POLL:Can you get away with being 3 minutes late for work?

[Pacfanweb]

I hate anal managers that flip if you are a couple of minutes late, but never even acknowledge when you work over 30 minutes late.

I had a manager with a severe case of short-man's disease who was like that. He was an early riser.

He would give you hell if you came in 3 minutes late, even if there was nothing to do yet. This type of job often caused me to have to work late...but he'd never give you any sort of credit or recognition for doing so.
So you could be on time for a month, work late for half the month, but show up 3-4 minutes late the next month and you'd be in his office.

Now I'm self-employed, and still do a lot of work for my old dealership. All my friends there hate me (jokingly) because they know I never get up before 8-8:30am, while they still have to be at work at 7am.

 

[Pikachu]

If everyone else can find a way to be punctual, then so can you. If not, who needs ya? Take a hike!

 

[MikeyIs4Dcats]

I'm about 15 minutes late every day, but I get more done in a day than most people, so I do what I want.

 

[FoBoT]

i could be 3 HOURS late just about as much as i want, as long as i stay 3 hours later or make it up the next day
i just have to get the job done and do 40+ hours a week

 

[meltdown75]

I get there when I get there, within a 10-minute window. My manager works about 1000km away, but aside from that I work in a laid back office and don't really have to worry if I'm a few minutes late.

That said, it's up to the managers or companies if they want to have a rule about strict work hours and tardiness. They employ and pay you, so their position of power is not to be questioned.

 

[madeupfacts]

This rule doesn't seem to apply for most engineers. Most engineers I know and their bosses shows up on all hours of the day. Nobody shows up 9:00am on the dot.

 

[DaWhim]

I can get away with 7 minutes late because if I punch in at 8 minutes late, I lose 15mins of paid. I am usually late anyways.

 

[dxkj]

Example:

Support Center agent gets paid for working from 8am-5pm, 1 hour for lunch

You HAVE to show up 10-15 mins before your shift to get your computer loaded up and ready You wont get fired if you dont, but it is looked down upon.

If you show up 1 minute late more than a few times , yes

3 times late 1 minute you are at serious risk....

 

[TallBill]

I wouldn't get fired, but I'd get screamed at for quite a while. I would even if I was 5 minutes early to work. But thats Army for you

 

[mugs]

Hell no. I wouldn't get in trouble if I was 3 hours late for work. My employer cares about what I do, they don't care about what time I do it.

 

[91TTZ]

It depends on the job. If you're a computer tech, it shouldn't matter too much. If you're a fireman, I sure hope you'd get fired!

 

[AnonymouseUser]

I've been late to work on average ~20 minutes, nearly every day for the last 3 years. What can I say? They can't afford to replace me.

 

[BoomerD]

They can't afford to replace me.

heh...famous last words...

 

[AnonymouseUser]

Originally posted by: BoomerD

They can't afford to replace me.

heh...famous last words...

Yep, and the boss knows I said it ~6 months ago.

 

[cw42]

dammit! i didn't read the post and thought it was 3min. :[

 

[mwtgg]

No, no one would know. I could just say I forgot to clock in when I arrived and ran back down when I noticed it. Now, if I made a habit out of it... yeah, they'd say knock it off, but I doubt I'd get fired.

 

[archcommus]

Everyone at my company starts and quits whenever they want, so technically I can't be late, only by my own standard can I be.

 

[orakle]

No, No, Ridiculous

I don't have to punch in or anything, and I usually get there before my boss.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: DeathBUA
Heck no and Heck no.

Except I voted yes on the second one by accident.


Anyways we use the honor system at my work, technically you are supposed to be there at 7am but as long as it's before 7:15 no one cares.

im supposed to be at work at 6am

but since im the only one there til about 7, if im late i can usually push things fast enough to be on time at 8 anyway and nobody ever knows

 

[gotsmack]

no, I work in in the back office, we set our own work times as long as work gets done and you're in before 9 everythings ok.

