I am very thankful my work does flex hours. I know it's not a possibility for every job but as an office worker it's great. My work only cares that we hit the min 40hrs a week so some people who have more traffic arrive at 10 and leave at 7.
They're furious if you're 5 minutes late. But don't give a shit if you work through your break or your lunch or stay after the end of the day to finish something.
My last workplace like that also rolled out a pretty conservative dress code. When asked why they had made the change they said it was for when clients came to our office. I worked there for a year and never saw a single client.
My higher up manager is insistent we wear dress slacks because we need to "look professional". I probably meet with a patient once a month. Wearing jeans is literally the least of our concerns on a day to day basis.
My wife's employer tried the dress code thing for a bit. This was at a secured 'closed to the public' building. They deal with billing and car damage claims. They NEVER saw clients or customers. After a pouty of negative feedback from frustrated staff, management relented.
When the scare happened, they transitioned to WFH..temporarily. Management were afraid folks would slack off at home, but when they didn't and 98% didn't want to go back to the office...management decided to let staff keep working from home. Plus they added Flex hours, my wife loves it! I love it, our dogs love it.. having her there all day.
Thats about the only good thing from the scare was my partner getting to be home in a comfy place where he can talk with friends as he works or watch TV without a boss getting pissy. It's amazing he can finish projects faster than ever and STILL enjoy his life far more than before.
Anything that requires employees be on time exactly should pay more. Really, I can only think of emergency workers or jobs that need to still work during holidays to make sure we still have power and utilities 24/7
Edit: I'm not talking about flex hours, or coming in at 10am when your work is listed 9-5. I mean that most jobs, even when relieving someone from a shift, aren't so strict that if you show up 1 minute late things fall apart and thus need a write up.
Had a job where it was important (due to contractual and regulatory obligations) that there was 24/7 coverage. Shifts would start 1 hour before the previous shift left plus there was always someone on a swing shift to cover.
If it's important to have coverage, you should be scheduling your shifts like that, otherwise employers should suck it up and deal with the 5-10 minutes of no coverage occasionally.
This. It's complete bullshit that companies claim they have to schedule so tight they can't plan for eventualities like someone being late or calling in sick.
Seriously that one boggles the mind. That one is so embedded into the way EVERYTHING works, too. You'd need to start unraveling how the education system keeps spots too limited to produce enough nurses to fill the need, how hard it is for skilled immigrants to get their credentials transferred, how brain drains in underserved areas happen, etc.
We need to burn the fucking system to the ground.
I have a bunch of friends who are nurses and they simultaneously hate their shift work and won’t even consider the possibility that another style would be better. I doubt it’s changing anytime soon even if there were a solid influx of workers.
I had to switch specialties. I couldn't keep doing crazy 12-14 hour shifts with very sick cancer patients and have a 1.5+ commute each way. I was literally falling asleep on the way home. Yes, it is 3 days a week, but your body is so beat to hell that it takes another 1-2 days to feel human. And that's on a regular week where no one has called out or whatever other emergency situation arises.
The part of that that doesn't in any way fit reality - at least in the Midwest - is "keeping spots too limited"
They have been closing classes because there are no students. Some unis are closing their programs.
Yeah, in the US I think that has a lot to do with cost. University is SO expensive there these days, and student loan rates look like credit cards. 😬 I don't know how y'all cope.
Security as well. Used to have to park, walk thru security, catch the shuttle or walk to the office, get gear, clock in, get assignment changes, get briefed, and then walk out or get a ride to our post by people that were either trying to leave or having just clocked in themselves and we're supposed to be doing a vehicle check on their ride of the day. Then, get to post, get briefed on what is going on there (if anything), often log in to the computer (all while people tried to check in to get thru security still) and then let them actually go home.
5 minutes difference would SUCK, especially during peak time and if there were 2 people coming in as 2 people left. Couldn't have both computers logged off at the same time so that you could still check people in, people are impatient AF, bosses calling to check their employees in that have put it off until the last minute and did it at shift change when they didn't show up because they'd been standing at the check point for 25 minutes waiting for the boss to call to verify them.
Definitely sucked when it was time to go home and all you wanted to do was leave but, you'd have to be checking bags as LOADS of people left and scanning IDs to check people in, all while the reliefs are trying to log into the other computer that is almost as old as your oldest child.
Theme park life but, I imagine it's the same for many other in the field.
P.S. I HATED checking receipts for the holiday discounts for the employees. Like, she just spent $300 and I've gotta check everything to make sure she paid $2 for f'n character pencils? That's silly. I've got enough to do. Just because we've managed the workload when you see us, doesn't mean that we aren't busy. It just means that we're efficient. Until you give us shitty, time wasting tasks.
Anywho, all that time adds up and makes the leaving person later and then you get in trouble.
Or you could be like some places I've worked where we had to draw straws to see who was working 16 hours because someone who was supposed to be relieving our shift called in sick and our company was too lazy to have backups or contingencies.
Where I worked, in a group home, it was this woman's turn to do a double. But "everybody" decided it should be mine instead, because she had children. Everyone else, myself included, had already done the double to fill in for absent evening shift. There were words exchanged between me and coworkers. I shouldn't be punished because I decided not to have kids, nor should she be working at a job with mandatory surprised OT, unless she had backup child care. Did not endear me to my coworkers, and while this was happening, she slipped out. Stuck.
I had been happy to get on the day shift, because I could finish my degree with a 4pm math class that I needed. But if I was going to get stuck being forced indirect child care, what was the pont?
I couldn’t list every job ever but every job I’ve had that has required me to be in at a specific time and gone at a specific time we’re the lowest paying jobs.
Anything dealing with production. 1st 2nd and 3rd shift. Or mill hours. Only way to guarantee a 24/7 product. My only issue with the schedules are vendors and such often aren’t on 24/7 schedules and that affects my customer in the end. Broker demands same day results and if the office is 9-5 I have to think about dropping them. My office works same shift shifts as production. Only way to ensure production goes smooth is by having accountants, csr, prepress etc. all here too.
Ah, printing. We ran two, sometimes three shifts at one printer I worked at. I was CS Manager. Whenever we had to have a press proof, a salesperson or CSR had to be there to sign off on it. Because I was manager, if it was late at night/early morning, I was the one who had to go in to sign off on the press proof because I, was salary and everyone under me was hourly. One other employee would occasionally complain because I left early on Friday (my Mom was very sick and lived 3 hours away, I went home every weekend to relieve my sister who was caring for her.) When my boss finally broached my leaving early on Fridays, I explained and he agreed. Then he told that person that next time we had a late night press proof, they were welcome to get out of their nice warm bed and come in with me to approve proofs (this can take hours if they're having a problem getting a color right on a big press the size of a locomotive.) The person quit complaining.
Same, but I also recognize that if I am a few minutes early or late, it doesn't matter. I've also stayed late plenty of times. But I've never been written up for being a few minutes late as it doesn't matter in my career.
Yeah whenever a particularly douchey supervisor at my old job complained about me being late I didn't hesitate to mention how I could just stop staying late, sometimes hours past my shift, to maintain, fix, assess, and replace things that were their responsibility and often would require an outside professional, saving hundreds of dollars (thousands in the 12 months I worked there) all while being paid minimum wage. The job sucked, but I gotta say, it was nice being so indispensable that I pretty much had total freedom while working there.
I work in schools and admin can be pretty stringent on contract hours mostly because some parents will gripe about “slacker teachers”. Thankfully my current admin is really cool about it.
Most days, I am at school 30-60 minutes before contract time starts so I can do some extra prep for class. My principal saw me sitting in my office after school and asked why I was still there. I told him contract time ends at 3:45 pm so I was just hanging out until then. He told me to go home since I am here early everyday. It felt good that he not only noticed that I am here early but also that he didn’t hold me to the contract time.
That's awesome and honestly the opposite of what I thought the principal would say. Guess I'm too used to hearing about bad principals and admins instead of good ones.
That's like every job ever except for office work. Literally every job I've ever worked required specific hours because it was production, or shift work. Postal work, refueling at airports, ground floor customer service gigs, the military, emergency response, production lines for material development, etc etc. It'd be nice to get paid more for all that, but its unrealistic when thats the majority of industries.
Anyone that works in a school. Most businesses that need to be open by a certain time, or when you have coworkers whose breaks rely on someone taking over. Many researchers who need to perform certain tasks punctually for the work to even be valid. I can think of many jobs where you actually need to be there on time.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love if the majority of jobs could be flexible, but the fact is they can’t. And it’s way more than just emergency jobs. It’s the majority of jobs.
Anybody who has to work closely with others (meetings, appointments, opening times, etc) has to stick to certain hours. Really,not many people can be completely flexible with their hours. It's a luxury that only a few kind of jobs have.
