You ever ran late to a college class because you had to stay longer than scheduled at your shitty retail job to cover your perpetually late coworker who was supposed to relieve you?
Sometimes running 10 minutes late is no big deal, but sometimes it is. It becomes a problem the moment it causes someone else problems.
And if this is the case for a business they should plan for it because people will be late. Pretty easy to overlap schedules and be prepared - but that costs money. So obviously we can’t do that because the shareholders are the only thing that matters.
Yes, the business is responsible for their poor decisions jus the same as the tardy employee is, one does not absolve the other.
The lack of overlap is its own problem but if you know there isn’t an overlap (from looking at the schedule) and you have even the most basic respect for your coworker then you will be at work at the time of shift change. Especially for shitty jobs people work in college you being 10 minutes late means you get paid less money so it’s not like the scummy employer is hurting the only person you hurt is your fellow proletariat coworker
Really depends what you are 10 minutes late for. A meeting with other participants, ok if your role is to sit and listen. Not OK if people are waiting for you to start. It’s not OK to be late to relieve a co worker either
Depends on the job.
Depends on the coworker. I’m going to have to all Jeff’s side work anyway. He can wait until after my coffee.
Depends on the job. Retail? Jeff needs to leave when his shift is over. It’s nobody’s problem.
That’s how you build anticipation
My job doesn’t care if I’m late, and my productivity has not changed
Eh. This depends on the job being done. In my field of work the only thing that matters is that you get the job done. What office hours you keep are not very important. On the other hand, my friend works shift work where he has to replace someone directing a process (think air traffic control). Being 10 minutes late is a dick move because you are forcing the person you are replacing to stay longer at the end of a shift.
It’s interesting to bring up air traffic controllers because they (in most countries) have strictly regulated work hours. The research into fatigue and safety problems is pretty extensive, and the last person you want working overtime because someone got sick is the controller telling a dozen or more planes where to fly at once.
While not all jobs have the same stakes, that goes to show how it’s an employer’s responsibility to account for reality.
Is this post serious or just making shit up? Ive never heard anyone claim that 10 minutes late is on time. Late and on time are mutually exclusive words. Whether your work punishes it or not is a different question, im permitted to be 5 minutes late and it counts as on time for example.
This seems more like a post designed to piss people off and make them fight over a position noone had before reading it.
Yes it is very weird. When I worked IT, there was a period where I was often 10m late in the morning, we had Flex hours so I didn’t think too much of it, my hours were 40+ every week anyhow.
It was noticed and I was politely asked to make sure I’m on location at 8 since others might have issues when starting their computers. My bad, I’ll do better. And that was that
I also worked IT, being late was the usual and no one cared cuz I made sure all problems where handled as the manuals I created. Even so, unless your job is saving lifes and not creating economic value for the shareholders. No amount of late really matters. Get the job done, time is whatever.
You sound awful to work with, but I’m not basing that on much!
I keep to myself unless it’s about unionizing or other big values of mine. The job gets done and its above standards, no one ever complains about my time because its mine, so I’ll never complain about their time because its theirs.
On a similar note, when you get to the gas station, do you care if the gas reservoir was filled on time, or do you care that there is enough gas to pump? Same with your phone bill, does it matter if you get it 4h before you get home or 15min but in the end its there when you get there.
Both in IT and creative contracts that I do, I’m the one that sets the deadlines and I’m 99% on time, for years. And it works for my bosses/contractors and partners. The 1% will tell you that if you are not on time for work your work is less valuable, when 99.99% of the time, absolutely no one with 2 braincells really cares.
Again, this is not regarding lifesaving situations. I was a lifeguard and a paramedic & I always arrived 1h early for those gigs. No matter the location or my Sun allergy. Lives are lives. Work is just fucking work.
You’ve clearly thought this through a bunch, but I dont much care about all that. Good for you that your job doesnt care when you do your work.
It’s a very good day when I show up just 10 minutes late.
I can see it mattering if it’s shift work and someone else has to stay late. If it’s office work? Nah. Doesn’t matter.
Exactly. It also matters what type of shift work. If you’re late to a hospital nursing shift, that sucks because you can’t do the changeover stuff and they’ve been there 12 hours. Or if you’re the only one taking phone calls in the morning or something. In sane a world, there would be room for decent folks as well as folks who are always on time.
decent folks as well as folks who are always on time.
Decent folks are always on time, as they value your time the same as theirs.
This is the number one mistakes that dumbfucks make about decent folks, hence why I said it that way.
