People in my company schedule in person meetings at 8AM. I feel it’s too early. I need to wake up at 7 to reach office by 8. I have worked for numerous companies but never worked for any company which schedules early morning in-person meetings. The earliest I ever had a stand up meeting was 10 AM. 8 AM feels too early to me. Am I overthinking or is 8AM really too early to schedule in person meetings? I don’t mind 8 AM zoom calls as I can take it from home but being in the office by 8 feels lot.

8am in person meetings were not too early in many fields before the pandemic. Schoolchildren are typically in class in person at 8am too.

But if that's your line in the sand, you're free to pick it, but there is a good chance that you will look lazy or not fitting in with a hardworking or early-rising culture.

I shake my head. I'm sorry, I won't sugar coat things for you or coddle you. You lack grit. Get up a little earlier. Then you'll be at work, WORKING, at 8am. Problem solved. Stop whining.

Define "People". If it's with one person, try to reschedule. If it's a trend, follow it. If company working hours tend to start at 8am, follow it. If your team or the teams you work with start at 8am, follow it. Some people wake up earlier because they live further or have other responsibilities to tend to before work. 7am is not that early anywhere in the world. You should adapt and flex to others in your work environment.

I live in CST and I support both coasts remotely. I have meeting starting at 7 AM CST and they go back to back nonstop until about 3 PM. I don't have a lunch break because of the time differences. The last two or three offices I worked in, I had to be there by 7:30 AM to prep for 8 AM meetings. It's pretty normal in large companies. So no: 8 AM meetings are only too early for those who complain about them.

Waking up early to gossip instead of building

If that's what they schedule, complaining really won't change anything but where you work.

How dare your employers expect you to start the work day ready to work? Be sure to list an afternoon nap as a condition of your continued employment when you confront your boss about this outrage.

If 8am is too early for you to meet then that is an acceptable boundary to set. I've been working in offices for 30 years and the 8am meeting has always been somewhat taboo for the people I've worked with; it's fine once in a while, but not as a norm. I don't even schedule stand-ups until 9am at the earliest.

Why? Because not everyone starts work at exactly 8am, people get caught in traffic, some need a buffer between getting into work and being "people ready," or a whole host of other things that are valid.

I suggest that you block off your calendar every morning between 8am and 9am (or whatever reasonable time is good for you) and decline any 8am meetings. Most importantly though, let your team and immediate leadership know that you are doing this. Tell them you are more productive when you have an hour or so each morning to plan your work for the day and need the time in order to provide the most value to the morning meetings.

I don’t necessarily think that 8 is too early BUT these people must not have kids. That’s right around the time kids are being dropped off at school and if they are expected to be in person there should be more of a buffer. I can usually make it to work by 8:30 after drop off if everything goes smoothly. But on days where there is traffic problems it could be between 8:30-9.

I don't know whats wrong with all the comments here - unless you are working with people in different time zones, standard office time is 9-5. Yeah people get in earlier than 9, but expecting you to be prepped and ready for a meeting, in person by 8? No.

Everyone saying this is "covid time" mentality forgets that the pandemic helped a lot of people find healthy work/life balance. The work still got done, the time you worked was just more flexible. I am not sure what your standard office hours are, but if you're supposed to be in by 8, having a meeting at 8 seems wild. At least make it 8:30 to let people get settled, check their emails and prep for the meeting.

I used to commute 1 hour in order to start work at 8am every day. If you can't make an 8am conference call, you probably don't deserve the job. Buck up my friend and join the real world.

What are your work timings as per your agreement?

It depends.
In general, I consider it poor meeting etiquette to schedule before 9 or 10am, during lunch, or after 4pm, including across time zones, unless it’s an “emergency.”
Having said that, I’ve also had a job or two where I was pre-booked in recurring meeting starting at 7am and not ending until after 6pm, I’d have dinner, then get “real work” done until midnight - not the greatest.
Another very well known company had a regular habit of both early morning AND late night on the same days, several imessage a week, which IMO is a good sign of crap management.

Cross-geo/timezone calls are of course worse, e.g. US and China/Australia/Japan etc. but for local teams, I’d never schedule for 8am, including when we’d have people flying in for in-person summits.

Depending on your meeting schedule and company (do they have core hours with zero flex?), and your manager, you might be able to get an agreement with your manager to do the 8ams remote and then head in after.