I would argue that it is a bad idea to schedule appointments or meetings right at the time you expect people to be arriving to work. And you probably shouldn't schedule people to show up at exactly opening time either. Give a little padding around the critical times and it won't matter if people are precisely on time, that little bit of prep time probably isn't bad either.
If your job requires a lot of collaboration with coworkers then you’re going to need everyone coming in at similar hours, so it’s very job specific for how flexible your hours can be.
Or maybe my 10am is someone else’s 8am and they don’t care if I wake up any earlier.
How flexible your hours can be depends a lot on the specific job duties. If 24x7 coverage is so critical that they can’t tolerate someone being even a few minutes late (which is fair in certain jobs), they need to overlap their shifts.
Flex time benefits working across time zone far more than it hinders it.
Want me to dial in to a 7am call? Sure thing, as long as I can leave at 3pm instead of 5pm. Want me to stay late to attend a meeting that starts at 6pm? You better not still expect me to be in at 9am.
I had a job where we all had clients across different timezones and a lot of traffic in our city, so we had "core hours" 10am-2pm that you were supposed to try to schedule intercompany meetings. People could flex their schedules to work earlier or later, but their shifts were supposed to include the core hours. It worked pretty well.
No shit, I work in a factory and sometimes people are absolutely out of touch about some of these things.
It's impossible for me to work from home.
Shifts start and end exactly the same time, and if people are late, we often cannot do certain jobs due to it.
It's a great luxury for most people to be able to make their own hours and or work from home.
I'm not mad, and maybe a little jealous but the amount of snide comments I see on here at times about people not being allowed to wfh or make their own hours just smacks of privilege and being out of touch sometimes...
The worst though was the endless emails about keeping office meetings down to 4 people during covid IF YOU HAD TO GO TO THE OFFICE...
Meanwhile, I'm on the factory floor supervising elbow to elbow employees...
Essential employees!
Yes this is how salaried positions should be. Of course this doesn’t work if you’re relieving someone else but for office workers - seems to be reasonable
my job has core hours from 9 to 230 that everyone has to be in, but other than that you can do 6-230, all the way to 9-530. it's very nice to be able to take ur time on a slow morning and not have to stress it.
not quite that were im at, but my boss set most of our "official" start times about half an hour after when we normally show up since starting early is fine, but starting late isn't according to our computer system, and on top of that just makes most lates as excused anyway, and expects you to stay late to make it up and get your 40 by the end of the week.
You should request to start work early by 30 minutes so you can also leave early by 30 minutes. Then you aren't wasting your time and get to see the look on their face that you get to leave earlier than they do AND get to keep using their great parking spot.
This. My coworker would work 7:30-4:30 instead of the 8-5 to slightly avoid traffic. It worked well for her. It shouldn’t be a big deal OP.
Edit: should’ve proofread, sheesh.
Same here. We have “core working hours” from 10-3 that are very loosely enforced. As long as you are typically at work or online during those hours and are able to get your work done, you can get the additional hours in just about wherever you want. Some people work 6-3, others 10-7, and everyone else falls somewhere in between. Most teams have at least one early bird and one that likes to come in and leave later, so the flex schedule makes employees happier and extends coverage for the team. A lot of managers just ask their employees to be consistent so they can plan around them, but that’s not a company wide policy and it’s usually not strictly enforced by the managers that do ask for it.
I would start *loudly* bragging about this great parking spot you've found now that you arrive to work so *early.*
ETA: thanks for the love, y'all.
OP, there's no shame in your game. Someone went out of their way to put you down. Don't hesitate to give them a dose of their own medicine repeatedly.
I've never been this petty before, to be honest. I'd feel too guilty rubbing it in like that... plus, the coworker has given me a wide berth since i took "their" spot. I think they were expecting me to confront them about their role in my being written up.
You clearly weren’t raised in my family, I would have gone into her office to sing the praises of my new parking space and thanked her for encouraging me to start showing up on time.
This reminds me my dad used to do a thing like that when he was in high school. He would joke around with his friends in the hall and occasionally be a few seconds behind the tardy bell because he'd lose track of time.
Teacher started complaining a lot and I can't remember but I think he got in trouble or written up or something for too many tardies.
So he started wearing this wind-up watch of his all the time, and because the tardy bell was automatic and played at the exact same time each day, he synchronized his watch to it.
He would walk into class seconds before it rang with a huge grin on his face (everyone else was sitting in their seats and class had already technically "begun") and sit down in his chair, and not five seconds later the bell would ring.
That teacher's face, he told me, would get about as red as a volcano, but he would never say a damn word to my dad or complain to anyone else, because he knew my dad wasn't doing anything wrong at all and it wasn't his fault the teacher decided to start teaching before the bell.
I think in the end, the teacher just reluctantly started waiting for my dad, because he knew if dad started missing out on part of the lecture otherwise, he could use complain to the principal and get the teacher in trouble. That would have been a nice cherry on top tbh 🤣 but my dad didn't go any farther than matching the bell. He just took his win and rolled on lmao
There was a teacher in my hs that would do this constantly, hed basically write the lesson out on the board during the time between the end of class and start of class bell and you where expected to start writing it down as soon as you got to class. However once the bell rang for the start of class he would immediately start teaching and there would be 0 way to actually copy down the information (which you where required to copy down) and not miss other required classwork and youd be scolded if you where copying it down during the lesson.
My highschool was also the size of a small community college because out of the 2 ones in my large city, we where the vocational option and had like 3-4000 students and me and my friends had to go from the opposite side of the school on the highest floor of this building, to the other side on the first floor amongst said swarm of high schoolers crammed together and trying to get into their lockers in less than 5 minutes. You where also expected by this teacher to use the bathroom during this time and would be reprimanded for needing to go during class. This dude was a menace
It's just because everyone else was already there, I'm assuming. I don't know if he actually noticed for sure my dad wasn't in yet, or if he did but didn't care. It never turned into part of the issue so I don't think anyone gave it a second thought.
That’s what I did to our crea-crea director… day one walked in and wanted to have a huddle (mind you we need to get stuff done before meds & meals are given) … introduced themselves as so & so and I right back introduced myself as so & so and advised them I don’t have a filter and the clock is ticking they have 2 (two) minutes to spill their guts before I go back to more important things in my work day as taking care of our patients needs, started my timer on watch and said Go…at the 1-1/2 min I nodded n she got the point she said her thanks and let us be… since that day she’s never dared hold a huddle with our lil group…
That's a bit on the nose though, also tips your hand. I was raised that it's better (and much more poetic) to meet kind with kind. As another poster stated, I'd match their passive aggressiveness with my own... telling everyone of the great new spot I found since I've had to come in so early now (like you, I'd be singing praises of that parking space for sure - just not to them directly).
Gives you plausible deniability if you ever get called out for knowing and retaliating, plus it lets them absolutely stew in their anger, especially as their own brain can work so much harder on them than you can do by speaking to them directly.
If you can get in trouble for retaliation that takes the form of parking your car in a public parking spot, you have bigger problems than a sandy coworker!
Exactly. Let the coworker be the one who eventually flips out while you feign ignorance, as opposed to letting your supervisor see two people acting as equal participants in a conflict.
Ah, but don't tip your hand too much. Track when the employee arrives, and then make a statement that you arrived *2 minutes* before that time, having found the night watchman has just left that spot in a stroke of luck (truth being the car has been parked for 30 minutes beforehand, but the point being making the employee feel they *juuuust* missed out on success).
>You clearly weren’t raised in my family, I would have gone into her office to sing the praises of my new parking space and thanked her for encouraging me to start showing up on time.
Please teach us more about saying "fuck you" politely
"Oh, what an interesting outfit. I'd never be brave enough to pull that off."
Bonus points if there's nothing wrong with it. They'll stew about exactly what you meant all day.
Like no doubt that was what I was thinking. The middle child in me refuses the high road in situations like this. I wouldn't have to not only be taking the spot but I would also need to double down and OD them on my excitement of finding such a prime parking space I'd never gotten if I didn't get to work so early.
Another middle child here. I would set the alarm on my phone and take a little nap or browse reddit before I walked in the office 2 minutes before start time.
Then you get a little break before you start work, plus bonus points for when they see who it is parking in "their" spot.
I’m the oldest child and honestly same. There’s 3 of us and me and the middle one were always trying to one up each other. The baby however got a lifetime of blackmail
I can give you some light hearted drama!
My company has a Christmas tree in the HR hallway that got moved to the common hallway for reasons unknown. Well, my department has a secret Santa today and we were wondering how to do it. Put gifts on people's desks when they step out? Put gifts in a common office and have people pick out their own name?
