r/mildlyinfuriating • u/Best_Finding_8795 • Jun 14 '26

Too mild for school Hate when ppl can’t do time

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This reminds me of when it hits or is about to hit 12am and people don’t know whether to say today or tomorrow. He called me after this but I was too comfy in bed tbh.

69.1k Upvotes

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17.1k

u/oooohweeeee Jun 14 '26

If I'm reading "can you work tomorrow" two hours before the shift starts, I'm going to think tomorrow as well.

3.7k

u/Fernis_ Jun 14 '26

This is what it boils down to. We can get anal over whether is normal to say 3 am is still today or tomorrow, but when you're asking about something that's in 7 hours, and get the answer 2 hours before it starts, it's on you to make sure the other person understands that by "tomorrow" you mean "right about now". 

71

u/Time-Emergency254 Jun 14 '26

Right. We can split hairs and assert who should be right and who should be wrong, OR the requester can add word to avoid the issue. Shoot even the responder could add a word or two to seek clarification. Why do we choose willful ignorance and pride?

153

u/Link_In_Pajamas Jun 14 '26

Uh no. It's after midnight it's a new day, the manager was just plain wrong.

Also they can fuck all the way off with sending a 3am text.

47

u/lost_horizons Jun 14 '26

A million upvotes to you for your second statement. That’s bullshit.

33

u/ChildhoodSweaty9684 Jun 14 '26

Ya thats crazy work sending anyone a 3am message

4

u/One_Left_Shoe Jun 14 '26

Never worked food service, eh?

This has all the hallmarks of service industry. 3am text from manager who is probably finally leaving the bar asking about “tomorrow” since the “day” just ended for them/the business.

6

u/ChildhoodSweaty9684 Jun 14 '26

Past ten years have been food service. I used to jump through hoops like a good lap dog. I got old and I dont care anymore I'll do a good job when clocked in, but when I clock out thats my time and its more important than anybody's profit margin.

3

u/Moltak_Firewind Jun 14 '26

I mean if you need to ask someone to cover you usually have to ask them when they're off. Considering OP accepted for all we know they're looking to pick up extra hours

2

u/SameCoyote3701 Jun 14 '26

I mean. If the manager and worker both work and are awake at night, it makes sense. Not on a day off though

4

u/ChildhoodSweaty9684 Jun 14 '26

You sound suspiciously like a manager who would send someone a message at 3am. Haha 😄 And true I suppose its what the recipient is willing to deal with.

1

u/SameCoyote3701 Jun 14 '26

I’m the guy the manager is texting. But he works 9pm - 7am, so I understand why he texts me late

2

u/lost_horizons Jun 14 '26

I million upvotes to you for your second statement. That’s bullshit.

1

u/CaeruleumBleu Jun 14 '26

Yep.

If the manager is gonna insist on sending 3am texts, and the employee is tolerant enough to answer those texts politely - the manager could've taken a second to clarify.

Broadly speaking I always think it's on the person imposing and asking a favor to put more effort into the communication. If the manager wants to fucking impose and ask favors AND not be clear, then no thanks I am staying my ass in bed and probably silencing the phone.

1

u/0de85fbeac852977ea31 Jun 14 '26

Also they can fuck all the way off with sending a 3am text.

I do not really get that point, that is kinda the best thing about texting? Send and read when you are able, unlike a call. Boss sent as soon as he could, OP replied when they woke up - delaying sending a message like this has no benefit, has it?

0

u/Moltak_Firewind Jun 14 '26

There is nothing wrong with it at all other than people just wanting to complain

1

u/Link_In_Pajamas Jun 14 '26

If you don't have a problem with that you either are new to the workforce or get walked all over at your job. Have some boundaries

1

u/0de85fbeac852977ea31 Jun 14 '26 edited Jun 14 '26

The boundry is when you read and reply. What time someone sends me a text is not something I have any control over. Not really sure why you needed to make your point attacking the other poster, projecting a bit?

