AIBU to think your start time is your actual start time?

[Katie2001]

Since starting work, many years ago, I've always believed if you start work at 9, you come in at quarter to or just before so you can be ready to start. If you are held up for any reason, or have to drop kids off or whatever of course it's different. Of the two colleagues at work on the same level as me, one starts at 9:30 so comes in at any time between that time and quarter to ten, makes her coffee, eats her breakfast and is ready to actually work about ten or quarter past. The other one starts at 9 but comes in any time between quarter past 9 and quarter to ten. Neither have school age children. Maybe I'm in the one in the wrong?

Shit yes be there before! If I turned up fifteen minutes late the service I'm on would be sat in the road full of very pissed off people who were now also late....

"My colleague gets in at 9.03 every day because she doesn't want to get the earlier train and be "sitting around for twenty minutes"

Yep, I have one of these. He is the one that strolls in at 0910 every morning on the dot because his train gets in to the station at 0856. He gets this train on purpose knowing that the train arrival time would make him late as the earlier one which would get him to work at 0838 (so on time basically) is too early. WTF! I hate being late, hate it. I leave my house at 0630 to get to work on time (0845 for a 9am start).

It drives me made, it's a breach of contract.

Oh and yes, I am also the person who leaves at bang on 5.30 (to get my train), but still do work email stuff for the whole 1.5 hour train journey home (unpaid).

I once got bollocked for getting in at 9 instead of sitting at my desk at 9.

The result was I started leaving bang on time too so they got less work out of me.

YY LaurieMarlow this thread is so depressing! Glad I'm the boss of my own business!

If your start time is nine, You should be ready to start your work at nine.
I get in 10 to 15 minutes before my start time.
I am not interested in what time anyone else comes in, that is the boss's business, unless it affects my workload, then I would complain about it.

If you work in a publicly facing role where it impacts on other staff if not everyone is ready to start at 9.30, then YANBU.

If it's an office where people manage their own workloads then YABU.

My office is the latter: we all start at 9.30 and people arrive between 9.15 and 9.45, and pretty much all take shorter lunch hours and give 15-30 minutes unpaid overtime at the end of the day. I'm senior management and I don't care what time people arrive within reason as long as they do all their work, the clockwatchers are often the least productive.

To be clear, I am happy to start early and finish late to cover my own workload and that of others who are absent sick/leave. I don't actually mind what time people start or finish, I just seem to pick up the slack all the time which doesn't strike me as fair. It's interesting to see other people's views though.

I don't know about you katie but the jobs I've had I've always found it to be the ones who are left In charge to be the worst offenders.

and often the rest is usually the people to be found outside chatting to the manager over a cigarette.

meanwhile everyone else is just left to cope unable to access any help or support.

The amount of times I've been left without access to what I need to do my job because of these extended breaks or excessive fag and phone call sessions or "checking up on X" sessions or ive gotta go home and let my brother in the house/ check on the cat incidents. ....

It depends entirely on the role and on your contract and it will be different for everyone. If you work in a sector where your customers rely on or expect you to be available then start times are less fluid (most retail sector jobs, most shift-work type jobs, hospitality sector, teachers, childcare workers, medical staff, etc.). I imagine there are relatively few roles where start times are truly fluid.

I think than in an office situation then yes, YABU.
As your title says, your start time is your start time....not giving an extra 15 minutes to work every day.
If the start time is 9am then I think it is reasonable to walk in through the door, hang your coat up and turn on your computer between 9 and 9.05. You probably shouldn't need a wee or a hot drink that early in the workday, but if you do, you do - in almost all offices, staff are allowed to sort out their own toilet and drink breaks to be scheduled when they like provided they dont clash with meetings and they do not take the mick and spend half their time away from their desk.

When I worked in a call centre we had to be there 10-15 minutes before our start time and could then get stuck up to 25 mins past our finish time.

Now I'm in an office with flexi time and no external customers. We clock in at the time-clock nearest to our desk so it doesn't matter whether you start at 6.45am or 10.15 am, you still have to make up your full hours. So you leave at 2.45 or not until 6.15pm. The computer takes forever to boot but that's on their time, not mine.

DH gets a regular bollocking for being late to work (up to 15 minutes) but they never take into account that he's late leaving work every single day (up to 2 1/2 hours). I've told him to make sure he arrives on time and then leaves exactly on time too and see how they like that, but he won't.

