Betty can show up ‘on time’ and spend 40 min making coffee and shit talking with her neighbors, but I show up 10 min late and start working right away but I’m the bad employee somehow.
Ive come to learn that employers are not paying you for your labor but for your time. They care more about your availability than how much you actually work. It is also why how hard you work never factors into how much you get paid.
You never get a raise (above inflation) by doing your current work “better” or “harder”. You get a raise by changing roles completely or adding on responsibilities that expressly is worth some extra pay. Or changing company.
But as an employee, I’ve come to realize that I don’t value my pay as what I do, but how much time per day I dedicate towards my work. Time is all we have, really.
They pay me 20% below what I should earn? Maybe I work 50% slower eh? Who knows?
What should you earn?
Ive come to learn that employers are not paying you for your labor but for your time.
Commuting time should be salaried.
Because depending on the company you’re for a large part not paid for productivity but for presenteeism.
I agree with you but unfortunately you have to work with people, and those people’s ideas of you can make it harder or easier for you to actually do your work, or influence the stress you’re exposed to, so it’s in your own interest to put up a good façade, then if necessary fuck them in the ass… figuratively.
Well if you are supposed to be at work at 7 then you should be at work at 7 tbh
The underlying question is “why do you need to be at work a 7 in the first place”. If Betty can chat with coworkers half an hour longer than the other person starts working, that half hour can’t really be that critical. In that case, 7 is just an arbitrary number and the difference is that Betty starts work at 7:40 while the other commenter gets in trouble for starting at 7:10, which is just plain bullshit.
If I need to start working at 7 for some reason (shift work has been mentioned) and I start at 7:10, we can talk, but Betty’s 7:40 ass better get four times the amount of shit.
I mean you have signed a contract requiring you to be at work at 7. So that’s when you have to be there, unless you want to be sacked. With an hourly or monthly wage the company is paying for your time and they expect you to put in that time. It’d be different if you had a contract by tender or piecework contract, not sure of the correct English language term. If you have that, you can often set your own hours (to a degree) as long as the job gets done. But that’s not what most people have in their employment contract.
Other side of the coin to slacking from the required work time would be if the employer would be slacking from the required pay. And that does happen too and is even worse. But the contract should bind both sides to it so neither happens.
I mean you have signed a contract requiring you to be at work at 7.
The question is “Why should contracts specify the exact time?”
If you sign a contract with valid stipulations, of course you’re required to abide by it, but the subject of the conversation is this specific stipulation.
The claim is that “requiring you to be at work at 7” is an outdated norm.
Because it is much easier to make that sort of contract than measure some objective “work done” metric. Unless you’re hoping to be signing piecework/work by tender contracts all the time.
My employer mandates 40h of work per week and a core working time where all employees are supposed to be available. No fixed hours required. I don’t see how fixing hours is easier than that.
And ultimately, that is my point: Why set fixed times, if the time itself doesn’t actually matter?
It can be that the employer just considers it easiest for them.
I can see it mattering if it’s shift work and someone else has to stay late. If it’s office work? Nah. Doesn’t matter.
Exactly. It also matters what type of shift work. If you’re late to a hospital nursing shift, that sucks because you can’t do the changeover stuff and they’ve been there 12 hours. Or if you’re the only one taking phone calls in the morning or something. In sane a world, there would be room for decent folks as well as folks who are always on time.
decent folks as well as folks who are always on time.
Decent folks are always on time, as they value your time the same as theirs.
This is the number one mistakes that dumbfucks make about decent folks, hence why I said it that way.
I haven’t met a decent person that is perpetually late. Nor one that calls me a dumbfuck.
They probably meant descent. As in the fall of society.
Haha. True
If there is no buffer for shift changes, they’re doing it wrong. Just in time is a bad model in general, but it’s horrible mismanagement for scheduling shifts.
Keep pretending to pay a fair wage and I’ll pretend to give a shit about being on time.
I don’t think they’ll be pretending to pay for long if you keep being late lol
You’d be super wrong there, at least in my case: I’m late all the time, not only do I still have my job, I get great reviews and token raises every time I’m up for review. If I left, they’d be in trouble, they definitely won’t fire me. I don’t bust my ass and they understand I won’t be taking calls outside of designated hours, doing anything heroic, etc. but I am still very valuable to my employer.
I joked about having a job interview once during a meeting with leadership and it was one of the most awkward silences I’d ever heard until I told them I was just kidding: They thought I was serious and their terror was palpable. My manager once told me I’d have to commit multiple crimes to get fired when I made a joke about getting fired because there was an end of day meeting on a Friday.