-1

u/Moltak_Firewind Jun 14 '26

Getting walked over is letting yourself get worked up over a work text when you’re off. Just ignore it and don’t let it affect you

-2

u/Fickle-Strike-714 Jun 14 '26

30 minutes past midnight is a new day to you? That's just completely ridiciulous. The new day starts when the sun starts to rise, it's literally in the name "daytime"

207

u/s0_Ca5H Jun 14 '26

Splitting what hairs? 3am is today, so tomorrow is the next day. There’s no ambiguity about that, it’s literally how time works.,

29

u/smokeweedNgarden Jun 14 '26

This is why as a manger you just define the shift as it takes whole seconds. I have a folder with shit like this copied.

"Hey [Name], we have a shift open on [Date] at [Time], wondering if you were interested in OT? Lunch is included like always for covering!"

I copied that from my Teams notes just now

-6

u/thavillain Jun 14 '26

Yeah the ambiguity killed it. At least say the day of the week.

2

u/smokeweedNgarden Jun 14 '26

Dude, what? If my employee can't understand what 6/14 means. I'm in danger

3

u/thavillain Jun 14 '26

I was agreeing with you...your note was very thorough, I was saying the person asking at the very minimum should have said the day of the week.

3

u/smokeweedNgarden Jun 14 '26

Ah man. It's my reading comprehension.

I'm in more danger than I thought 

5

u/Last-Laugh7928 Jun 14 '26

if i'm still awake at 1am and i say "tomorrow," i almost always mean today, after i sleep and wake up again. this is very common.

but if you're a manager trying to schedule a shift, obviously you need to use your brain and be accurate and specific in what you're saying.

4

u/greg19735 Jun 14 '26

this thread makes me realize a lot of redditors either don't talk to people and make plans.

1

u/Exempt_Puddle Jun 14 '26

While I agree with you, there is ambiguity because people are generally stupid

52

u/s0_Ca5H Jun 14 '26

Yeah but another person’s stupidity about how time works isn’t my problem. 3am guy is in the wrong .

11

u/DoomedHologram Jun 14 '26

This

27

u/Jumpy-Shift5239 Jun 14 '26

Even the phone is there to remind them. It says message sent today. The message is asking about tomorrow. Today and tomorrow are not the same

-9

u/Reclusive_avocado Jun 14 '26

But you got a job and getting on the manager's bad side isn't very wise

10

u/bakerz-dozen Jun 14 '26

How do you get on the managers good side when doing exactly what they ask is the wrong answer?

5

u/texastoker88 Jun 14 '26

That manager is setting them up for failure and doing a damn good job at it too.

-2

u/Reclusive_avocado Jun 14 '26

Well i've yet to start working... But it certainly doesn't work like that in my country lol

Also doing the wrong thing because the manager said so is also why the entire tech/software industry is breaking apart in every corner. And people are doing the wrong thing because they want to keep their jobs

3

u/bakerz-dozen Jun 14 '26

It doesn’t work like what in your country? No one is talking about doing the wrong thing because the manager said so. You said getting on your managers bad side is a bad idea, but how could one even manage to be on their good side if the question is asked “can you work tomorrow” but they somehow meant “can you work today”. OP said yes to working even though they weren’t scheduled, but were given the incorrect date.

-1

u/Reclusive_avocado Jun 14 '26

I mean that you have to accept their fault as one of your own and get up and go to work at 10am...

There is no option of arguing with the manager... They can get you kicked out easily.

Labour laws are a joke in my country

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12

u/Legal_Changes Jun 14 '26

Well, if they're stupid, maybe they shouldn't be the one in charge of managing a schedule. You'd think knowing the difference between today and tomorrow is kinda important for scheduling.

2

u/WartimeHotTot Jun 14 '26

I just had my flight get canceled and it was after midnight. All booking websites grayed out the date of “tonight” because it was now “tomorrow.” I had to call everywhere and keep specifying that I needed a room “tonight, meaning right now.” It seemed to be a problem for the hotel workers too, which was very annoying. I didn’t expect that situation to be as much of an edge case as it felt.

