May 24, 2006Success Story from India

Filed under: Success Story by merylrunion |

I work for a US based multinational company in Bangalore, India. We work on very tight schedules, and working 12 to 14 hours per day is quite normal in our office. To top it off, there is the traffic jam during office hours. So I used to start from home at 8:30 am to reach back home close to midnight.

Because of this, I started missing my kids and family, and started having the fear of them being alienated from me. As a solution, I came up with a suggestion that I start at the office early in the morning, at 7:00 am and leave office by 4:00pm to beat the traffic, spend some time with family and kids in the evening and then work from home for another couple of hours late in the night. When I explained my situation and solution, my manager agreed and I communicated the same to the entire team.

The following week, my project lead send a recurring meeting request to meet every alternate day, from 4:30 to 5:30, to review the progress we were making on our program. It was an important meeting and I was required to be present. I was totally annoyed at seeing this meeting request, especially after communicating my work timing changes. I chose to decline the meeting request with a comment :

As you are aware, I have changed my work timings so that I leave from office at 4:00 PM. In case of emergencies, I am willing to stay late and complete some activities, but I would like to have any pre-planned meetings to be completed before 4:00pm.

I copied the request to my manager – who happens to be my lead’s manager as well.

Immediately came my manager’s response supporting me, and the meeting timing was changed to fit my schedule.