A Reddit post about Indian employees being expected to adjust to US work hours has sparked a debate on social media. A user named Debugger Life shared his experience on the Indian Workplace subreddit, highlighting how meetings scheduled to accommodate US-based colleagues often extend the working day for employees in India.
The user shared his experience, citing how a daily scrum or stand-up meeting was rescheduled to accommodate a US-based colleague.
“So earlier our daily scrum/standup call used to happen in the morning. Then, because of one person who's a Staff Engineer based in the US, the meeting got shifted to 6 pm IST. Now, with the US daylight saving time changes it's been pushed to 7 pm!!,” he wrote.
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He explained that employees typically log in at 8 or 9 am and work throughout the day, only to be expected to attend another meeting at 7 or 7:30 pm. “By the time you're done your entire day is gone. No proper evening, no personal time, nothing!!!!” he added.
The Reddit user questioned why such meetings could not be rotated to ensure that employees in both countries shared the inconvenience.
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“Why can't we have 2 days where the meeting happens in the evening for us and morning for them, and 2 days where it's the other way around? Maybe even skip the Wednesday call if there's nothing important to discuss. Why is it always the Indian employees who are expected to adjust?,” he asked.
He further pointed out that the same flexibility did not appear to apply to employees based in the US.
The user said that colleagues in the US usually log off at 5 pm local time and respond to messages sent after working hours the following day, which he acknowledged was fair. “But somehow, the same consideration doesn't apply to people working from India?” he questioned.
He also acknowledged that distributed teams need some overlap in working hours but argued that the adjustment should not always be one-sided.
“Are other people in Indian teams facing this too? And how do your companies handle meetings across US and India time zones?” he asked.
“Because honestly, this expectation that Indian employees should always be available in the evening is getting ridiculous,” he concluded.
The post received several comments, with users sharing similar experiences and some taking a sarcastic dig at the situation.
"They won the birth lottery. We didn't," one user wrote.
"It's not impossible. All you need is a manager with a spine. Yet our managers will bend backwards to please at the slightest discomfort our foreign counterparts face," another user commented.
"In same situation. My daily standup is at 9.30 pm every day. But then the west coast ppl have to login super early as well. To balance, I do not login before 11am, and I skip the standup if I have to be somewhere else. Noone complains. I used to feel bitter as well but then I understood that we are the cheap labor and that's the whole reason why they hire us. Now I just go with the flow," shared a third user.
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