I once worked somewhere we had to physically clock in, and if we were one minute past our start time or a minute before our leaving time we were docked 15 mins pay - now that does focus the mind on timekeeping...

I agree with you OP.

Though I did work somewhere where when I started at 8 (or 9) I'd log in and then go straight upstairs to the canteen to get breakfast to bring back down. But everyone did that (or at least took an order for everyone else), so I think it's a little different to just one person taking the piss.

It would all be so much easier if Flexitime was the standard - I'm often in late, but I rarely leave before 30 minutes or more after my official end time, and often work partly through lunch. If I kept strictly to the second, work would lose a good 2 or 3 free hours from me.

YANBU

This used to get me stabby. If we started at 9am and finished 1pm, we were expected to arrive at 8:45 and set up and collect registers and gather together the students. Then finish at 1pm on the dot then clear up and clock out about 1.10pm

My first bug bear was - some employees would tear arse in at 9am having left me to set up and sort their shit out because it effected my stuff if I didn't. It leaves a bad taste in your mouth if employees continuously take the piss.

2. I spend 20 mins extra in work than I have to buy don't get paid for it. X 2 shifts That 200 mins a week that I don't get paid for. It's reflected in my pay apparently .....

I agree that flexitime is the answer - but proper flexitime, like where I work. We clock in and clock out electronically. There are core hours where we have to be in. Outside of that, we can do what we like as long as the work gets done. So you can come in late and leave late, or come in early and leave early, or come in early and leave late if you need to, or even come in late and leave early, or have a long lunch break if you've got stuff to do outside of work, as long as you've got enough time 'banked'. If we build up enough extra hours, we can take flexi days or half days off -up to a day a month, which is 12 days extra days a year, fact fans, and you can carry forward the extra minutes indefinitely, and it all adds up. Puts paid to clock-watching bastards bitching about people drinking coffee, stops people taking the piss and there is no such thing as 'late' in terms of arrival time (as long as you adhere to the core hours). It really is the most civilised regime.

Yanbu but it's really the fault of the boss for allowing it

I work in a call centre, I need to be on the phones at my start time. It takes a few minutes to turn on computer, log into everything, get coffee, etc. but when i had an admin job it was generally accepted that you arrived at your start time. I had a habit of being late, but did make time back and stayed late whenever needed. My manager actually told me that he gave me flexibility because I gave it back.

Taking 30 or 45 minutes from start time to actually starting work is taking the piss tho!

If you arrive late with no good reason, you stay late or make up time on your lunch surely? In my job if I start at 9, I can arrive as early or late as I like as long as I start work at 9. Once I was 30 mins late because my petrol tank was leaking and I was asked to stay 30 minutes later. I'd love to have a job where I could waltz in at 9, faff about making coffee and then think about starting work.

Start at 9am means just that be ready to work at 9am. It doesn't mean arrive in the building, take coat off, have a wee, make a brew/breakfast etc.

The thigh that really boils my piss is the latecomer with the excuse 'oh the bus was late.,..yadda yadda' which I don't mind as public transport is useless. What I do mind is when said latecomer comes in holding a Starbucks coffee miss out the coffee and get in on time. I have been late once in my current job because my train went on fire.

I don't faff when I get into work, so I will sit in the car and chat to DH until the last possible moment. I get in just a minute or two before I am supposed to start but then do start straight away. No coffees or breakfast or anything because I've done that at home first! I would never get in 15 minutes early and spend any longer there than necessary but then I'm not particularly keen on my job, and have no career ambition!

I used to work in a City law firm and it wasn't uncommon to get your secretary to turn your lights on, put a jacket on the back of your chair and switch your PC on to make it look like you were in but in a meeting or reading-in in the library or whatever

I'm not sure I would feel comfortable telling people I employ that they have to arrive 10-15 mins early everyday and not pay them for that.

I'm also quite strongly of the view that most people should pay attention to the work they do their own responsibilities and obligations and pay far less attention to what their colleagues do.

IME the vast majority of people who spend time complaining about their colleagues time keeping and work ethics tend to be making judgements based on a incomplete picture and have vastly over inflated opinions of their own work related behaviour

YANBU about be in work on time but YABU about expecting people to arrive early. I'm on flexi so have to flexibility to choose my start time but when I start I get straight to work, if I was on fixed hours I wouldn't want to be giving up 15+ minutes of my life every day for no extra money

This pretty much sums up how it is for me...