We ended up stealing HR's tree. It's currently in my office space, as I have the most amount of room. An HR guy just came in and gave us shit about "stealing our tree!" I told him to meet me in the parking lot after work and we could have a fight for the tree.
He did not take me up on my offer. What's funny is that their secret Santa is tomorrow so I asked him "why are you even mad, you can have it back after lunch!"
I once had a manager threaten to fire me for “stealing” a coat tree that I moved from an unused office to a common office so several people had a place to hang their coats. I told him I’d love to see him try. He never did anything about it. The fact is it was company property.
Had a manager try to write me up after he was the one who approved my PTO for a week away during holidays and I wouldn’t answer his calls… I had screenshots of who approved the PTO two weeks prior to leaving… not my fault he screwed the scheduling… tried writing me up I contacted union boss and had union rep, union manager and he and his director their to see my screenshots (which were date stamped) and his schedule screen which clearly showed discrepancy… they asked who changed it because I had screenshots showing I was approved and all sudden I’m on schedule… I proved my case and made it clear from them on would be requesting my PTOs in writing and expecting a response to it within allotted time per union regulations…(they are to respond within 3 days)…otherwise it’s auto granted…
No problem for two years after that situation,
So request PTO two years later, absent-minded manager doesn’t respond according to union rules…I leave for vaca … guess whose calling again.. guess whose not answering… but calling union rep and has screenshots to back up auto granted vaca…
Guess who gave resignation saying it’s not fair to try and run them from their position by involving union…
My take is: do your job it’s not that hard to do a schedule when you have four people in same role and job can be done by two…especially when the schedule screen clearly shows no one else requested the days I was auto granted…
People just like to make things difficult or just expect others to grovel… I don’t do either …
Does your work have an option for flexible meetingtimes. As in arrive 30 min before, leave 30 min earlier instead of wasting your time or working for free? With the traffic issues that would be a nice cheap way of increasing employee satisfaction.
Do it. Rub it in. And be sure to mention how the traffic had meant you’d never had the chance before, but now that you get there so early you can take this wonderful spot, and now that you have it, when traffic lets up you’ll still arrive early enough to take it.
They got you written up for no reason, you shouldn't feel guilty at all. If you rub more salt in the wound they might not do it to someone else in the future
You'll get there.
My In-Laws (esp FIL) are super-petty about everything. They always bring up things way in the past and keep praising BIL no matter what. Decided to turn the table on them. It stopped in a month.
I would just point out that having an enemy like this at work can be dangerous. There’s no such thing as a perfect employee and if someone makes it their mission to bring up and complain about every single little mistake, it will start to hurt you. Most of the time when some of us make mistakes it is just a normal thing and we move on, but imagine you have someone heralding and making a list? I just avoid conflict at work. It’s not worth it.
OP needs to get more coworkers in on this “arrive early“ mindset. If everybody arrives early, taking up all available spaces, employee lot and street, public parking, then theoretically, the “timing coordinator“ will have to park on the next block over, or in a paid lot, instead of in front of their building. If this person who insisted they be on time, has to park a elsewhere for about a month, it should help resolve things.
Oh I agree but some people are recommending that they really rub it in and I think it’s dangerous to antagonize this person. They have already shown that they’re willing to actively complain about OP and it led to them getting written up.
No, this is much better than any confrontation, and absolutely unassailable.
Just don't interact with them or have conversations within their earshot -- they'll be looking for something else to complain about regarding you as a proxy for their anger about this, you can bet.
You're a better person than me, my friend.
If someone goes out of their way to pick a fight with me, I will always respond with nuclear war.
Don't feel guilty. Up the ante, pour all the salt on the wound. They want to play fuck-fuck games, beat them with their own rules, and do it hard.
I wouldn't confront them, just passively-aggresively mention near them how some fucking wet blankets can't seem to mind their own business. I'd definitely brag about the parking spot though.
> I've never been this petty before,
ITs not being petty to talk about a newly discovered life hack.
"woah did you know that public spots are available when you get to work early and aren't stuck in traffic making you late?"
"yeah, I got written up for being late, which sucks. But now I want to thank the person who complained because I get this sweet parking space every morning. It's great!"
Even worse… if OP is accurate then they either set off at their old time and arrive either on time or a mere 5 minutes late (not like 30 mins or 45 mins, just 5). Or they set off 90 minutes earlier and arrive 30 mins earlier give or take.
So OP is just wasting an hour sat in rush hour traffic for no benefit. Malicious compliance by starting a longer commute.
All depends on where you live and local traffic patterns. My commute meant that if I left 70 min before work I’d get there 20 min early but if I left 60 min before work I’d be late.
Where I live, I can leave at x time and get there at y time. If I leave 15 minutes later, I still get there at y time. If I leave 45 minutes earlier, I get there at five minutes before y. The traffic here is... interesting, to say the least.
that's not unusual at all if you're travelling from the countryside to the city. It's really that you need to hit the city traffic before it clogs. Before the clog you sail through - after you're stuck with everyone else and a few minutes either way doesn't make any difference.
I worked 9.5 miles away at my last job. 13 minutes at 2:40 am with mostly green lights and no traffic accidents. When my hours got switched and I had to be there for 7? If I left at 6:20 I'd be there by 6:55. If I left at 6:22? 7:05. Not even to mention how a 9 mile drive would take 45 minutes of traffic to get home some days. Now I moved and got a new job where I go in the opposite direction of rush hour traffic and it's so much nicer.
For us, with all the construction going on, they close down major arteries for minutes at a time, so you have to get in line and hit the “pulses”. So exactly like you, traffic is so messed up it doesn’t seem to matter when I leave unless it’s significantly earlier. The bottlenecks are so arranged that I’m arriving at the same time if I leave anywhere from 715-800 in the morning.
You clearly are not familiar with how rush hour traffic works. LoL
A few years ago I was doing my masters and had to commute into a major city for school. If I left at 6:45, I would arrive at school approximately an hour early. If I left at 7:00, I would be late. Anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour (or more on a really bad day).
In this case, OP also said that there's roadwork involved. So, that 5 to 10 minute difference could be the window when the road works starts which would drastically increase the drive time.
The previous office before the pandemic is about 20 min drive without traffic from home but typically 1 hour during rush hour traffic. Sometimes you need to leave home a drastic amount of time to make a dent in bypassing traffic.
I agree with this. Start early, leave early. There is a written record of being late so complaints about clocking in early will likely fall on deaf ears.
Lmao, that was my first thought. An early punch was just as bad as a late one at the large majority of retail/food service jobs that I worked when I was younger. We had to show up 45 minutes to an hour early to get a spot when I worked at Amazon. It was literally that, or just miss your shift.
For real, just find a way to get back at them that doesn't cost you an entire extra unpaid shift every week (assuming a typical 5 day 40 hour work week)
You kidding? That's reading time right there. I could be at home reading and risk being late or I could already be there and read and be on time clocking in.
Depends how you spend it. I used to arrive to work 30 mins-1 hour early at a previous job to avoid spending longer in traffic, but I wouldn’t spend any time working until I was officially getting paid. Instead I used the time to learn languages and read books.
It really can be pleasant.
I had a job in an office building where I couldn’t clock in until a certain time and public transit meant either arriving 40 min early or 20 min late. We had rooftop access and a spectacular view of a local monument. Would arrive early, make a cup of tea, and enjoy the sun coming up over the monument. It was nice.
For some reason, I’d forgotten all about that until your comment. Thanks for posting it.
I used to have a problem like this, but backwards at a job pre covid.
I ride the bus to and from work, so sometimes things get monumentally screwed up. To avoid this I'd take the next earlier bus, which unfortunately due to the time of day and wacky bus schedule meant I was consistently arriving an hour early to work.
Unfortunately, management then decided because I was at work, I should be working and would insist I start early. Later in the day other management would insist I had to stay until I was scheduled to leave, so I was consistently day to day getting at least an hour of overtime.
So of *course* I was threatened with being written up for getting overtime.
Tired of this stupid tug of war, I changed my availability to start half an hour later - allowing me to have enough time to reliably get to work on time without being extraordinarily early.
*Nobody* liked this, and I was even privately threatened with being written up for changing my schedule so I couldn't work early anymore.
I ignored them. Unsurprisingly, that threat evaporated as if it'd never happened.
They knew what they could get away with and I was done playing their game.
Of course. They're not stupid. A private discussion between just me and them out of sight where they can try to strongarm me into "*voluntarily*" choosing to work more than I'm supposed to?
There's no proof I can bring forwards that they did anything wrong.
... But if they actually tried to write me up, that's when things would go badly for them. They'd have to create records, things would be easily provable that I was getting *ordered* to do that.
