This didn’t actually happen to me (not exactly), but just imagine:
Your boss sends you a memo, “I will be absent all day. Do x, y and z by our 9am meeting tomorrow morning. I can’t tell you which job is more or less important. You might find it useful to work late to get it all done.”
You know that there is very little chance of getting all the work done on time. You know that you will get no overtime pay for working late. However, your relationship with your boss is important to you; He can help you get places. But, you don’t want to start a precedent for working overtime for free.
Options:
(1) Stay late, do the work
(2) Don’t stay late, don’t do the extra work, try to trivialise it at the meeting — for example, talk about all the other things that came up and were really urgent
(3) Don’t stay late, don’t do the extra work, have a professional version of a DTR talk — ask about his expectations and how you don’t really feel you want to stay working late etc etc
(4) Don’t stay late, don’t do the extra work, have some kind of confrontation
Thoughts people?
J Alfred\'s Diary 
December 21, 2005 at 4:39 pm
(5) Set his desk on fire.
Oh, wait, did you mean useful thoughts? Okay, then.
Back when I was a part of the World of Work, I probably would have gone with #1 (stay late and do it) ONLY if I thought it was a one-time thing that would help the person out and prove my committment and yadda.
Otherwise I tend to be more of a #2 kind of person. I’ll work hard but won’t ‘t make it into the Apocalyptic Deal they’re making it into–because really, if it was indeed the End of the World approaching then they wouldn’t just dump it on someone else at the last minute.
I reserve #3 for when people are completely losing their minds and I need a sincere (and not at all manipulative) way of pointing this out to them.
#4 usually gives me an upset stomach and a flushed face, so I avoid it when possible.
December 21, 2005 at 4:56 pm
While I’d ideally wanna do #3, I’d probably end up doing #4!
December 21, 2005 at 6:45 pm
#6 shoot him with a taser gun and erase his memory
Personally I would probably stay late and do it, but give him a DTR that this shouldn’t be a habit unless overtime is involved or a real emergency. Of course EVERYTHING in the business world is an emergency.
December 21, 2005 at 7:00 pm
Yes, “urgent” is a word that seems to be in every other sentence at work. In fact, it’s become so over-used that people have to refer to something as being “very urgent” in order to expedite it.
December 23, 2005 at 1:24 pm
Stay late, do the work – you have to appear enthusiastic.
December 29, 2005 at 6:12 pm
I did #2 — and it seemed to perfectly work. He was full of praise for all the work that I did do.
June 13, 2006 at 11:09 pm
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