{"id":5090,"date":"2025-05-13T18:41:44","date_gmt":"2025-05-13T18:41:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aomtodayprod.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=5090"},"modified":"2025-07-09T15:46:37","modified_gmt":"2025-07-09T15:46:37","slug":"what-to-do-when-your-boss-asks-you-to-work-late","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aom.org\/today\/what-to-do-when-your-boss-asks-you-to-work-late\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Do When Your Boss Asks You to Work Late"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Daniel Butcher<\/a><\/p>\r\n

You recently started a new job and your boss asks you to work late. Do you say yes, do you try to come up with a compromise, or do you say, \u201cno way!\u201d?<\/p>\r\n

Academy of Management Scholar Abbie Shipp<\/a> of Texas Christian University, who coauthored an Academy of Management Review article <\/a><\/em> related to this topic with TCU colleague Hettie Richardson<\/a>, said that when she had recently begun a new job as an assistant professor, there was an important meeting scheduled from five to nine p.m.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cI said, \u2018A work meeting scheduled for after most people have left? What are you doing? I have to get home and take care of my son,\u2019 but to this group, that was just normal because they wanted the privacy for the meeting\u2019s sensitive topic,\u201d Shipp said.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWhen we get in situations like these, we have choices\u2014we can either just go to the meeting deliberately and entrain to that schedule, or maybe we could passively push back and say, \u2018I\u2019ll be there, but I\u2019m only going to stay from five to seven,\u2019 or we could actively resist and say, \u2018This isn\u2019t right; this disadvantages people who don\u2019t want to work in the evenings so I\u2019m not going,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cYet there are different outcomes that can happen in response to that decision.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cSometimes it can be good because you may resist a meeting that others also think is mistimed\u2014but other times you may be viewed as a rebel who is unwilling to adapt your schedule.\u201d<\/p>\r\n

Beyond meetings, Shipp said that there are other examples where it isn\u2019t a simple choice between full compliance versus resistance.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cThere are times when your preferred timing doesn\u2019t match the situation, but you respond by creating an even more strict handling of time,\u201d Shipp said. \u201cMaybe you\u2019re in an environment that doesn\u2019t give you any structure about when and where to work but only evaluates your outcomes, given that different people experience time individually, they may each put their own structure in place, and that may further inform what happens at the team or the organizational level.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cBecause individuals have views of time or \u2018temporal schemata\u2019 for how they interpret their schedules, they view the world through this temporal lens,\u201d she said. \u201cWe each have these temporal schemata based on childhood and early work experiences, and that lens is how we each think about time and use time individually.<\/p>\r\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t assume that people will just naturally entrain to team or organizational schedules; we really have to look at each individual and see if there\u2019s more going on behind the scenes.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

A sample of Shipp\u2019s AOM research findings:<\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n