I stay because it’s a chill job and I like most of the people I work with even though the pay isn’t amazing, but I could probably go somewhere else and make at least 30-50% more, though at the possible cost of more stress and less job security. My commute is pretty great too, 2 miles away and sometimes I even walk to work.
Have you got caught?
It’s not exactly a secret, but sure I guess? I’ve said hi to my boss, their boss, the CIO’s secretary, the CIO, etc. when coming in late plenty of times.
Seems your boss is pretty lenient about it
My boss, my boss’s boss, etc. - you work at the right place and are valuable enough, they 100% don’t care if you’re a little late, even if it’s every day! They let me leave early if I want too and if my lunch break runs a little long, that’s fine. Not every place is a micromanaged shithole.
On the other hand, if something runs late and I have to stay and address it, I don’t complain so I guess it’s a two way street. I’ve even come in early before when necessary (though it’s rare).
Stay late 10 minutes: that’s as good as leaving on time. I can’t be expected to pay you more.
Arrive 10 minutes late: how could you? 10 minutes of my time is an eternity!
Like most statements about work, it really depends on the job.
For shift work without overlapping shifts, being late keeps someone else on duty after their shift is up.
But if you’re working an office gig and your work is getting done, it’s fine. There’s a reason I don’t schedule any meetings within an hour of the start or end of the day.
shift work without overlapping shifts
That is 100% wage theft as someone has to work overtime. either come early or stay late.
Come on time. And if someone stays late they should be paid for staying late 100% of the time.
But they also shouldn’t have to stay late. People work jobs so they can afford life outside of work. Making people stay late is stealing from their life outside of work no matter how much they’re paid.
When I was a retail manager, I was a hardass on people coming in so late that it would impact coworkers. I covered the floor in those situations, but I couldn’t cover multiple departments, but when 3 people are out sick and 4 are late, I can’t do it all.
I also fought corporate to authorize more hours so I could have coverage for people to get sick or stuck in traffic, but corporate were a bunch of assholes after our chief competition bought us out and slashed staffing.
If retail jobs paid better than minimum wage, maybe the teenagers that are hired will be more willing to come in on time.
Crazy, I know.
We paid decently for retail. It was a few years back, but it looks like they pay about 40-50k now for floor-level staff. It’s not amazing, but way better than others.
What hurt more with the corporate buyout was the number of employees let go and the end of some truly great perks. Manufacturers had programs to get us credit towards free products in return for selling their stuff, and since almost all the companies had the programs we didn’t even have to shill one brand over another.
My better salespeople bcame experts in their products because they didn’t just see all the products as things they’d never be able to afford, which helped both our sales and helped inform the customers. And they’d get 10k+ of high-end products a year. In my best year as an underling, I got over 20 grand in freebies. But the new corporate overlords banned employees taking part in those programs because they were afraid staff may sell the freebies on the aftermarket.
Really depends what you are 10 minutes late for. A meeting with other participants, ok if your role is to sit and listen. Not OK if people are waiting for you to start. It’s not OK to be late to relieve a co worker either
That’s how you build anticipation
Depends on the job.
Depends on the coworker. I’m going to have to all Jeff’s side work anyway. He can wait until after my coffee.
Depends on the job. Retail? Jeff needs to leave when his shift is over. It’s nobody’s problem.
You ever ran late to a college class because you had to stay longer than scheduled at your shitty retail job to cover your perpetually late coworker who was supposed to relieve you?
Sometimes running 10 minutes late is no big deal, but sometimes it is. It becomes a problem the moment it causes someone else problems.
And if this is the case for a business they should plan for it because people will be late. Pretty easy to overlap schedules and be prepared - but that costs money. So obviously we can’t do that because the shareholders are the only thing that matters.
The lack of overlap is its own problem but if you know there isn’t an overlap (from looking at the schedule) and you have even the most basic respect for your coworker then you will be at work at the time of shift change. Especially for shitty jobs people work in college you being 10 minutes late means you get paid less money so it’s not like the scummy employer is hurting the only person you hurt is your fellow proletariat coworker
Yes, the business is responsible for their poor decisions jus the same as the tardy employee is, one does not absolve the other.
college class, late is not issue, when its not a midterm, or quiz day. usually the students make plans to cancel thier shifts for those days.
10 mins late to an office job where they get their 10m back, AOK.
10 mins late to cashier/sales gig where you’re relieving someone else, not great.
10 mins late to a meeting is bad
10 mins late to class is bad.
10 minutes late when you work in a hospital setting could mean I will be staying another hour to finish up what should have been the late worker’s responsibility
Sounds like poor management to me tbh.
If you have a meeting first thing, don’t.
If I have a meeting first thing in the morning that’s when I’ll get there. Even if it’s at 10.
