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Forum -> Working Women

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amother

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 7:25 am

With the kids home, I will many times work late at night to catch up on my hours. It is not professional to send or reply to emails outside of business hours, especially late at night (like 11 pm?) or is it that in todays times, anything goes, and it will make me look good that I take the work seriously and willing to put in the effort even though it is late.
What do you think?

rachel6543

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 7:27 am

Well, these days I’m often working until 11pm to 1am to get my hrs in & work done. Nothing unprofessional about it in my opinion.

Rubber Ducky

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 7:35 am

I send emails to clients late at night. Why not?

amother

Bisque

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 7:39 am

My friend works at Intel and there it is seen as a virtue to keep all hours.

I could imagine possibly that there are some professions where it would be seen as non-ideal to send a late night email.

thunderstorm

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 7:41 am

I have two jobs. One of them I work in the evenings and on Sundays when all the clients and vendors are closed. I email then. It’s still professional.

singleagain

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 7:41 am

As long as it's not the type of email that demands an immediate response
Most email programs will let you schedule emails if you prefer though.

amother

Cerise

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 7:50 am

I tend to prefer that people don't see me working at midnight. I will delay send to the morning.

challahchallah

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 7:51 am

In general, totally fine. That’s the beauty of asynchronous communication methods like email.

The one exception I think, though, is if you’re emailing your direct reports. That can sometimes put unintentional pressure on people to respond at that late hour because your their boss. In that case, I’d either schedule the emails or tell them explicitly that you send emails late because that’s what works with your family schedule in lockdown, but you definitely don’t expect them to be answering at that hour.

zaq

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 8:41 am

Nothing unprofessional about it.

WhatFor

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 8:46 am

I'd never think of it as unprofessional - in some work environments it's considered admirable. I usually try not to though, because I don't want to set the expectation that I'm on-call at all hours (my job doesn't require me to be).

stillnewlywed

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 9:20 am

During Covid it's definitely fine

yonabets

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 9:25 am

My husband is a lawyer and he gets email at every hours of the day ,and , night....

chanatron1000

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 9:43 am

Some have suggested making it illegal, but it's not seen as unprofessional.

SixOfWands

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 9:49 am

chanatron1000 wrote:

Some have suggested making it illegal, but it's not seen as unprofessional.

Who has suggested making it illegal for people to work flex hours, so that they would be sending emails outside of business hours?

amother

Sapphire

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 9:52 am

challahchallah wrote:

Yes, exactly. My husband has his own business, and sometimes employees send him emails with questions on Sunday or at night because they’re catching up on things.

It definitely puts the employee in a good light because it shows that they are showing dedication to the job, as opposed to other employees who are strictly 9-5 even if they are in middle of doing something very important or time-sensitive (when it hits 5:00 then they are leaving the office no matter what, even if they could technically stay).

However, it does put pressure on my husband to be working at those hours too, which he doesn’t appreciate, since he already works long hours as it is. So I see no problem in employees working at odd hours because it shows dedication to the job, as long as the boss doesn’t have to be working alongside with you.

mommish613

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 9:53 am

amother [ Cerise ] wrote:

I tend to prefer that people don't see me working at midnight. I will delay send to the morning.

Same. I don’t want people thinking I am available all hours of the day. If I decide to catch up on some work at night it’s really only my business

Ora in town

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 9:59 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

I think it's most important to get your work done...

What you could do is write the mail, save it, and send them in bunch at 8 am...
but then you have to be carefull that nothing gets forgotten...
But actually the "unsent" function in the mail programs generally does a good job...

cnc

Mon, Jun 22 2020, 10:26 am

Use scheduled send.

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