If there's one mistake many people make in their work-life, it's failing to read their contracts closely enough - and this applies to both bosses and employees.
One man has shown just how much of a difference it can make, knowing your contracted responsibilities.
A Twitter user named Caleb, who posts under @birdrespecter has gone viral after sharing a text exchange he had with middle management on a project he was working as an independent contractor on.
The messages revolve around Caleb not attending a 9am morning meeting and a manager insisting he must join every day.
Caleb cleverly points out this is not mentioned in his contract - and things escalate from there.
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The initial text reads: "Hi Caleb, I was just informed you weren't on the morning stand up call this morning? How come?"
To which Caleb replies: "Yeah dude I was asleep. I basically never join those."
The manager comes back with: "Going forward meetings are a requirement for employment at [company name]. I expect you to be on the next call tomorrow at 9AM EST."
Caleb responds: "Man that sucks for you guys, but I'm not an employee. My contract says nothing about required hours or daily meetings."
The manager is unimpressed with this and tries to threaten Caleb's job, sending: "You REALLY need an attitude adjustment! If you aren't on the next call, you're fired. Your choice."
Caleb's response is very chilled, adding: "You can fire me if you want, but you guys have to pay me through the 18th of next month regardless, so I'm definitely sleeping in tomorrow. Enjoy your meeting.
"You guys really ought to read the contracts you have us sign sometime. Pretty wild stuff in there."
Following this the manager asks Caleb to "please" call him, to which he gets a swift and simple "no".
More than 232,000 people liked the screenshots of the messages on Twitter, with over 24,000 retweeting and thousands replying.
Caleb later updated to clarify that he hadn't been fired as the man had no authority to do that.
He said: "For context, if anyone cares, this person doesn't work at the agency that handled my contract. They don't even run the department I was working in and have no authority to fire me. Just a middle management nerd trying to be a cop."
A final update revealed that the company had determined the man had no authority to fire him and they required him to return to work as scheduled to finish the site installation before they would "mutually walk away from this".
But Caleb wasn't having any of it and so he quit, adding: "Incredible. I was just about to call and tell him I'd finish, then I saw this.
"According to them my contract actually was terminated. So in regards to finishing, absolutely not. Your department is a mess and your employees have no idea what they're doing. I have no interest in discussing this further. Don't text me again."
People on Twitter praised Caleb for his responses, with one calling the conversation "genuinely beautiful"
Another said: "This is genius! Good for you."
Someone else added: "This is a god-tier response."
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