3 minutes is nothing. it would be silly to harass someone for something so small.

 

[LanceM]

I could arrive an hour (or more) late every day and not even have a word spoken to me about it. On top of that, I could leave an hour or so early on that very same day (or every day). Of course, I also do a lot of random tasks at home for this job.

BUT... if someone tightened down and said I had to be there on or before a specific minute, then I'd follow it without question. Obviously there will be bad traffic days causing people to be late, but nine times would be impossible to justify.

EDIT: I also sometimes come in super early or stay super late. And some days I'll take, like, a three-hour lunch. So it's one of those, "if you get your work done" atmospheres.

 

[fallensight]

No one cares when I come in or leave as long as my work gets done. technicly im supposed to be at 6am, I dont think I have clocked in beofre 645 even once in the last year. But Im there untill my stuff is done, even if it takes 12 hrs. I could never work for someone that anal.

 

[newmachineoverlord]

Lots of people get fired for that sort of thing. That's the root cause of the impatience that causes road rage and idiots honking at you while you're trying to wait for a safe opportunity to make a left turn.

Edit: The University of Missouri at Columbia doesn't provide enough parking for students, so it is not unusual for a student to have to go through their entire assigned parking lot looking for a place to park only to realize the entire lot is full, and have to go park somewhere far off campus. These parking issues have caused chronic lateness for some students. So in the context of a college level class, it is my opinion that attendence/lateness points are stupid and discriminate against people who work while they go to school. The mere presence or absence of a student does not establish that they have mastered the learning objectives.

As for taking off points because arriving late is a disruption, that's hardly any better than taking off points from "hot girls" because their presence distracts the boys. Students need to learn to be attentive despite distraction. Distractions can occur in the field. That said, if a student seems to be deliberately disruptive the professor should exercise their option to administratively drop them from the course.

If the context were a graduate level course however, mandatory attendence and timeliness is reasonable, as graduate level programs expect your full attention to the exclusion of having employment. The best way of enforcing this is probably through short pop quizes at the beginning of class rather than actual attendence records however.

 

[Geekbabe]

I'm fortunate to work for an organization with a schedule that's dynamic and flexs to both the needs of the company and it's workers. I frequently leave early but I also start early most days.

 

[GeekDrew]

Originally posted by: fallensight
No one cares when I come in or leave as long as my work gets done. technicly im supposed to be at 6am, I dont think I have clocked in beofre 645 even once in the last year. But Im there untill my stuff is done, even if it takes 12 hrs. I could never work for someone that anal.

At a previous job, I was supposed to work from 7:30 AM - 4:00 PM, but we worked a "justice schedule"... basically, as long as the hours were in, they didn't care so much which hours you worked, as long as there was at least one person in the department available during all business hours. Our hours weren't logged, nor audited. As a result, my net hours were well over those that I was expected to be there. I frequently stayed at work until 5:00 PM, and in the winter, I almost always arrived by 6:30 AM. I didn't mind it, and I didn't file overtime reimbursement claims, because I hadn't been directed to work overtime -- I just felt like it. Had I filed the claims, they would have been honored, but I really enjoyed my job, I was going "above and beyond", and etc., so I didn't feel like claiming everything.

At my current job, my boss is a prick about timekeeping. All employees are supposed to be there at 8:00 AM. She's been known to lock up the time sheets at 8:01 AM, so someone cannot check in if they're running late. They then get yelled at for being late (even if they arrived at 8:02 AM, and traffic had been bad). All of the employees get pissed off about that. I thought that I was going to have to mediate a rioting crowd when she brought up purchasing a punch clock. As a result, all employees are standing at the door, ready to throw the lock, at 4:00 PM exactly, and if we have to stay even 1 minute after, we file overtime paperwork. We have an hour for lunch -- so we make sure that we do absolutely no work for the office for those 60 minutes, whether we're in the building or not. If administration wants to be pissy about hours, well, they're only hurting themselves.