Management demands 24/7 availability without extra pay for routine work that could wait until Monday, and pulls employee into meetings, criticizing his lack of responsiveness: ‘There’s no emergency, and no contract that says I owe them my free time’

An office job undergoes a sudden shift for the worse when management decides employees must be eternally available for non-urgent requests without pay, turning weekends into unpaid consultation hours nobody signed up for.  

What started as a normal clock-in-clock-out situation morphed into a lifestyle brand where personal time became company property. No contract change, no bonus, no actual emergencies, just vibes and entitlement dressed up as workplace culture. Management discovered they could text employees during family dinners and call it teamwork. Missing a Saturday message now counts as corporate betrayal, even though the thing needing attention could marinate until Tuesday without consequence. The beautiful irony lives in the meeting about responsiveness trends, as if attendance to imaginary crises deserves performance reviews.  

Companies love inventing obligations that cost them nothing. Calling it reachability instead of on-call means dodging compensation while harvesting free labor from guilt and fear. It is capitalism at its most efficient, getting workers to donate their lives without ever asking directly. The job wants total access but offers partial respect. Every text becomes a test of loyalty to a place that would replace anyone in a standard two-week window.