Setting Boundaries In the Office

I have had a lot of jobs. Most of my jobs have been fairly laid back, or I had a close connection to my “boss” (ahem… can we say family friend, or parent or sibling? heh-heh). I have had bosses who didn’t give two hoots about me, and I have had bosses whom I loved. As an added bonus, I learn about corporate jobs from my friend who works in an office setting. All jobs have their ups and downs, and all jobs require boundaries. But boundaries can be hard!

As Americans we tend to break our back for our jobs. We are overworked, overwhelmed, overtired, and to cope we over eat, over medicate… it’s not a healthy existence.

How do we break this cycle? We set boundaries and stick to them!

If your boss wants you to take PTO to attend a mandatory work event check with HR, that can’t be legal. If HR won’t help, google it. There’s lots of laws in place and policies in large companies made to help the “little guy” receive a fair shake. If you are scheduled for a meeting after your contracted working hours ask for just compensation, overtime, or just say no. “Why?” They might ask. “What could you possibly be doing that’s more important than our project?” NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS! That’s what. If you are threatened, make a note. A recording would be even better. A phrase I hear @loewhaley use in many of her work scenario videos is, “Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.” You are allowed to stick up for yourself. You are allowed vacation time, sick days, personal days, and any of the days.

If you have any boundary crossing work stories, or just plain funny stories I’d love to hear them! Here’s one from my days as a bank teller.

When I was opener for the branch in which I worked I would arrive between 7:30-7:45 to be open by 8:00. (It literally took 10 minutes or less to be ready to open. This was a small bank in a town of 5,000> people.) The ladies at the head office didn’t have enough to do, and they loved to micromanage us from afar. They started calling the bank BEFORE I EVEN TURNED THE PHONES ON each morning, and kept calling until I answered. I would literally switch on the phone system and it would be ringing, with Betty Lou asking why I wasn’t clocked in yet with a lecture on punctuality and mild threats about keeping my job. The funniest part is this bank is notorious for high turnover because nobody can stand working for them.

One response to “Setting Boundaries In the Office”

Meagan Young

August 1, 2023 at 11:29 am

Wow, the bank you worked for sounds absolutely awful. They had nothing better to do than to call the bank before it was open each morning? That would be so miserable of an existence to act like that…

My story, from a past job, is that my boss would buy me coffee a couple times a week when I first started. It seemed really innocent and really opened me up to trust her, to confide in her, to grow our working relationship and discuss strategy, tactics, etc. About a month in, I noticed that she was slowly shifting these coffee walks around campus (I worked for a college), as a way to leverage information -against me, against others, for herself. While that time in my life is long gone and I can hardly make out the details from that past life, I still remember the way she made me feel. For over three years I learned that trusting your boss was not safe, that every word needed to be guarded, and that boundaries are the most important thing in the workplace (and in life’s) relationships.

Maya Angelou was right: “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

LikeLiked by 1 person

Redheaded Jill