquiescence unhelpful.

> Many of the FAANG companies are terrible to work for.

How’s F and G and N (Netflix right?)?

Friend works at G India. Sings paeans . He moved there after 6 months at Uber (where I resigned in a week).

I have always heard shitty things about AA though so I guess that kinda settles it.

All the FAANG companies have bad aspects to them. Some are more likely to have them than others. But those are averages, and I find that the biggest contributor to your workplace culture will be which specific team you’re on and not the company you’re at. (I know plenty of people at Apple and Amazon who are perfectly happy with their situation, and some at the others who aren’t. But I think the work/life balance on average tends to be worse there, yes.)

Netflix for some unknown reason. That's why I like GMAFIA.

What is the I?

I like MAGMA which requires using Meta but not Alphabet.