I worked for a company for many years with a great attitude about flexible hours and work from home. Got a ton of work done, felt very good about my work and coworkers, and put out a great product. It was acquired by a larger company who, soon after the acquisition, announced a 9-5 butts-in-seat policy.
Nine months later, after buying a house, I was canned for violating that butts-in-seat policy, largely because I was attending to the many little things a new house requires: inspections, installations, etc. Under the old regime, coming in later and working later, or working from home, being accessible by video chat, IM, and email would have raised no eyebrows. Under the new one it was cause for termination.
I should have seen the writing on the wall and simply started to look for a new job as soon as that more restrictive company took over. I was pressured to stay by the ties I had to stock options, my good professional relationships with co-workers, and my desire to get into a house quickly. The end result was that I went into a lot of bad debt in the months following my layoff, and almost lost my house as I ran out of cash. I could have avoided it if I had planned better. Needless to say I was under a lot of stress for a while.
The long and short of it is, I agree with parent. If you have the freedom to do so, disassociate with companies who have unreasonable time-off or flex work policies, sooner rather than later. Your mental, physical, and financial health are at stake.
Butts in seat policy is the worst. It attracts the kind of talent tnat is complacent with making it seem like they are doing work as opposed to people who like to make progress.
I also think it's an open admission by management that they are lazy idiots who don't understand what their employees do well enough to judge output and don't care to learn.
This deserves more upvotes than the one that I can give it. Also, genwin is right. The zero-tolerance time-Nazi stuff was to push out people with stock options. If the policies weren't also applied (with the same penalties and enforcement) within the acquirer, you probably could have sued and, at the least, gotten a decent settlement due to their desire to avoid embarrassment.
Nine months later, after buying a house, I was canned for violating that butts-in-seat policy, largely because I was attending to the many little things a new house requires: inspections, installations, etc. Under the old regime, coming in later and working later, or working from home, being accessible by video chat, IM, and email would have raised no eyebrows. Under the new one it was cause for termination.
I should have seen the writing on the wall and simply started to look for a new job as soon as that more restrictive company took over. I was pressured to stay by the ties I had to stock options, my good professional relationships with co-workers, and my desire to get into a house quickly. The end result was that I went into a lot of bad debt in the months following my layoff, and almost lost my house as I ran out of cash. I could have avoided it if I had planned better. Needless to say I was under a lot of stress for a while.
The long and short of it is, I agree with parent. If you have the freedom to do so, disassociate with companies who have unreasonable time-off or flex work policies, sooner rather than later. Your mental, physical, and financial health are at stake.