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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

would you leave "early" on your first day of a new job?

164 replies

happydutchmummy · 09/09/2013 21:48

We had a new colleague start today and I did her induction and new starter thing this morning. I wasn't the one who'd interviewed her, but I spoke to her on the phone when she accepted the job. Both times she asked what her set working hours would be and both times I explained that we operate a flexible working policy in our office, as long as she is there during core hours, she can choose to work around them as she wishes (e.g. come in early and leave early, or start at 9 but stay till later)

She approached me at ten to four to ask if it would be on for her to leave at 4:00 today as she had wanted to come in at 8:00 but was told she couldn't as I don't start til 8:30 and I was settling her in. So basically she wanted to leave half an hour early as she felt she could have started work earlier but was delayed by my start time! I told her she was free to leave whatever time she wanted, but she would have to make up the extra half hour of work later in the week as she'd not worked her full hours for today.

Aibu to find this a bit odd? During my first weeks in the office I was eager to be seen as keen and enthusiastic and I wouldn't have dreamt of leaving early, especially not on day 1! Or is her attitude totally acceptable as we do work flexible hours...

OP posts:

poppycock6 · 11/09/2013 23:08

Going to back to witch lady who I mentioned earlier. I wasn't kidding! No one else was dressed up - not that that bothered her. We were sort of half smiling thinking wtf and she just said 'oh I always dress up for Halloween! My kids love it!!' (Sorry OP. Not really helpful to your topic)

SPBisResisting · 12/09/2013 07:20

That has just reminded me - on my first day of my new job in 2004 I called in sick - now that is the ultimate bad impression. Didn't do any harm though, I stayed for another 7 years and loved it! And I haven't had a day off sick since...

MattZelst · 12/09/2013 10:16

I think the term flexible hours is your answer here... and you not following through on that

Canthisonebeused · 12/09/2013 11:10

I think it should have been clearer to her in the beginning that she could not work flexibly in this first week. Sounds like she had made arrangements to start at 8.30 as she was following the flexi directive and this was not the fact.

I started a work placement last year and found it impossibly to just get a stait answer with regards to my hours, how many, start and finish etc. I just kept being told, don't worry too much this will be sorted. However I had childcare to sort out and even though I asked every day what time I would finish I never got a stait answer and so was often clock watching and having to leave ask to leave at 5pm. This caused me a lot of stress that could have been avoided with just a strait answer.

13loki · 12/09/2013 11:29

I can't even imagine what Judgy mcJudgypants would think of my first week at my current job. My childcare fell through the week before, in a country where I don't speak the language. I took my 2 kids to work with me on the first day, then had 2 weeks off while a colleague sorted out nursery and school for my kids. I wasn't not keen or uncommitted, just in an unfortunate set of circumstances that meant I couldn't start work. I more than made up the time over the following weeks

PomBearArmy · 12/09/2013 13:04

I'm surprised to hear she is in her thirties. I would expect the 'because I'm worth it' attitude from people a decade younger, when I worked in HR we would often have people letting off steam about juniors who were highly miffed at having to do junior type jobs. It's like they expected time to whizz past in a quick musical montage, and be heading up board meetings by the start of their second week

zipzap · 12/09/2013 13:32

Reading all this about flexitime has just reminded me of a huge flexitime abuse that i encountered. I used to work somewhere there was a chap that used to come in early and leave late but people began to notice it was really difficult to track him down in the middle of the day. It was a big open plan office environment but also lots of meeting rooms, labs and testing areas, even the gym, so it wasn't unusual for people not to be at their desk all the time. Plus his coat and bag were there and occasionally he'd pop up in the canteen for lunch.

At first it was a bit of a joke that it was difficult to pin down John (not his real name) for a meeting in the middle of the day but then people realised that it just wasn't happening. Finally a manager decided to watch him to see what was going on - thinking he was either disappearing off to have a nap or was having an affair or was going to the gym for ages (we were allowed to use it throughout the day as we worked with teams abroad so would often be in at funny hours, being able to go to the gym before lunch when you knew you had a late meeting with a team on the west coast of the us was very handy and a nice perk).

So a couple of them are following this chap and discover that he disappears out of the door and into the car park and drives off, then he's back around late afternoon. Next day, manager has got friend from different area (ie unknown to chap) to be in the car park so they both follow the chap when he leaves again. Turns out he's gone to a second similar place where he also has a job that was also flexi time... And just driving between them, coat and bag left at each desk in the morning, then juggling his time between the two of them . and also pulling a full time salary from both of them without doing full time hours at either.

Apparently he had been doing it for months before anyone had noticed. Needless to say he got fired from where I worked but no idea if they or he told his other workplace and then what happened.

MadeOfStarDust · 12/09/2013 13:35

lol zipzap - got to admire his nerve and audacity!

tablefor4 · 12/09/2013 14:07

ZipZap we had someone do something similar here.

He was working his notice, admittedly, but still. He would arrive at our offices, be seen etc, but then not be very visible. We all have our own offices so less monitoring.

His new job was on the same street, so he would then pop down to there and do most of a day there before re-appearing at our offices.

aftermay · 13/09/2013 14:29

That's ingenuity! Would be good for a movie storyline.

fromparistoberlin · 13/09/2013 16:14

no, she has a shit attitutde

aftermay · 13/09/2013 17:23

Frompa - I meant the two guys in the stories of the posters just above. I don't disagree with the original employee either.

spindlyspindler · 13/09/2013 17:47

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

UseHerName · 03/12/2013 19:10

how is the new start faring now??

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