Boss Moves Up Monday Meeting by Three Minutes, Then Questions Employee for Being Late

A Reddit post about a boss moving a Monday morning meeting forward at the last minute and then questioning an employee for being late has attracted 51,000 upvotes and more than 1,100 comments. Reddit users offered several theories about the sudden schedule change and the boss’s response.

@RotaryPhoneDialer shared a screenshot in the r/MildlyInfuriating subreddit showing that the employee’s regularly scheduled 9:35 a.m. meeting had been moved to 9:32 a.m. The “Weekly Kickoff” normally took place at 9:35, but the boss changed it by three minutes without apparent notice.

According to the post, the boss called at 9:33 a.m. to ask why the employee had not joined the meeting. The timing of the call and the unusual schedule change prompted confusion among commenters.

My regularly scheduled Monday morning meeting at 9:35 got rescheduled to 9:32. My boss called at 9:33 asking why I was late.

— u/RotaryPhoneDialer in r/mildlyinfuriating

Some Reddit users suggested the revised time could have been an honest mistake. One commenter wrote, “I would have just assumed it was a mistake and still joined at 9:35.”

Others focused on the unusual meeting time. One person wrote, “Because no one sane makes meetings that don’t align to a 5-minute grid.” Another asked, “9:35 is so strange; why not just make it 9:30?” The commenter acknowledged that the time may have been chosen to allow for a break.

Another Reddit user speculated that the last-minute change may have been intended to create grounds for disciplinary action. They wrote, “Sounds like they are trying to set a trap…Especially calling within a minute of being late. They were waiting for him to be late.”

Should the Employee Apologize for Being Late?

Commenters disagreed about whether the employee should apologize for missing the revised meeting time. Responding to the situation, one user wrote, “OP doesn’t need to be apologetic, which is basically an admission of guilt.”

The commenter also advised the employee to document the issue by contacting the boss and copying human resources: “They need to email their boss and copy HR. State that you need X amount of hours’ advanced notice to any meeting time changes.” The comment received 2,200 upvotes.

The original poster did not mention any previous incidents involving the boss. However, some Reddit users suggested searching for another job if the behavior continued. One commenter wrote, “If your boss is teeing up to take your head off like this, it’s best to move companies.”

Other commenters criticized the boss’s conduct and said the employee deserved more leeway, particularly because the meeting time was changed at the last minute by the boss.

The Daily Dot could not independently verify the claims in the Reddit post, which are based solely on the author’s account shared in r/MildlyInfuriating.