If for whatever reason hours are fixed at 8-5 then you probably knew it going into the job. It might still be worth having a chat with your boss on the next 1:1, but considering the crap market we’re in currently, don’t push it too hard, My wife’s out the door daily by 6am, and lots of disciplines have fixed core hours - in general there’s been more flexibility in (many but not all) tech focused companies, but look at the sweeping RTO mandates by Amazon and others; employers know the market is in their favor at the moment, at least in many places.

I recognize that not everyone’s schedule is the same.

For those agreeing with OP though, can I ask what is the typical blocker to an 8am? Is it other responsibilities or is it just sleep schedule based? I am genuinely wondering whether just shifting your sleep an hour or two earlier could fix the problem or is it an issue with daylight hours, or other meetings into the late evening, or something else? FWIW I normally start in the office at 6, but I’m in bed by 9pm most nights.

Too early

I took the time to read most of these comments, but then I just got progressively more depressed. Comments ranging from "I feel (insert reasoning why it's unfair here} to "people have different circadian rhythms". I don't know what stage of your individual careers any of you are, but let me make 2 observations: 1} Organizations reward those who go not just the distance, but the extra yard. 2} Declaring "I'm not a morning person" absolves you of nothing if it's a requirement of the role. You properly trade time out of life for money. Your employer pays money and takes time out of your life. You have to decide if the juice is worth the squeeze. But the job requirements are the exclusive purview of the employer.

Is 8am too early to eat? If not, shut up, get to work, and be grateful you have a job. In case you missed it, Glassdoor is a Job Board! People would love to have a job, just to live. Be thankful…work like the competition’s watching.

I previously worked in an environment where it was expected that all employees are onsite in office at 8 AM even when they worked very late the night before. I do have a sleep disorder diagnosed by a sleep doctor and managed to survive 8 AM mornings a few years trialing with different prescription meds. That was until I started to also develop chronic gastrointestinal issues frequently requiring immediate trips to the toilet. That and intermittent nerve pain developed shortly after getting sandwiched in a car accident. I also seem to have lingering brain fog after catching COVID. According to previous management, I delivered results in my work over the years and was considered essential, so they managed to setup an arrangement to accommodate me with a much later start time and washroom/rest breaks as needed. I stayed with the company and previous management because of my medical need for flexibility, but also often took on the afterhours work. Now that things have changed and the department has been outsourced, I need to seek a new opportunity in a very saturated job market where layoffs seem to be happening all over. It is concerning how I can survive and find the rare supportive and flexible work environments when I feel trapped between a rock and a hard place. I am medically disabled enough to need great support and flexibility from an employer for the work I do, but apparently not disabled enough to generally be eligible for various disability benefits even if the different prescription meds I tried are insufficient to alleviate my chronic medical issues.

While 8am isn’t ideal, if it’s not a recurring, everyday thing, this shouldn’t be an issue or a complaint. If multiple people are involved in these meetings, it’s probably when the scheduler is able to get everyone together without multiple scheduling conflicts.

I was on the same page as OP, but after reading these comments I'm doubting myself lmao!

Ok — you’re obfuscating a really important in your story. In other comments, you’ve pointed out that these are standard company hours and you even had your interview at 8am. If these 8am meetings were out of nowhere, or if you were explicitly promised a flexible schedule, I’d be in your corner here.

But in this case, despite having evidence that important business (hiring being one of the most important decisions a manager makes) takes place at 8am, you seem to have accepted the job on the assumption that your 8am interview was an exception rather than the rule. Unless this company provided you explicit assurances that hours are flexible or that the interview time was an exception, I’m afraid my advice is to take the L and go along with the schedule.

You made an assumption about meeting times based on previous jobs, despite being presented with evidence that this company operates on a different timetable. You had the opportunity to ask about this when you received the job offer, but it seems like you didn’t. And now you want the company to change established meeting cadences because of your incorrect assumption? You might be accommodated, but it would come at a huge cost in political capital — not because people would think you’re lazy (I think tech has evolved past that), but because you’re pushing back a norm that folks could reasonably say you should have known about.

Take this as a lesson: if core hours are important to you, particularly if your interview is outside what you’d like to be the core hours, ask before you sign.

About twenty years ago, I had a boss who wanted 09:00 meetings. That 26 miles at that time of day required 06:30-07:00 to just make it. A breakdown or an accident, add one to four hours. A blizzard..... I might have been a bit fun for those who wanted to run like the military.