I know the rational solution to this would be to perhaps quit, but I want to ask in case I’m overlooking something.
I joined a fairly small-sized Japanese IT company as a fully remote project manager this week. The contract states that the working hours are up to me, based on my workload and company needs. I asked several times through the interviews if I need to be online certain times, if there are decided business hours etc, and they said no – only that there are two client meetings one at 9am and one at 4pm daily. They also said I will have shorter days or longer days depending on my workload, and that I should take full advantage of quiet seasons to rest because the busy seasons are brutal.
The people and work content are great, but I just found out that the project managers stay on a day-long zoom call from 9am to 6:30pm daily – always on call and online except for a lunch break.
Clearly this is something that is a daily pre-decided requirement and they had many chances to tell me whenever I asked about it, but they did not. It is not a commitment or schedule that I was aware of nor agreed to – especially as I told them I left my previous company to get away from late hours and having little time for family.
Does anyone have any advice or experiences with this?
6 comments
That fact that you’re posting here means your Spidey sense is telling you it is wrong on many levels. They clearly misrepresented the situation and they think it is “normal”. I have never heard of a “day-long Zoom call”. My advice would be to update your resume and and LI profile and keep a keen eye out for new roles. Don’t leave your job but actively search for a new one. By next Feb/March, I would hope that you put that kind of nonsense in your rear view mirror. Good luck.
It’s probably the “company needs” clause that always prevails.
I’m just interested in hearing what being on Zoom all day accomplishes. You’re required to be in a call for 8 hours, with camera on, or off? Would not just being available by Slack suffice?
Companies often will avoid answering difficult questions or will change the topic when confronted with them (I’m an interviewer and, if asked some of these questions, I spin a response with something positive).
That being said – I’m going to be very honest – I’d expect almost every company to expect you to be online and available during certain fixed hours and I’d be surprised by the question itself (I have no knowledge of what happened before or what the company’s website says).
Dude, you started *this week.* Maybe take a bit of time to figure out a bit more about the role, your coworkers, the team, company needs etc. Maybe take a bit of time to figure out how you can shape the role as you think works best for you and the company.
Day-long Zoom calls, or services such as Ovice, are a thing (not just in Japan). One of the main downsides to full-remote is spontaneous converstation between team members goes to zero. Remote work means less time spent commuting, and can mean being more productive, but you do lose a lot by not having spontaneous discussions.
Having Zoom on all the time (camera and audio can be on / off as needed, of course) is an attempt at keeping some of that spontaneous conversation. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
Don’t automatically knock it just because it’s not what you’ve come to think ‘remote work’ is. I’ve seen it work quite well.
If a company is that crazy that early on, it’s not going to get better.