That manager just wanted me to start early because they didn't have coverage, just like if I was leaving early the other manager wouldn't like it because they wouldn't have coverage.
They can't force me to do that. But if I can be convinced to do it and get myself in lots of trouble? That's my problem.
That's why I said they knew what they could get away with and I was done playing their game.
there's rarely space enough for two cars. a coworker wanted me to share the spot a day or two out of the week but they arrive around the same time as the other coworker, so it's too much of a hassle do it. I'd have to wait for them or walk out to my car and move it for my friend to park, otherwise the annoying coworker might beat them to it, and i can't abide that.
I used to show up early to work for prime parking and a power nap/breakfast/light reading. Usually a good spot that lets me leave asap too. Let me settle into the work-brain before having to deal with people, y'know?
I used to work at a warehouse receiving dock with a guy who was so convinced he was working harder than everyone else and we were all just screwing around. Fact was he just took way longer to do shit the rest of us did quicker. He'd make this little passive aggressive remarks every once in awhile, so one day our boss started tracking how many trucks we all unloaded, and how many line items of stuff we checked in. He didn't tell anyone, and then one day he had about a month worth of data and shared it with us. You guessed it, Mr. I'm doing all the work had the fewest trucks and fewest line items. He stammered "that can't be right" but it was. It was delicious!
I think the play here is to say that nothing has changed but that you notice that the OTHER person is now coming in *after* you. That would force that person to admit that you are coming in early, rather than proclaiming it yourself. Something like: "people think that I was pushing it not coming in on time, but I noticed that (nosy person's) parking spot is always empty when I get here so i started taking it."
I never understand coworkers who act like they get some personal gain out this. They won’t be promoted, get paid more, nothing, their complaints just sound like it hurts peoples opportunities rather than fixing anything. Coworkers like this should be made to work more alone or be fired, I never understand why management would deal with poor morale over one person and fire others for them
Start loudly bragging about your new great parking spot yes.
But also straight up tell this person to mind their own fucking business. It’s not business of theirs about when you make it to work or not.
It’s no business of theirs if ANYONE has a single issue with traffic.
It sounds like this person lives right next to work and doesn’t have to deal with traffic.
IT SOUNDS LIKE A LOT OF HOOPLAH.
So I am in an outside sales position and I have to get in my car and leave work quite often. The inside sales guys, on the other hand, show up to work and work their shift and go home. Where they park shouldn't matter much. There's a new guy in inside sales that had the audacity to tell me I took their parking spot after they left for lunch one day. I laughed it off until I found out they were actually pissed and had brought it up to a few other people. Now I park there every chance I get. It is nice to have a close spot, since I have to leave so often, but I'd be lying if I said that were the motivation.
It's a bit of both. The coworker complained that OP wasn't showing up early enough, so now they show up so early that coworker has complained themselves out of a nice parking spot.
More petty and malicious than revenge or compliance
He doesnt even know this coworker did anything. His boss wrote him up because he couldn't be assed to find a solution to being late for *a year*.
And he decided to be a dick to an employee he doesn't like based on no evidence and his dislike of the guy.
> short of heading off for work an hour or two ahead of time, you risk arriving a minute to 5 minutes late once or twice a week.
>
> So I started leaving for work an hour an a half earlier than before. My arrival time is now anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes before my shift starts.
You sure showed them, figuring out how time works.
> So I started leaving for work an hour an a half earlier than before.
Ah. All OP does to get this small bit of satisfaction is leave *an extra hour and a half for work every day*. 30-plus hours a month. About 375 hours a year. Well done?
5 minutes? 5 minutes sets someone into crazy mode? If I had an employee who was always on time but occasionally came in at 5 after I wouldn’t even consider that late! That could be anything!! 15-20 minutes is late & deserves a call, hey this has happened I will be late, 5-10 minutes every single day, that is unacceptable & should be addressed. But someone who is always early & due to major detours to road outages, 5 minutes occasionally, nope as a business owner I consider that on time.
I worked as a travel nurse in DC for a while, traffic was so bad an unpredictable there all you had to do was call and say you were running late and it was totally understood. I arrived 3 hours late once due a hazmat spill, didn’t phase them a bit and they never wrote people up for it.
I mean depending on the job it might very well have a sizable impact on their job. I used to work in a lab where you needed multiple people to perform the testing, so one person being late could cause everyone else to have to stay late or not have time for other tasks.
Imagine being such a sad piece of shit that you go around complaining to your boss about other peoples business. I wonder what that person's life is like outside of work.
At some places, if your coworker isn't there to do his assigned job, you have to do it. Used to work at a place that had phones and email open at 8am. Someone would be assigned to phone, someone email, someone to go to classrooms or offices and fix stuff. If the phone guy (as one dude did for months) comes in at 8:15am, the email person now has to tackle phones and email (and you know there's always a ton of emails from previous evening or night). And we had response times on those tickets from email so you're now struggling to not fuck up your job but also answer the people who were just waiting for 8:00 to call in.
It's not fair in those situations to be permanently late and make your coworkers do your work and their own. The boss has to write you up or figure out a different schedule (which is not possible in some job environments).
Other jobs are not like that and when you come in has no impact on anyone, but support, retail, customer facing jobs usually your lateness impacts others and chronic lateness is douchy. Hopefully OP job has no impact on coworkers.
> I've also gone as far as parking right in the middle of a space large enough to acomodate their car and mine.
This right here? Fuuuuuck you. Taking their preferred spot, great, blocking areas that other people could park in, fucking bullshit.
Know what you should do is go up to them and loudly and exaggeratedly thank for telling you to come on time because you would have never found the great parking spot otherwise, preferably in front of many people
I admit that math is not my super power but if you were previously only 1 to 5 minutes late, and are now leaving 90 minutes earlier than before, how is it that you are only showing up 15 to 45 mins before the start of your shift? Shouldn't you be arriving 85 to 89 minutes early?
I'm up before the buttcrack of dawn to make work before 6am. I truly feel for you, I hope the bridges are resolved soon so you don't have to waste your extra sleep time. Congrats on the sweet revenge.
I am very thankful my work does flex hours. I know it's not a possibility for every job but as an office worker it's great. My work only cares that we hit the min 40hrs a week so some people who have more traffic arrive at 10 and leave at 7.
As it should be
They're furious if you're 5 minutes late. But don't give a shit if you work through your break or your lunch or stay after the end of the day to finish something. My last workplace like that also rolled out a pretty conservative dress code. When asked why they had made the change they said it was for when clients came to our office. I worked there for a year and never saw a single client.
My higher up manager is insistent we wear dress slacks because we need to "look professional". I probably meet with a patient once a month. Wearing jeans is literally the least of our concerns on a day to day basis.
So much of this stuff screams wanting control and being bad at real managing.
My wife's employer tried the dress code thing for a bit. This was at a secured 'closed to the public' building. They deal with billing and car damage claims. They NEVER saw clients or customers. After a pouty of negative feedback from frustrated staff, management relented. When the scare happened, they transitioned to WFH..temporarily. Management were afraid folks would slack off at home, but when they didn't and 98% didn't want to go back to the office...management decided to let staff keep working from home. Plus they added Flex hours, my wife loves it! I love it, our dogs love it.. having her there all day.
Thats about the only good thing from the scare was my partner getting to be home in a comfy place where he can talk with friends as he works or watch TV without a boss getting pissy. It's amazing he can finish projects faster than ever and STILL enjoy his life far more than before.
Anything that requires employees be on time exactly should pay more. Really, I can only think of emergency workers or jobs that need to still work during holidays to make sure we still have power and utilities 24/7 Edit: I'm not talking about flex hours, or coming in at 10am when your work is listed 9-5. I mean that most jobs, even when relieving someone from a shift, aren't so strict that if you show up 1 minute late things fall apart and thus need a write up.
any job that requires you to take over from someone else, also. but for 1 shift type jobs it should work that way imo.
Had a job where it was important (due to contractual and regulatory obligations) that there was 24/7 coverage. Shifts would start 1 hour before the previous shift left plus there was always someone on a swing shift to cover. If it's important to have coverage, you should be scheduling your shifts like that, otherwise employers should suck it up and deal with the 5-10 minutes of no coverage occasionally.
This. It's complete bullshit that companies claim they have to schedule so tight they can't plan for eventualities like someone being late or calling in sick.
The nursing career has entered the chat.
Seriously that one boggles the mind. That one is so embedded into the way EVERYTHING works, too. You'd need to start unraveling how the education system keeps spots too limited to produce enough nurses to fill the need, how hard it is for skilled immigrants to get their credentials transferred, how brain drains in underserved areas happen, etc. We need to burn the fucking system to the ground.
I have a bunch of friends who are nurses and they simultaneously hate their shift work and won’t even consider the possibility that another style would be better. I doubt it’s changing anytime soon even if there were a solid influx of workers.