No meetings today, guess I won’t be coming in
I never manage to absorb anything in a pre-0900 meeting. That first chunk of the day is for me to catch up on all the shit that happened since I was last there (personal opinion).
Showing up early or on time for any meeting, other than a client or outside collaborator , communicates to everyone involved that you have nothing better to do with your time.
So many well-intentioned posts in here are licking the boot. Traffic happens. IBS happens. Children emergencies happen. The company should shoulder the cost of contingencies to account for natural human fluctuation. If the job is mission critical, why are you demanding humans be robots?
Exceptions are ok. But what if someone is 10 minutes late every single time?
What consequences does their being late have for the business?
Depends on the business?
A teacher, quite a bit. A bus driver, a lot.
Working retail, depends on if they’re the only one working there.
Random office drone, not much.
Depends on the business?
That’s the nuance I was fishing for: There seems to be a blanket expectation that everyone everywhere need to be at work at the a specific time, usually set by the business owners rather than the employees themselves.
Random office drone, not much.
In that case, I don’t think being 10 minutes “late” is an issue, with exceptions (like fixed appointments) and limits (some shared time frame where colleagues can expect to reach each other or plan meetings in).
Some degree of flexibility with working times should be the standard, where practical. Anything with strict schedules where tardiness screws over others, I’m fully on board with expecting punctuality.
Are they getting their work done satisfactorily? Then who fucking cares
As long as they also stay 10 minutes later, what is the problem?
Depends on the job. On an office job nobody should care, flex hours should be the norm
But if they’re opening the store first in the morning, it’s a bigger issue
A person who cannot be punctual is ill in some way. Do you shine a spotlight on their affliction, sealing their fate? Or do you pull them aside and ask them if you can do anything to support them?
A person who cannot be punctual is ill in some way.
That’s a bit of a stretch
Is it the job of everyone else to assist you in confronting your problem? If we presume we are talking about adults then it absolutely is not.
Not only that, if I’m that crucial to a company my salary should get another zero.
Do they minder if i stay longer? No? Then why complain when I’m late?
Its about the whole picture, am I always late? Is my work done on time and well executed ?
If so… WHO CARES ABOUT THE TIME OR PLACE I DO THAT WORK IN???
If it’s shift work and someone is waiting on you then arrive so they can go home or start to work and a team its a big deal cause you’re wasting someone elses time.
Yeah, but how many Americans are actually doing that kind of shift work anymore? I know it’s not none, but I don’t think we’re worried about the shoe factory shutting down over this. Those factories already shut down, and managers in places like that don’t hesitate to shitcan anyone chronically 10 minutes late as an example.
More than you’d think. Any facilities that need 24 hour coverage like medical, care and of course corrections. All of which have in common the staff really don’t want to spend an extra 10-20 minutes waiting for a 20s something to show up and take offense when called out. And in my experience these 20s somethings hate any reason for them to be kept late at work.
Aaaaahh, you’re right. I totally didn’t think about medical and care facilities. I was only thinking of factory-style shift work.
How does shift work not account for overwhelming an overwhelming majority of jobs? Customer service is all shift work. That includes everything with a store front or call center. It also includes a lot of workshops. From my understanding, that is the majority of jobs.
“Shift work” in this case is more like the type where someone has to do a specific handover to another human. Not just anything that isn’t salaried work. So the meaning is more in the context of the Industrial Era 24-hour factory type of meaning, where it’s coordinated that 1 entire group leaves and another punch in at the same time. It’s just another meaning of the term.
Also, this is some clickbait garbage hating on Gen Z vs. noble brave smart Boomers with zero tolerance for tardiness - it’s their take on a survey of 1,000 adults in the UK and completely in the context of working in an office.
It depends by the job entirely, and I’ve only once as a lone bartender needed the next person in order to leave, never any other customer service jobs. You mention call centers, and I’ve never seen one that required someone else to take your place so you can leave other than Pig Butchering camps where they may or may not kill you for not performing. Call centers typically let people log in and get in the queue taking calls. Even ones with under 10 people.
Retail. It’s 100% on the companies for doing this, but cashiers, for example, usually have bare minimum staffing. If one cashier is late coming in, that probably delays someone’s lunch or someone getting to go home on time.
It’s not right, it’s not everywhere, and in a lot of places when you show up doesn’t/shouldn’t matter. But people should be mindful of the other people they impact. Slack off all you want at work, I don’t care unless it starts making more problems for me and the rest of the team.
Very true. I do not do “shift work”. So I have no clue there.
Closest for me would be: being on time for meetings because of the same reason. Do not waste other peoples time.
You’re also there to please the mentally ill manager.
If you are a firefighter?
