I agree. In my experience, "flexible work hours" is often code for "everyone works weird fucking hours so instead of having a set routine, you have to be quasi-available at all times to respond to the person who decided to wait until 8pm to do the work you were waiting on". It's great for the person who needs flexibility, and shitty for everyone that depends on that person.

Flexible working arrangements are great when the team is able to asynchronously work, but I have yet to see a team that really does asynchronous work right.

I think this is a contributor, especially with working remote where folks are spanning many time zones.

A position I'm thinking about joining requires being available 9 hours between 9am-6pm EST (I live in EST) to ensure there's reasonable overlap between the west coast US and most European countries. They were really strict on these hours and at first I was against it because I thought what's the difference if I work 2 hours early one day and clock out early or decide to be unavailable for 3 hours in the afternoon (1h lunch break + the 2 hours).

But the more I think about it, the more I think it's a better system for everyone in the end when everyone has strict hours. I wouldn't want to be expected to review a PR at 7pm EST because someone else decided to start a bit later one day.

They have no problem for exceptions like leaving early for a doctor's appointment or picking someone up. The only rule here is you need to give a few days notice which is also reasonable because it lets your team members know you won't be around when you usually are. They don't need to know the details, only that you won't be around. They're also ok if you need to bail without notice because it's something important. Basically don't abuse the system and it's all good.