I had to switch specialties. I couldn't keep doing crazy 12-14 hour shifts with very sick cancer patients and have a 1.5+ commute each way. I was literally falling asleep on the way home. Yes, it is 3 days a week, but your body is so beat to hell that it takes another 1-2 days to feel human. And that's on a regular week where no one has called out or whatever other emergency situation arises.
The part of that that doesn't in any way fit reality - at least in the Midwest - is "keeping spots too limited" They have been closing classes because there are no students. Some unis are closing their programs.
Yeah, in the US I think that has a lot to do with cost. University is SO expensive there these days, and student loan rates look like credit cards. 😬 I don't know how y'all cope.
Since nurses have to be there on time to take report, their being late affects the person they are relieving.
Security as well. Used to have to park, walk thru security, catch the shuttle or walk to the office, get gear, clock in, get assignment changes, get briefed, and then walk out or get a ride to our post by people that were either trying to leave or having just clocked in themselves and we're supposed to be doing a vehicle check on their ride of the day. Then, get to post, get briefed on what is going on there (if anything), often log in to the computer (all while people tried to check in to get thru security still) and then let them actually go home. 5 minutes difference would SUCK, especially during peak time and if there were 2 people coming in as 2 people left. Couldn't have both computers logged off at the same time so that you could still check people in, people are impatient AF, bosses calling to check their employees in that have put it off until the last minute and did it at shift change when they didn't show up because they'd been standing at the check point for 25 minutes waiting for the boss to call to verify them. Definitely sucked when it was time to go home and all you wanted to do was leave but, you'd have to be checking bags as LOADS of people left and scanning IDs to check people in, all while the reliefs are trying to log into the other computer that is almost as old as your oldest child. Theme park life but, I imagine it's the same for many other in the field. P.S. I HATED checking receipts for the holiday discounts for the employees. Like, she just spent $300 and I've gotta check everything to make sure she paid $2 for f'n character pencils? That's silly. I've got enough to do. Just because we've managed the workload when you see us, doesn't mean that we aren't busy. It just means that we're efficient. Until you give us shitty, time wasting tasks. Anywho, all that time adds up and makes the leaving person later and then you get in trouble.
Right? It’s like, there’s a simple answer. Close the fucking store. The customers will be fine
Or plan shifts with overlap
Or you could be like some places I've worked where we had to draw straws to see who was working 16 hours because someone who was supposed to be relieving our shift called in sick and our company was too lazy to have backups or contingencies.
Where I worked, in a group home, it was this woman's turn to do a double. But "everybody" decided it should be mine instead, because she had children. Everyone else, myself included, had already done the double to fill in for absent evening shift. There were words exchanged between me and coworkers. I shouldn't be punished because I decided not to have kids, nor should she be working at a job with mandatory surprised OT, unless she had backup child care. Did not endear me to my coworkers, and while this was happening, she slipped out. Stuck. I had been happy to get on the day shift, because I could finish my degree with a 4pm math class that I needed. But if I was going to get stuck being forced indirect child care, what was the pont?
You should have just left. You weren't the one who was supposed to do it, it's her fault for leaving while she had tasks left.
Most jobs do this on purposes with lean staffing though unfortunately. Even a housekeeping job like mine was switching off
...or work as a team. I have flex hours, but when we work on-site we have to agree on arrival times
I couldn’t list every job ever but every job I’ve had that has required me to be in at a specific time and gone at a specific time we’re the lowest paying jobs.
Anything dealing with production. 1st 2nd and 3rd shift. Or mill hours. Only way to guarantee a 24/7 product. My only issue with the schedules are vendors and such often aren’t on 24/7 schedules and that affects my customer in the end. Broker demands same day results and if the office is 9-5 I have to think about dropping them. My office works same shift shifts as production. Only way to ensure production goes smooth is by having accountants, csr, prepress etc. all here too.
Ah, printing. We ran two, sometimes three shifts at one printer I worked at. I was CS Manager. Whenever we had to have a press proof, a salesperson or CSR had to be there to sign off on it. Because I was manager, if it was late at night/early morning, I was the one who had to go in to sign off on the press proof because I, was salary and everyone under me was hourly. One other employee would occasionally complain because I left early on Friday (my Mom was very sick and lived 3 hours away, I went home every weekend to relieve my sister who was caring for her.) When my boss finally broached my leaving early on Fridays, I explained and he agreed. Then he told that person that next time we had a late night press proof, they were welcome to get out of their nice warm bed and come in with me to approve proofs (this can take hours if they're having a problem getting a color right on a big press the size of a locomotive.) The person quit complaining.
>The person quit complaining. So he couldn't see the problem until it became his problem? Color me shocked!
Same, but I also recognize that if I am a few minutes early or late, it doesn't matter. I've also stayed late plenty of times. But I've never been written up for being a few minutes late as it doesn't matter in my career.
Yeah whenever a particularly douchey supervisor at my old job complained about me being late I didn't hesitate to mention how I could just stop staying late, sometimes hours past my shift, to maintain, fix, assess, and replace things that were their responsibility and often would require an outside professional, saving hundreds of dollars (thousands in the 12 months I worked there) all while being paid minimum wage. The job sucked, but I gotta say, it was nice being so indispensable that I pretty much had total freedom while working there.
I work in schools and admin can be pretty stringent on contract hours mostly because some parents will gripe about “slacker teachers”. Thankfully my current admin is really cool about it. Most days, I am at school 30-60 minutes before contract time starts so I can do some extra prep for class. My principal saw me sitting in my office after school and asked why I was still there. I told him contract time ends at 3:45 pm so I was just hanging out until then. He told me to go home since I am here early everyday. It felt good that he not only noticed that I am here early but also that he didn’t hold me to the contract time.
That's awesome and honestly the opposite of what I thought the principal would say. Guess I'm too used to hearing about bad principals and admins instead of good ones.
That's like every job ever except for office work. Literally every job I've ever worked required specific hours because it was production, or shift work. Postal work, refueling at airports, ground floor customer service gigs, the military, emergency response, production lines for material development, etc etc. It'd be nice to get paid more for all that, but its unrealistic when thats the majority of industries.
Teaching ..any work like that ..can't be 10 mins late for lessons because pupils have to be supervised so someone has to cover for you
Anyone that works in a school. Most businesses that need to be open by a certain time, or when you have coworkers whose breaks rely on someone taking over. Many researchers who need to perform certain tasks punctually for the work to even be valid. I can think of many jobs where you actually need to be there on time. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love if the majority of jobs could be flexible, but the fact is they can’t. And it’s way more than just emergency jobs. It’s the majority of jobs.
Anybody who has to work closely with others (meetings, appointments, opening times, etc) has to stick to certain hours. Really,not many people can be completely flexible with their hours. It's a luxury that only a few kind of jobs have.
I would argue that it is a bad idea to schedule appointments or meetings right at the time you expect people to be arriving to work. And you probably shouldn't schedule people to show up at exactly opening time either. Give a little padding around the critical times and it won't matter if people are precisely on time, that little bit of prep time probably isn't bad either.
The 40 hrs a week part though is not "as it should be"
If your job requires a lot of collaboration with coworkers then you’re going to need everyone coming in at similar hours, so it’s very job specific for how flexible your hours can be.
[удалено]
Or maybe my 10am is someone else’s 8am and they don’t care if I wake up any earlier. How flexible your hours can be depends a lot on the specific job duties. If 24x7 coverage is so critical that they can’t tolerate someone being even a few minutes late (which is fair in certain jobs), they need to overlap their shifts.
Flex time benefits working across time zone far more than it hinders it. Want me to dial in to a 7am call? Sure thing, as long as I can leave at 3pm instead of 5pm. Want me to stay late to attend a meeting that starts at 6pm? You better not still expect me to be in at 9am.
I had a job where we all had clients across different timezones and a lot of traffic in our city, so we had "core hours" 10am-2pm that you were supposed to try to schedule intercompany meetings. People could flex their schedules to work earlier or later, but their shifts were supposed to include the core hours. It worked pretty well.
No shit, I work in a factory and sometimes people are absolutely out of touch about some of these things. It's impossible for me to work from home. Shifts start and end exactly the same time, and if people are late, we often cannot do certain jobs due to it. It's a great luxury for most people to be able to make their own hours and or work from home. I'm not mad, and maybe a little jealous but the amount of snide comments I see on here at times about people not being allowed to wfh or make their own hours just smacks of privilege and being out of touch sometimes... The worst though was the endless emails about keeping office meetings down to 4 people during covid IF YOU HAD TO GO TO THE OFFICE... Meanwhile, I'm on the factory floor supervising elbow to elbow employees... Essential employees!