I haven’t met a decent person that is perpetually late. Nor one that calls me a dumbfuck.
They probably meant descent. As in the fall of society.
Haha. True
If there is no buffer for shift changes, they’re doing it wrong. Just in time is a bad model in general, but it’s horrible mismanagement for scheduling shifts.
It definitely depends on the job. I work in TV and live events. If your late you either miss the pre production meeting, or we all have to wait for you to start. If your later than that you are holding the team up and making people work harder to be ready by on-air time.
If your late
my late
Swipe keyboard and laziness. At least I showed up on time.
Yeah. It definitely depends on the job.
If you’re relieving someone, they might be annoyed if you’re late but nobody is going to die or anything. If your work isn’t extremely time sensitive, nobody should give a fuck…
If things can’t go because you’re not there, and it’s very time sensitive, then there’s a problem. Everyone is waiting on your ass to show up.
“ If your work isn’t extremely time sensitive, nobody should give a fuck…”
Except if Im staying to cover for you and I have other things I need to do or want to do I might give a fuck. The “no one should really care” POV overlooks how being late can impact others.
I had a specific exception for if you’re relieving someone.
I recognised this exact issue in my original statement.
“If you’re relieving someone, they might be annoyed if you’re late but nobody is going to die or anything.”
That’s not how I read this. I read this as you suggesting it isn’t a real problem.
It’s not a serious problem. Needs of the one vs needs of the many and all that.
It’s still discourteous.
But at the same time, people who do that kind of work, generally understand how annoying it is when their relief shows up late, so that kind of thing usually works itself out naturally… Or the chronic late person ends up needing to find a new job.
Do they minder if i stay longer? No? Then why complain when I’m late?
Its about the whole picture, am I always late? Is my work done on time and well executed ?
If so… WHO CARES ABOUT THE TIME OR PLACE I DO THAT WORK IN???
If it’s shift work and someone is waiting on you then arrive so they can go home or start to work and a team its a big deal cause you’re wasting someone elses time.
Yeah, but how many Americans are actually doing that kind of shift work anymore? I know it’s not none, but I don’t think we’re worried about the shoe factory shutting down over this. Those factories already shut down, and managers in places like that don’t hesitate to shitcan anyone chronically 10 minutes late as an example.
More than you’d think. Any facilities that need 24 hour coverage like medical, care and of course corrections. All of which have in common the staff really don’t want to spend an extra 10-20 minutes waiting for a 20s something to show up and take offense when called out. And in my experience these 20s somethings hate any reason for them to be kept late at work.
Aaaaahh, you’re right. I totally didn’t think about medical and care facilities. I was only thinking of factory-style shift work.
How does shift work not account for overwhelming an overwhelming majority of jobs? Customer service is all shift work. That includes everything with a store front or call center. It also includes a lot of workshops. From my understanding, that is the majority of jobs.
“Shift work” in this case is more like the type where someone has to do a specific handover to another human. Not just anything that isn’t salaried work. So the meaning is more in the context of the Industrial Era 24-hour factory type of meaning, where it’s coordinated that 1 entire group leaves and another punch in at the same time. It’s just another meaning of the term.
Also, this is some clickbait garbage hating on Gen Z vs. noble brave smart Boomers with zero tolerance for tardiness - it’s their take on a survey of 1,000 adults in the UK and completely in the context of working in an office.
It depends by the job entirely, and I’ve only once as a lone bartender needed the next person in order to leave, never any other customer service jobs. You mention call centers, and I’ve never seen one that required someone else to take your place so you can leave other than Pig Butchering camps where they may or may not kill you for not performing. Call centers typically let people log in and get in the queue taking calls. Even ones with under 10 people.
Very true. I do not do “shift work”. So I have no clue there.
Closest for me would be: being on time for meetings because of the same reason. Do not waste other peoples time.
If you are a firefighter?
Hehehe… HEY! IF the fire is out and no one died… Who cares that I just let the fire die out on his own???
Because your lateness impacts other employees and that is unfair to them.
You’re also there to please the mentally ill manager.
Stay late 10 minutes: that’s as good as leaving on time. I can’t be expected to pay you more.
Arrive 10 minutes late: how could you? 10 minutes of my time is an eternity!
I’ve always told my daughter to never show up on time because it sets a bad precedent. No one cars if the person whose always late is late. Everyone freaks if the person whose always on time is late.
