I work remotely for a tech company – the team I mainly work with is a mix of international and US based. We frequently have what are for me 630AM meetings (my other US members are an hour ahead so 730 – which is still too early). This was not something told to me in the interviews and if I had known I probably would not have accepted. I’m a night owl, my job is a lot of independent work so in my previous roles I would work around 9/930-12 then work again around 2/3-6/7.
Waking up at 6 for this meetings has been destroying my internal schedule and day to day energy. I frequently can’t sleep for hours the night before these meetings because I’m dreading waking up.
This morning I was present for the meeting but had my camera off because it was a particularly rough wake up.
My boss said “just because you’re remote you still have to act like you’re in the office – turn your camera on”
Me: “it was a rough morning so I probably won’t go camera on right now”
Boss: “I’ll give you a pass for this meeting but we expect your camera on at all times here”
One of my other coworkers messaged me to say that he has basically forced her to turn her camera on as well.
I don’t want my camera on all the time, especially at 6am. I think that’s a ridiculous request altogether combined with the ridiculous morning meetings.