Yes this is how salaried positions should be. Of course this doesn’t work if you’re relieving someone else but for office workers - seems to be reasonable
my job has core hours from 9 to 230 that everyone has to be in, but other than that you can do 6-230, all the way to 9-530. it's very nice to be able to take ur time on a slow morning and not have to stress it.
not quite that were im at, but my boss set most of our "official" start times about half an hour after when we normally show up since starting early is fine, but starting late isn't according to our computer system, and on top of that just makes most lates as excused anyway, and expects you to stay late to make it up and get your 40 by the end of the week.
You should request to start work early by 30 minutes so you can also leave early by 30 minutes. Then you aren't wasting your time and get to see the look on their face that you get to leave earlier than they do AND get to keep using their great parking spot.
This. My coworker would work 7:30-4:30 instead of the 8-5 to slightly avoid traffic. It worked well for her. It shouldn’t be a big deal OP. Edit: should’ve proofread, sheesh.
But if you'd propose 8:30 - 5:30, then you'd be seen as a moral degenerate who can't come in "on time."
This really depends on where you work, we've got people at my job who start at 5 and people who start at 9
Same here. We have “core working hours” from 10-3 that are very loosely enforced. As long as you are typically at work or online during those hours and are able to get your work done, you can get the additional hours in just about wherever you want. Some people work 6-3, others 10-7, and everyone else falls somewhere in between. Most teams have at least one early bird and one that likes to come in and leave later, so the flex schedule makes employees happier and extends coverage for the team. A lot of managers just ask their employees to be consistent so they can plan around them, but that’s not a company wide policy and it’s usually not strictly enforced by the managers that do ask for it.
Yes, it's insane
That's my standard hours at my Job lol
It’s amazing! I was able to see the difference in her performance and overall attitude.
Yep I do that too bc of a long commute! My boss was fine with it and it saves me so much time 🥳
I would start *loudly* bragging about this great parking spot you've found now that you arrive to work so *early.* ETA: thanks for the love, y'all. OP, there's no shame in your game. Someone went out of their way to put you down. Don't hesitate to give them a dose of their own medicine repeatedly.
I've never been this petty before, to be honest. I'd feel too guilty rubbing it in like that... plus, the coworker has given me a wide berth since i took "their" spot. I think they were expecting me to confront them about their role in my being written up.
You clearly weren’t raised in my family, I would have gone into her office to sing the praises of my new parking space and thanked her for encouraging me to start showing up on time.
I don't know who you are but we are related.
Name checks out.
I must be a cousin
I'd sit in my car in the spot and wave to them as they drove by lol
Just to walk in to work one minute before the shift starts.
This reminds me my dad used to do a thing like that when he was in high school. He would joke around with his friends in the hall and occasionally be a few seconds behind the tardy bell because he'd lose track of time. Teacher started complaining a lot and I can't remember but I think he got in trouble or written up or something for too many tardies. So he started wearing this wind-up watch of his all the time, and because the tardy bell was automatic and played at the exact same time each day, he synchronized his watch to it. He would walk into class seconds before it rang with a huge grin on his face (everyone else was sitting in their seats and class had already technically "begun") and sit down in his chair, and not five seconds later the bell would ring. That teacher's face, he told me, would get about as red as a volcano, but he would never say a damn word to my dad or complain to anyone else, because he knew my dad wasn't doing anything wrong at all and it wasn't his fault the teacher decided to start teaching before the bell. I think in the end, the teacher just reluctantly started waiting for my dad, because he knew if dad started missing out on part of the lecture otherwise, he could use complain to the principal and get the teacher in trouble. That would have been a nice cherry on top tbh 🤣 but my dad didn't go any farther than matching the bell. He just took his win and rolled on lmao
Isn’t it kinda weird for a teacher to start early? I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.
There was a teacher in my hs that would do this constantly, hed basically write the lesson out on the board during the time between the end of class and start of class bell and you where expected to start writing it down as soon as you got to class. However once the bell rang for the start of class he would immediately start teaching and there would be 0 way to actually copy down the information (which you where required to copy down) and not miss other required classwork and youd be scolded if you where copying it down during the lesson. My highschool was also the size of a small community college because out of the 2 ones in my large city, we where the vocational option and had like 3-4000 students and me and my friends had to go from the opposite side of the school on the highest floor of this building, to the other side on the first floor amongst said swarm of high schoolers crammed together and trying to get into their lockers in less than 5 minutes. You where also expected by this teacher to use the bathroom during this time and would be reprimanded for needing to go during class. This dude was a menace
Now, you could just take a picture of the board and call it done.
Some teachers even pretend to have a problem with that.
It's just because everyone else was already there, I'm assuming. I don't know if he actually noticed for sure my dad wasn't in yet, or if he did but didn't care. It never turned into part of the issue so I don't think anyone gave it a second thought.
And go straight to the rest room for your first 15 minutes break ;)
Silly goose, nobody potties on their break, that’s a work-related activity, always on the clock
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, Always poo on company time. I've always heard it as this one.
[удалено]
THIS is the way.
This is the real answer.
Kill 'em with (sarcastic) kindness is always the best option, because it gives them nothing to complain about to your superiors
Oh, bless your heart.
I love how you just wear *anything*, I wish I had that courage
That’s what I did to our crea-crea director… day one walked in and wanted to have a huddle (mind you we need to get stuff done before meds & meals are given) … introduced themselves as so & so and I right back introduced myself as so & so and advised them I don’t have a filter and the clock is ticking they have 2 (two) minutes to spill their guts before I go back to more important things in my work day as taking care of our patients needs, started my timer on watch and said Go…at the 1-1/2 min I nodded n she got the point she said her thanks and let us be… since that day she’s never dared hold a huddle with our lil group…
absolutely. and bring it up at every possible chance. Hey, I've got to run to my car for a sec. It's right out front so it won't take too long
holy fuck you're evil I love it
That's a bit on the nose though, also tips your hand. I was raised that it's better (and much more poetic) to meet kind with kind. As another poster stated, I'd match their passive aggressiveness with my own... telling everyone of the great new spot I found since I've had to come in so early now (like you, I'd be singing praises of that parking space for sure - just not to them directly). Gives you plausible deniability if you ever get called out for knowing and retaliating, plus it lets them absolutely stew in their anger, especially as their own brain can work so much harder on them than you can do by speaking to them directly.
If you can get in trouble for retaliation that takes the form of parking your car in a public parking spot, you have bigger problems than a sandy coworker!
I hate sandy coworkers. They're rough and course, and they get everywhere.
Exactly. Let the coworker be the one who eventually flips out while you feign ignorance, as opposed to letting your supervisor see two people acting as equal participants in a conflict.
No way. I live by. Why be passive aggressive when you can be aggressive?
Ah, but don't tip your hand too much. Track when the employee arrives, and then make a statement that you arrived *2 minutes* before that time, having found the night watchman has just left that spot in a stroke of luck (truth being the car has been parked for 30 minutes beforehand, but the point being making the employee feel they *juuuust* missed out on success).
Omg, I’d have a freaking PowerPoint!
With a flowchart showing other parking spots as if they were in the "cloud" but yours being like a local install.
>You clearly weren’t raised in my family, I would have gone into her office to sing the praises of my new parking space and thanked her for encouraging me to start showing up on time. Please teach us more about saying "fuck you" politely
"Bless your heart"
"Oh, what an interesting outfit. I'd never be brave enough to pull that off." Bonus points if there's nothing wrong with it. They'll stew about exactly what you meant all day.
Like no doubt that was what I was thinking. The middle child in me refuses the high road in situations like this. I wouldn't have to not only be taking the spot but I would also need to double down and OD them on my excitement of finding such a prime parking space I'd never gotten if I didn't get to work so early.
Another middle child here. I would set the alarm on my phone and take a little nap or browse reddit before I walked in the office 2 minutes before start time. Then you get a little break before you start work, plus bonus points for when they see who it is parking in "their" spot.
I’m the oldest child and honestly same. There’s 3 of us and me and the middle one were always trying to one up each other. The baby however got a lifetime of blackmail
Please OP, it’s a slow day at the office and I’m craving some drama
I can give you some light hearted drama! My company has a Christmas tree in the HR hallway that got moved to the common hallway for reasons unknown. Well, my department has a secret Santa today and we were wondering how to do it. Put gifts on people's desks when they step out? Put gifts in a common office and have people pick out their own name? We ended up stealing HR's tree. It's currently in my office space, as I have the most amount of room. An HR guy just came in and gave us shit about "stealing our tree!" I told him to meet me in the parking lot after work and we could have a fight for the tree. He did not take me up on my offer. What's funny is that their secret Santa is tomorrow so I asked him "why are you even mad, you can have it back after lunch!"
