> It sucks that the author's grandmother died and that he felt the need to work through the night while that happened, but it's unfair to take that out on your

> It sucks that the author's grandmother died and that he felt the need to work through the night while that happened, but it's unfair to take that out on your colleagues. It's unfair to take that out on your colleagues, but it is fair to blame it on management and the culture they set. Some people are going to be more politically protected than others for reasons that aren't strongly related to the value they add to the business and able to get away with things others aren't, and if you don't counteract that, you'll both get inefficient results (either they're doing something they shouldn't, or other people don't feel empowered to do something they should) and also cause a loss to morale and trust. Setting clear (if mechanical) rules about things that would otherwise turn into "the politically connected can do this, the rest of you can't" is absolutely the responsibility of management. Saying to people up front that they should always feel free to take time off or cancel meetings for personal emergencies and the company trusts their judgment (if that is in fact the policy) and making sure people act like it's true - or making sure people show up and have extremely good excuses when they don't, if that's the policy - is management's job.