Teacher takes stand against principal's after-hours demands: 'I don’t work in pajamas'

Work-life balance is crucial for maintaining good mental health, yet not every workplace seems to respect it. One teacher, u/SonorantPlosive, shared their frustration after receiving multiple work-related calls and texts from their principal late in the evening. The messages, which demanded an immediate response to an email about a trivial matter, included instructions to address the issue before 8 AM the next day. In their post, the teacher described how they upheld firm boundaries against working outside contractual hours.

"Here I am, perusing Reddit in my jammies, waiting for my melatonin to kick in. Phone rings. It's the principal. I silence it," the teacher recounted. When their partner asked if they were going to answer, the teacher replied, "No. I was told during COVID that 'we don’t work in pajamas.' I’m in pajamas. I’m not working."

Moments later, two text messages followed. "'Did you see my email? [Random trivial work-related detail that I don’t need to care about until the morning]. I’m going to call again. Please answer regarding [same trivial matter] or respond to email by 8 am,'" they shared. Despite the persistence, the teacher stayed resolute. "The phone rings again; I don’t bother to silence it. I just let it ring right through."

The teacher further explained, "I do not check work email outside of work hours. I do not have a work email, Dojo, Google Voice, or anything that relates to work on my personal device. I will put it on my device if you get it in writing that the district will subsidize a portion of my bill each month." They added, "I don't need to do anything at 8 pm for work. You most certainly are not giving me an ultimatum to respond to anything before contractual hours when it is nothing that needs to be dealt with outside of contractual hours." The teacher considered whether to involve the union or HR over the issue. Regarding the email, they shared, "I won't get into the trivial matter specifics, but it was not student-related and was about an email I had sent last week requesting edit access to a Google Document I had been omitted from accessing."

The teacher noted, "It's already been addressed by the union and grieved repeatedly with no changes and HR has also been notified and has told us 'just don't respond.' So they know they aren't getting a response by 8 am, they are power trip and micromanage and get ignored." People took to the comments section of the post to share their thoughts on the same and offer advice. u/tournamentdecides wrote, "I've only ever been called by a principal after hours for two reasons: There were some students threatening to jump a para. I reported it via email. The principal called to ask if I knew who the students were by name or description to help the investigation, as the threat was for the following morning. We had a school shooting threat and it was an early call informing us of an emergency meeting that would be held so we could go if we were able."

u/CaptainEmmy commented, "I have an admin who will send stuff in the work chat after hours with a disclaimer that no one should be reading it just because she's sending it. She is autistic and sends stuff when her brain thinks about it." u/welovegv remarked, "The only times I have ever responded to something work-related outside work hours is when they start the communication with 'I am so sorry for contacting you outside work hours.'"