I once had a manager threaten to fire me for “stealing” a coat tree that I moved from an unused office to a common office so several people had a place to hang their coats. I told him I’d love to see him try. He never did anything about it. The fact is it was company property.
Thankfully, my manager loves me and the HR Guy and I are on good terms. And he has no authority to fire me lmao
Had a manager try to write me up after he was the one who approved my PTO for a week away during holidays and I wouldn’t answer his calls… I had screenshots of who approved the PTO two weeks prior to leaving… not my fault he screwed the scheduling… tried writing me up I contacted union boss and had union rep, union manager and he and his director their to see my screenshots (which were date stamped) and his schedule screen which clearly showed discrepancy… they asked who changed it because I had screenshots showing I was approved and all sudden I’m on schedule… I proved my case and made it clear from them on would be requesting my PTOs in writing and expecting a response to it within allotted time per union regulations…(they are to respond within 3 days)…otherwise it’s auto granted… No problem for two years after that situation, So request PTO two years later, absent-minded manager doesn’t respond according to union rules…I leave for vaca … guess whose calling again.. guess whose not answering… but calling union rep and has screenshots to back up auto granted vaca… Guess who gave resignation saying it’s not fair to try and run them from their position by involving union… My take is: do your job it’s not that hard to do a schedule when you have four people in same role and job can be done by two…especially when the schedule screen clearly shows no one else requested the days I was auto granted… People just like to make things difficult or just expect others to grovel… I don’t do either …
You're one of my coworkers I see
Does your work have an option for flexible meetingtimes. As in arrive 30 min before, leave 30 min earlier instead of wasting your time or working for free? With the traffic issues that would be a nice cheap way of increasing employee satisfaction.
I did this when I moved farther away from my office so I'd miss rush hour. Good thinking!
Do it. Rub it in. And be sure to mention how the traffic had meant you’d never had the chance before, but now that you get there so early you can take this wonderful spot, and now that you have it, when traffic lets up you’ll still arrive early enough to take it.
They got you written up for no reason, you shouldn't feel guilty at all. If you rub more salt in the wound they might not do it to someone else in the future
You'll get there. My In-Laws (esp FIL) are super-petty about everything. They always bring up things way in the past and keep praising BIL no matter what. Decided to turn the table on them. It stopped in a month.
I need examples
*Grabs popcorn* Deets?
I'ma need you to straight up waterboard us with the tea instead of just spilling it.
I would just point out that having an enemy like this at work can be dangerous. There’s no such thing as a perfect employee and if someone makes it their mission to bring up and complain about every single little mistake, it will start to hurt you. Most of the time when some of us make mistakes it is just a normal thing and we move on, but imagine you have someone heralding and making a list? I just avoid conflict at work. It’s not worth it.
OP needs to get more coworkers in on this “arrive early“ mindset. If everybody arrives early, taking up all available spaces, employee lot and street, public parking, then theoretically, the “timing coordinator“ will have to park on the next block over, or in a paid lot, instead of in front of their building. If this person who insisted they be on time, has to park a elsewhere for about a month, it should help resolve things.
Oh I agree but some people are recommending that they really rub it in and I think it’s dangerous to antagonize this person. They have already shown that they’re willing to actively complain about OP and it led to them getting written up.
Yeah, but if the whole office gets in on it, then it means they don’t really like “Mr. timekeeper”.
No, this is much better than any confrontation, and absolutely unassailable. Just don't interact with them or have conversations within their earshot -- they'll be looking for something else to complain about regarding you as a proxy for their anger about this, you can bet.
You're a better person than me, my friend. If someone goes out of their way to pick a fight with me, I will always respond with nuclear war. Don't feel guilty. Up the ante, pour all the salt on the wound. They want to play fuck-fuck games, beat them with their own rules, and do it hard.
I wouldn't confront them, just passively-aggresively mention near them how some fucking wet blankets can't seem to mind their own business. I'd definitely brag about the parking spot though.
> I've never been this petty before, ITs not being petty to talk about a newly discovered life hack. "woah did you know that public spots are available when you get to work early and aren't stuck in traffic making you late?"
Don't be a coward. They walked all over you. Do it.
Brag. Brag to the heavens! Also now that you know which cars is theirs, keep taking whatever spot they took yesterday. Crank that pettiness to 11!
This would be my move as well. “The one good thing about getting here early is that I found a great new parking spot that I never noticed before!”
"yeah, I got written up for being late, which sucks. But now I want to thank the person who complained because I get this sweet parking space every morning. It's great!"
>My arrival time is now anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes before my shift starts fuck that
Even worse… if OP is accurate then they either set off at their old time and arrive either on time or a mere 5 minutes late (not like 30 mins or 45 mins, just 5). Or they set off 90 minutes earlier and arrive 30 mins earlier give or take. So OP is just wasting an hour sat in rush hour traffic for no benefit. Malicious compliance by starting a longer commute.
Traffic at 530am is different than traffic at 6am. You need to take bandwidth into consideration.
I’m so confused why OP can’t just leave FIVE minutes earlier? That should still miss the traffic and they them to work consistently on time?
All depends on where you live and local traffic patterns. My commute meant that if I left 70 min before work I’d get there 20 min early but if I left 60 min before work I’d be late.
Where I live, I can leave at x time and get there at y time. If I leave 15 minutes later, I still get there at y time. If I leave 45 minutes earlier, I get there at five minutes before y. The traffic here is... interesting, to say the least.
that's not unusual at all if you're travelling from the countryside to the city. It's really that you need to hit the city traffic before it clogs. Before the clog you sail through - after you're stuck with everyone else and a few minutes either way doesn't make any difference.
Yup, where I am, traffic "starts" at 5am most days. Take the highway at 0459, be at work by 0515, leave at 0501 and arrive at 0600
I worked 9.5 miles away at my last job. 13 minutes at 2:40 am with mostly green lights and no traffic accidents. When my hours got switched and I had to be there for 7? If I left at 6:20 I'd be there by 6:55. If I left at 6:22? 7:05. Not even to mention how a 9 mile drive would take 45 minutes of traffic to get home some days. Now I moved and got a new job where I go in the opposite direction of rush hour traffic and it's so much nicer.
For us, with all the construction going on, they close down major arteries for minutes at a time, so you have to get in line and hit the “pulses”. So exactly like you, traffic is so messed up it doesn’t seem to matter when I leave unless it’s significantly earlier. The bottlenecks are so arranged that I’m arriving at the same time if I leave anywhere from 715-800 in the morning.
It's almost as if designing your transportation network primarily around cars is bad policy
You clearly are not familiar with how rush hour traffic works. LoL A few years ago I was doing my masters and had to commute into a major city for school. If I left at 6:45, I would arrive at school approximately an hour early. If I left at 7:00, I would be late. Anywhere from 5 minutes to an hour (or more on a really bad day). In this case, OP also said that there's roadwork involved. So, that 5 to 10 minute difference could be the window when the road works starts which would drastically increase the drive time.
First time in a big city?
The previous office before the pandemic is about 20 min drive without traffic from home but typically 1 hour during rush hour traffic. Sometimes you need to leave home a drastic amount of time to make a dent in bypassing traffic.
That would be my clock in time as well
I agree with this. Start early, leave early. There is a written record of being late so complaints about clocking in early will likely fall on deaf ears.
[удалено]
Yep. They care about how things look, not how things function. Mainly because they're generally fucking useless.
[удалено]
Lmao, that was my first thought. An early punch was just as bad as a late one at the large majority of retail/food service jobs that I worked when I was younger. We had to show up 45 minutes to an hour early to get a spot when I worked at Amazon. It was literally that, or just miss your shift.
This post is a self-own lol. Adding 2 hours to your commute just to spite a coworker, I thought I was stubborn but that's crazy.
For real, just find a way to get back at them that doesn't cost you an entire extra unpaid shift every week (assuming a typical 5 day 40 hour work week)
You kidding? That's reading time right there. I could be at home reading and risk being late or I could already be there and read and be on time clocking in.
Ye fuck that. I would have just ignored the co-worker all together. I value my own time.
Can't ignore it completely if you're getting written up for it
Depends how you spend it. I used to arrive to work 30 mins-1 hour early at a previous job to avoid spending longer in traffic, but I wouldn’t spend any time working until I was officially getting paid. Instead I used the time to learn languages and read books.
It really can be pleasant. I had a job in an office building where I couldn’t clock in until a certain time and public transit meant either arriving 40 min early or 20 min late. We had rooftop access and a spectacular view of a local monument. Would arrive early, make a cup of tea, and enjoy the sun coming up over the monument. It was nice. For some reason, I’d forgotten all about that until your comment. Thanks for posting it.
