# A contract and a nine-hour day. Offer withdrawn.

**[TRUE STORY]** — by Urban planner · Delhi architecture firm · via r/IndianWorkplace

A Delhi architecture firm offered an urban-planning role, agreed the salary, and asked the candidate to start. Before joining, she asked for three ordinary things: a written offer letter, a nine-hour day across a five-day week, and weekend work only when a project genuinely needed it.

The firm's answer was to pull the offer. HR wrote that "our operational requirements do not align with the flexibility you need at this time" - flexibility being her word for a contract and the legally mandated cap of forty-eight hours a week. She pointed out she had asked for nothing beyond the OSH Code, and noted the firm had already pressed her to wind down her consulting work while refusing to put anything in writing.

Her husband posted the exchange to r/IndianWorkplace under the title "Asking for an offer letter and normal working hours is a crime." The thread agreed on the verdict: a request for a signed contract and a humane schedule had been reclassified as a culture problem, and the culture in question had just identified itself. Most commenters told her she had dodged the building.

*Source: [r/IndianWorkplace · via Asianet Newsable · Jul 10](https://newsable.asianetnews.com/world/company-rescinds-job-offer-after-woman-candidate-seeks-clarity-on-work-hours-articleshow-wnkl05i)*
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