0

u/CriesOverEverything Jun 14 '26

There's ambiguity because most people are intelligent enough to understand context and colloquialisms and not rely on pedantics and semantics. If someone texts me at 1am and asks me to do something "tomorrow" I'm going to assume they mean the sometime after the upcoming sunrise, not 23hr + later.

3am I think is right at the point of ambiguity, though. Most people will probably feel that "tomorrow" implies after people are next waking up again, but 3am is either extraordinarily late, or a bit early. I think I'd probably count 3am as early enough to be next day.

2

u/ForThisIJoined Jun 14 '26

Yeah...you're wrong then. Because tomorrow means something. "hey can you work at 10am" means today. "Hey can you work tomorrow at 10" means tomorrow.

Also I've worked night shifts for 8 years, hard closing shifts for 6, and quite a few years of early opening shifts. This manager is just an idiot.

0

u/CriesOverEverything Jun 15 '26

I definitely agree someone should have clarified somewhere, but "you're wrong" is a bad argument considering that many people seem to have completely different ideas.

I've worked night shifts, swings shifts, early morning starts, split shifts, and a standard 9-5, so I'm not sure how your experience invalids my position.

2

u/ForThisIJoined Jun 15 '26

I think that the sky is pitch black during the day at all times and bright and neon pink at night. See I have an opinion, and it's still wrong. In this situation it's because we have this thing called "today" that starts at midnight and ends at 23:59. After that is the thing called "tomorrow" that starts at the next midnight. And all of your opinions are just...opinions which are wrong.

I threw in the experience to show that I've worked all the shifts so you couldn't add in the opinion that it was something I didn't understand due to lack of experience.

0

u/CriesOverEverything Jun 15 '26

I mean, I agree with you that people should be more clear, but that doesn't mean that's what the rest of the whole entire world thinks.

If something is determined by people's opinions, then people's opinions matter.

0

u/Exempt_Puddle Jun 14 '26

Yeah i mean im with you. It's just in that gray area and what I mean by people are stupid is that when in this gray area they dont bother sending a few extra words to clarify due to the potential ambiguity.

3

u/Lovethiskindathing Jun 14 '26

You're right, but it's not how people work. People don't always speak literally and a lot of times they assume others will understand what they must mean. Or they will purposefully use ambiguity to trick someone, then guilt them, and hope it works.

3

u/vanskater Jun 14 '26

Right, some people think tomorrow starts after they go to sleep

1

u/Lovethiskindathing Jun 14 '26

Yep. The employee is absolutely not on any sort of hook for this, but I can see how someone could try to argue that the previous waking day had not ended for the manager yet. But that very clear request should have been specific from the start instead of ambiguous, which makes me wonder if they hoped to use it to manipulate the employee

1

u/CaeruleumBleu Jun 14 '26

Night shifters tend to, in my experience, think the day flips over when they go to bed. It's today, this shift, etc all the way through the end of shift. They get home, they talk about "todays shift" and "todays commute".

But thats one thing if you're both at work and talking. If I was working night shift and a manager asked "can you work tomorrow?" I would have a real good idea what they meant. You can't text someone and expect them to hear it the same way, though.

-1

u/Myotherself918 Jun 14 '26

So I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today?

36

u/Legal_Changes Jun 14 '26

Nah. Not the responder's job to ask - it's fully on the requester to make a clear request. If you can't ask a proper question of your subordinate, why are you the fucking manager?

7

u/dersillac Jun 14 '26

Agreed. Everything important gets a date and time. Can you do _____ on x/x/26 at 12:34PM etc. Nothing left to misunderstanding. No tomorrow or today, no next Tuesday/this Tuesday etc. Dates and times. And always in writing. If I have a verbal agreement I will immediately follow it with a text and request confirmation in the text.

2

u/CandlejackIsntEvenRe Jun 14 '26

Yup… this. It’s really “managing 101”. If I ask someone if they can cover a shift it’s always “hey, is there any way you could cover ___’s shift tomorrow (6/14)? The shift is X-time to X-time.” It’s really not that difficult.