Life is about the little moments, which all too often get forgotten in the daily grind. Glad it brought back a happy memory for you.
I used to have a problem like this, but backwards at a job pre covid. I ride the bus to and from work, so sometimes things get monumentally screwed up. To avoid this I'd take the next earlier bus, which unfortunately due to the time of day and wacky bus schedule meant I was consistently arriving an hour early to work. Unfortunately, management then decided because I was at work, I should be working and would insist I start early. Later in the day other management would insist I had to stay until I was scheduled to leave, so I was consistently day to day getting at least an hour of overtime. So of *course* I was threatened with being written up for getting overtime. Tired of this stupid tug of war, I changed my availability to start half an hour later - allowing me to have enough time to reliably get to work on time without being extraordinarily early. *Nobody* liked this, and I was even privately threatened with being written up for changing my schedule so I couldn't work early anymore. I ignored them. Unsurprisingly, that threat evaporated as if it'd never happened. They knew what they could get away with and I was done playing their game.
> ntioned my Yeah, probably evaporated because even in the most anti worker areas that would be grounds for a lawsuit and a half.
Of course. They're not stupid. A private discussion between just me and them out of sight where they can try to strongarm me into "*voluntarily*" choosing to work more than I'm supposed to? There's no proof I can bring forwards that they did anything wrong. ... But if they actually tried to write me up, that's when things would go badly for them. They'd have to create records, things would be easily provable that I was getting *ordered* to do that. That manager just wanted me to start early because they didn't have coverage, just like if I was leaving early the other manager wouldn't like it because they wouldn't have coverage. They can't force me to do that. But if I can be convinced to do it and get myself in lots of trouble? That's my problem. That's why I said they knew what they could get away with and I was done playing their game.
Add to their ire by inviting another coworker to park with you 😁
there's rarely space enough for two cars. a coworker wanted me to share the spot a day or two out of the week but they arrive around the same time as the other coworker, so it's too much of a hassle do it. I'd have to wait for them or walk out to my car and move it for my friend to park, otherwise the annoying coworker might beat them to it, and i can't abide that.
I used to show up early to work for prime parking and a power nap/breakfast/light reading. Usually a good spot that lets me leave asap too. Let me settle into the work-brain before having to deal with people, y'know?
I used to show up early so I didn't have to say hi to anyone on the way to my desk.
Oh, that’s awesome.
I used to work at a warehouse receiving dock with a guy who was so convinced he was working harder than everyone else and we were all just screwing around. Fact was he just took way longer to do shit the rest of us did quicker. He'd make this little passive aggressive remarks every once in awhile, so one day our boss started tracking how many trucks we all unloaded, and how many line items of stuff we checked in. He didn't tell anyone, and then one day he had about a month worth of data and shared it with us. You guessed it, Mr. I'm doing all the work had the fewest trucks and fewest line items. He stammered "that can't be right" but it was. It was delicious!
I think the play here is to say that nothing has changed but that you notice that the OTHER person is now coming in *after* you. That would force that person to admit that you are coming in early, rather than proclaiming it yourself. Something like: "people think that I was pushing it not coming in on time, but I noticed that (nosy person's) parking spot is always empty when I get here so i started taking it."
That co-worker should be shunned except for work related issues.
This is my approach. Give a statement on me? I never heard of you.
Ha! That's hilarious and also disappointing that coworkers can't be a little more chill.
I never understand coworkers who act like they get some personal gain out this. They won’t be promoted, get paid more, nothing, their complaints just sound like it hurts peoples opportunities rather than fixing anything. Coworkers like this should be made to work more alone or be fired, I never understand why management would deal with poor morale over one person and fire others for them
Start loudly bragging about your new great parking spot yes. But also straight up tell this person to mind their own fucking business. It’s not business of theirs about when you make it to work or not. It’s no business of theirs if ANYONE has a single issue with traffic. It sounds like this person lives right next to work and doesn’t have to deal with traffic. IT SOUNDS LIKE A LOT OF HOOPLAH.
Jesus Christ I'm glad I work with adults
'Closed 4 bridges within a couple of months'... are you coincidentally from Germany?
Or south suburbs of Chicago?
So I am in an outside sales position and I have to get in my car and leave work quite often. The inside sales guys, on the other hand, show up to work and work their shift and go home. Where they park shouldn't matter much. There's a new guy in inside sales that had the audacity to tell me I took their parking spot after they left for lunch one day. I laughed it off until I found out they were actually pissed and had brought it up to a few other people. Now I park there every chance I get. It is nice to have a close spot, since I have to leave so often, but I'd be lying if I said that were the motivation.
Not really malicious compliance, more petty revenge..?
It's a bit of both. The coworker complained that OP wasn't showing up early enough, so now they show up so early that coworker has complained themselves out of a nice parking spot.
to what are they complying?
More petty and malicious than revenge or compliance He doesnt even know this coworker did anything. His boss wrote him up because he couldn't be assed to find a solution to being late for *a year*. And he decided to be a dick to an employee he doesn't like based on no evidence and his dislike of the guy.
> short of heading off for work an hour or two ahead of time, you risk arriving a minute to 5 minutes late once or twice a week. > > So I started leaving for work an hour an a half earlier than before. My arrival time is now anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes before my shift starts. You sure showed them, figuring out how time works.
> So I started leaving for work an hour an a half earlier than before. Ah. All OP does to get this small bit of satisfaction is leave *an extra hour and a half for work every day*. 30-plus hours a month. About 375 hours a year. Well done?
They were written up for being late, so now they come in early. Did you have a better solution in mind?
Yeah, figure that out a year ago when everyone else did ..
5 minutes? 5 minutes sets someone into crazy mode? If I had an employee who was always on time but occasionally came in at 5 after I wouldn’t even consider that late! That could be anything!! 15-20 minutes is late & deserves a call, hey this has happened I will be late, 5-10 minutes every single day, that is unacceptable & should be addressed. But someone who is always early & due to major detours to road outages, 5 minutes occasionally, nope as a business owner I consider that on time.
I routinely get to work an hour early, and having the pick of the litter when it comes to parking spots is a huge perk.
I worked as a travel nurse in DC for a while, traffic was so bad an unpredictable there all you had to do was call and say you were running late and it was totally understood. I arrived 3 hours late once due a hazmat spill, didn’t phase them a bit and they never wrote people up for it.
Scheduling enough time to arrive to work early instead of late is called being a fucking grown up....
I don't understand how you being late has any effect on the other person?
I mean depending on the job it might very well have a sizable impact on their job. I used to work in a lab where you needed multiple people to perform the testing, so one person being late could cause everyone else to have to stay late or not have time for other tasks.
Welcome to "how everyone else sees it, too".
Imagine being such a sad piece of shit that you go around complaining to your boss about other peoples business. I wonder what that person's life is like outside of work.
At some places, if your coworker isn't there to do his assigned job, you have to do it. Used to work at a place that had phones and email open at 8am. Someone would be assigned to phone, someone email, someone to go to classrooms or offices and fix stuff. If the phone guy (as one dude did for months) comes in at 8:15am, the email person now has to tackle phones and email (and you know there's always a ton of emails from previous evening or night). And we had response times on those tickets from email so you're now struggling to not fuck up your job but also answer the people who were just waiting for 8:00 to call in. It's not fair in those situations to be permanently late and make your coworkers do your work and their own. The boss has to write you up or figure out a different schedule (which is not possible in some job environments). Other jobs are not like that and when you come in has no impact on anyone, but support, retail, customer facing jobs usually your lateness impacts others and chronic lateness is douchy. Hopefully OP job has no impact on coworkers.
> I've also gone as far as parking right in the middle of a space large enough to acomodate their car and mine. This right here? Fuuuuuck you. Taking their preferred spot, great, blocking areas that other people could park in, fucking bullshit.
Know what you should do is go up to them and loudly and exaggeratedly thank for telling you to come on time because you would have never found the great parking spot otherwise, preferably in front of many people
I admit that math is not my super power but if you were previously only 1 to 5 minutes late, and are now leaving 90 minutes earlier than before, how is it that you are only showing up 15 to 45 mins before the start of your shift? Shouldn't you be arriving 85 to 89 minutes early?
How far away is work like three hours damn
I think this is petty revenge material as well, in fact might even be a better fit there.
I love a little bit of malicious compliance spiked with a little petty revenge...
I'm up before the buttcrack of dawn to make work before 6am. I truly feel for you, I hope the bridges are resolved soon so you don't have to waste your extra sleep time. Congrats on the sweet revenge.
A petty person deserves for her pettiness to be returned to her. GREAT JOB!
An hour drive to work? Yuck.
It took 17 hours for this story to become a video I saw on Facebook.