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Why does nobody talk about the 10 PM client panic messages
Last Thursday in Austin, I got a Slack ping at 10:14 PM from a client asking about a deliverable that wasn't due until Tuesday. It wasn't even urgent, just them spiraling over a minor formatting tweak. I replied right away, which was my mistake, because now they expect me to be available at all hours, and my sleep schedule has been wrecked for a week. How do you all set boundaries with clients who think you're on the clock 24/7, or do you just mute the app and deal with the guilt?
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jana50916d ago
Mute the app, full stop. Your sleep and your sanity matter more than their anxiety. I stopped replying to anything after 7 PM unless it's a genuine fire, like a site being down or a payment issue. The first few times I ignored them they got mad, but they learned to wait. You teach people how to treat you, so if you answer at 10 PM they'll keep pinging at 10 PM. Set an auto-reply on Slack if you can, something like "Offline until 9 AM" and stick to it. The guilt fades after about a week, trust me.
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