I just have unmedicated adhd and poor time management, i’m 10 minutes late for everything, i’ll be late to my own funeral, I’m a millenial or whatever
“OOOOOooOOOOoO but I’d be a great hunter if we lived in huts Linda. I would be so alert Linda. I could see the patterns and get hyper focused on leaves and colors but no We’re stuck being wage slaves forced to live by timings set by normies instead of appreciating my talents if we lived with nothing.” - People with ADHD
Like most statements about work, it really depends on the job.
For shift work without overlapping shifts, being late keeps someone else on duty after their shift is up.
But if you’re working an office gig and your work is getting done, it’s fine. There’s a reason I don’t schedule any meetings within an hour of the start or end of the day.
shift work without overlapping shifts
That is 100% wage theft as someone has to work overtime. either come early or stay late.
Come on time. And if someone stays late they should be paid for staying late 100% of the time.
But they also shouldn’t have to stay late. People work jobs so they can afford life outside of work. Making people stay late is stealing from their life outside of work no matter how much they’re paid.
When I was a retail manager, I was a hardass on people coming in so late that it would impact coworkers. I covered the floor in those situations, but I couldn’t cover multiple departments, but when 3 people are out sick and 4 are late, I can’t do it all.
I also fought corporate to authorize more hours so I could have coverage for people to get sick or stuck in traffic, but corporate were a bunch of assholes after our chief competition bought us out and slashed staffing.
If retail jobs paid better than minimum wage, maybe the teenagers that are hired will be more willing to come in on time.
Crazy, I know.
We paid decently for retail. It was a few years back, but it looks like they pay about 40-50k now for floor-level staff. It’s not amazing, but way better than others.
What hurt more with the corporate buyout was the number of employees let go and the end of some truly great perks. Manufacturers had programs to get us credit towards free products in return for selling their stuff, and since almost all the companies had the programs we didn’t even have to shill one brand over another.
My better salespeople bcame experts in their products because they didn’t just see all the products as things they’d never be able to afford, which helped both our sales and helped inform the customers. And they’d get 10k+ of high-end products a year. In my best year as an underling, I got over 20 grand in freebies. But the new corporate overlords banned employees taking part in those programs because they were afraid staff may sell the freebies on the aftermarket.
Okay kids, this is what we call, micro management leading to a hostile work environment.
I don’t think I’ve worked for a company that gave a shit if I was 10 minutes late.
One company had a time clock that only kept time records to one decimal place of an hour. The clock literally couldn’t differentiate between someone clocking in 5 minutes early, or 5 minutes late.
Anyone who cares about how trivially late you are, isn’t someone worthy of your labor.
That entirely depends on the job. I worked retail management for a store that had a lot if single parents that had two jobs. I’d cut them slack if they were late getting from one job to another. Im a lot less inclined to tolerate lateness when someone doesn’t have other responsibilities. When their lateness forces others to stay late to cover them it is a problem.
I’m all for tolerance but why should the circumstances of the individual matter? A single non-parent might have just as good a reason for being late.
If they are chronically late then they aren’t going to have good reasons.
Retail isn’t important enough to be on time for.
Then don’t take those jobs. There’s no justification for being selfish.
There’s no justification for being selfish.
The principals of retail is capitalism whose driving force is selfishness.
That’s a massive stretch you are making to justify being selfish.
Why stay late? Just leave. You’re not getting OT.
Company’s shit is company’s shit. End of shift ut stops being your problem.
If you are salaried you can’t “just leave”. If you are hourly you can but you might want to be seen as the person willing to help out when needed because that dies get reciprocated presuming your managers are normal human beings.
At this place part timers were getting full benefits so most would be willing to help because only a fool would give up that job.
It depends on the job. Sometimes coverage matters, sometimes specific times really matter for outcomes.
That’s exactly my point.
Some jobs, it’s extremely important to be on time… A fireman is an easy and obvious answer. Also nurses and people who work 24/7 coverage positions. Though, a lot of those will inconvenience one person because the previous shift person will need to cover; then there’s arguments about the one vs the many, etc.
But I’m also not taking about 20+ minutes of lateness here. We’re taking about <10 minutes. Honestly, it still wouldn’t matter that much for most. Even if you’re relieving someone.
You should absolutely do everything you can to show up on time, so that nobody is put out because of you, but shit happens.
Anything that demands less, meh?
Unless it’s shift work, yeah. What’s the problem otherwise?
It’s disrespectful of the coworkers or customers thats waiting for them. Have heard so many stories of construction interns that kind of show up when they feel like it. They don’t last long.