Hehehe… HEY! IF the fire is out and no one died… Who cares that I just let the fire die out on his own???
Because your lateness impacts other employees and that is unfair to them.
It definitely depends on the job. I work in TV and live events. If your late you either miss the pre production meeting, or we all have to wait for you to start. If your later than that you are holding the team up and making people work harder to be ready by on-air time.
If your late
my late
Swipe keyboard and laziness. At least I showed up on time.
Yeah. It definitely depends on the job.
If you’re relieving someone, they might be annoyed if you’re late but nobody is going to die or anything. If your work isn’t extremely time sensitive, nobody should give a fuck…
If things can’t go because you’re not there, and it’s very time sensitive, then there’s a problem. Everyone is waiting on your ass to show up.
“ If your work isn’t extremely time sensitive, nobody should give a fuck…”
Except if Im staying to cover for you and I have other things I need to do or want to do I might give a fuck. The “no one should really care” POV overlooks how being late can impact others.
I had a specific exception for if you’re relieving someone.
I recognised this exact issue in my original statement.
“If you’re relieving someone, they might be annoyed if you’re late but nobody is going to die or anything.”
That’s not how I read this. I read this as you suggesting it isn’t a real problem.
It’s not a serious problem. Needs of the one vs needs of the many and all that.
It’s still discourteous.
But at the same time, people who do that kind of work, generally understand how annoying it is when their relief shows up late, so that kind of thing usually works itself out naturally… Or the chronic late person ends up needing to find a new job.
I recently did an essay on intergenerational work ethics for uni this semester. Basically, every generation except for Boomers don’t care about being on time when compared to giving quality output.
Which generations did your research cover besides boomers? Did you cover the ones that came before boomers? I’m asking because the silent generation (1928-45) are already getting rare due to age, potentially requiring different methodology, and it could be that the difference in attitude you observed could be a temporal thing (Everyone older than t thinks one way, and those younger think another way).
It didn’t cover the silent generation since they’re all retired now but i did read that Boomers were strongly driven to do better than their parents, hence they were much happier to do longer hours and have much higher company loyalty.
My essay covered Boomer, X, Y and Z.
Thanks for your reply.
What areas of work did you look into? I have managed a lot of shift work and there’s zero chance no one other than boomers cared in those roles about how others chronic lateness impacted them.
The papers I read in preparation for my essay mainly covered office, studio and healthcare work. My essay related to work ethics between Boomer, X, Y and Z, not tardiness, so I have no clue about the specifics of what each generation thinks with regards to lateness. Perhaps you could put your findings into a paper and get it peer reviewed.
“every generation except for Boomers don’t care about being on time when compared to giving quality output.”
“My essay related to work ethics between Boomer, X, Y and Z, not tardiness, so I have no clue about the specifics of what each generation thinks with regards to lateness.”
These seem to be at odds with each other. Can you clarify how you didn’t look into how generations view tardiness while at the same rime understanding how they view being late to things vs quality output?
As an aside if this kind of thing is your focus, has your university made you read the Pew trust’s post about why they have abandoned generational studies? It’s interesting if ypu haven’t
Here’s some of my bibliography for my essay in relation to inter-generational work ethics, if you’d like to knock yourself out: Wiedmer T (2015) Generations Do Differ: Best Practices in Leading Traditionalists, Boomers, and Generations X, Y, and Z, Delta Kappa Gamma Bulletin, vol. 82, no. 1, pp. 51–58 Cole, Tamitra G (2022). Work Ethic Differences in Generation Z Employees: An Explanatory Case Study. ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. Shatto B & Erwin K (2016) Moving on From Millennials: Preparing for Generation Z, The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, vol. 47, no. 6, pp. 253–254
Im not asking what work you did. I am asking for clarification as to your statements that seem to be at odds with each other. There’s a chance that Im missing something that explains this conflict which is why I asked the question I did.
If you are going to put forth your opinion and assert a degree of expertise you should expect people to ask you questions since you are claiming to have some degree of understanding.
So can you answer my last question please?
My job doesn’t care if I’m late, and my productivity has not changed
I have worked jobs that would dock you 15 minutes if you clocked in even 1 minute late, as a result everyone was always 15 minutes late. If you aren’t getting paid then you shouldn’t be working either. It’s stupid policies that lead to this sort of thing, don’t blame the employees for the dumb shit admin does.
I worked a job that would dock you four hours for 1 minute late.
I think that policy lasted… three weeks? Turns out if you dock someone a full morning’s pay, you won’t see them until afternoon.
That straight up sounds illegal
It probably was, but the GM was one of those “gonna do this until my lawyer finally tells me there’s no way to finesse it through the courts” guys.