Had one blithering man child at my job that came in 3 hours late because “he was tired because he was playing Fortnite”. He didn’t stay long.
If you’re working in a team and they have to wait for you so they can start, sure. If there’s some fixed appointment with others, absolutely. If you can’t get your stuff done on time, definitely. But if your work isn’t that time sensitive, it really doesn’t matter if you start painting the wall or doing paperwork ten minutes later.
3 hours late
We’re talking about 10 minutes.
On the other hand, did that coworker’s work have to be done synchronously? If it’s something he could do on his own at midnight and hand in whenever it’s done, why care when he does it?
Again. If his tardiness results in work not getting done, I get it. I’m just arguing against the normality of expecting fixed working hours from people for no other reason than normalcy.
Normalcy doesn’t really weigh into it for me. I wouldn’t care if you were expected to work 8 or 7 hours a day in a “normal” day. I care about the agreed upon time where i fulfill my end by being on time, the agreed upon time. If you want flex, then you need to be in a job where flex is the agreed upon method.
If we agree on a specified time and you are expected to show up at that time, then it’s on you if it is a repeating issue.
If you ever come to sweden, don’t be late to agreed times. It will not be looked upon kindly.
If you want flex, then you need to be in a job where flex is the agreed upon method.
My argument is that flex should be the norm. If there is no explicit reason for rigid times, they shouldn’t be rigid.
Put differently: Why agree on a fixed time? Why does it matter? If the only answer is “It’s normal to agree on fixed times”, that’s what I meant with “for the sake of normalcy”.
If you’re running a shop and need people to be there for customers, or you’re running some on-call service or whatever, yeah, having people available for agreed-upon time frames is important. But if you’re just looking to put ass in chair from 7 to 11 and 11:30 to 15:30, with no regard for whether their work gets done well in that time frame, that’s just dumb.
My argument is that flex should be the norm. If there is no explicit reason for rigid times, they shouldn’t be rigid.
There is no norm. It depends on the country and their social structure aswell as their laws/agreed upon methods. You can always look for jobs/appointments etc that have flexible times. But good luck arguing with, e.g. a doctor about your appointment being flexible.
I think the other poster covered that by specifically talking about appointments. Reread what they said, its pretty damn valid. My job for instance would have very little consequences if I’m ten minutes late. I’ve told my manager that I may be later dropping off kids and such, they are fine with that. The point is the culture doesn’t change if we don’t push it to change.
Cool. Then you have that flex agreement with someone. If that works, it works.
In a social context, aka not work, the agreement with me would say that the time is the time. If you don’t value my time the same as yours, then we will eventually stop spending time together.
Yeah but swedish people are insane when it comes to be on time. It’s like you’ll go to hell and burn forever if you’re 5 minutes late once i your whole lifetime.
The upfront cost is too high for the benefit IMO (I am swedish, and I’m automatically always on time).
A better way? The french way maybe? Let people arrive 5 minutes late until everyone is present, in the meantime chit chat with coworkers. You get to know people and it’s low stress.
Yeah, but Jimmy from back-office isn’t going to get anything done in his first 10 minutes wether I’m on time or not.
What does that even mean? If you have a customer waiting for you at a site, you get payed for being there on time, but you kind of ignore that. Do you think thats ok?
How much starting at a specific time matters highly depends on the job at hand.
Yes
What you’re describing sounds like shift work. Also, 3 hours is WAY different than 10 minutes.
Not at all. It could be a consultant going to their customer, with the customer waiting. That has happened in my line of work. The example of 3 hours was with a waiting customer.
Being late also means you will call ahead to tell them that you are late. It’s simple courtesy that doesn’t require education och skills.
The post says late to work, not late to a meeting.
…and that depends on the work.
If you’re meeting with someone and you’re late that’s rude. If you just need to be in an office at a time but don’t have any specific meetings then it isn’t a big deal. If you’re doing shift work when people need you there at a very specific time then it’s rude to be late. If it’s not shift work and you’re not late for a meeting, I don’t see the problem.
What you call shift work is different from the swedish definition of it. Shift work is typically a term reserved for those types of work where there is a briefing between shifts. Industry, hospital etc. 24-hour kind of operations.
What i think you mean is office work, but that could also mean set times. But you would never call it shift work.
Lets say a call center that has a set opening time, or mechanic that has to open the shop at a given time. Those would not be considered shift work, unless they are open 24/7. So thats where we misunderstand each other.
if you have people waiting for you the minute you clock in, then you’re on shift work or just in an incredibly poorly managed workplace
