To leave work on time?

[lenalove]

I work in an admin role in finance (small company) and my contracted hours are 9-6. I only take my full lunch hour 2-3 times a week, the rest of the time eat at my desk and take 20-30 mins or so. I make a point of leaving between 6-6.30 daily (unless there is something specific I am asked to do/an important task that needs finishing) and yet I feel I am made to feel unreasonable and lazy by my colleagues (think little comments and funny looks).

AIBU to want to just get home after a long day and unwind? My attitude is if I have got done what I need to there's no point staying late just to "impress" - but am I wrong in thinking this?

Any advice/personal experience much appreciated!

I often have the opposite. I’m employed to work 37.5 hours per week with "reasonable overtime". Sometimes I work nights, sometimes days. I need to be flexible.

I was to work last night from about 1600-2300. But things changed and I left at 2000. I then turned up for work at 1100 today and knocked off at 1400.

There are times ofcourse when I work rather hard.

I'm going to sound like a jetk but I think people eho do unpaid overtime in jobs with no prospect of progression or promotion are a bit pathetic.

🙄 though not as pathetic as my phone's crappy autocorrect

No, YANBU.

I regularly stay late and work strange hours in my current job, but I knew when I applied for and took the role that it would be required (mental health social work- you don't get to say 'sorry, it's 5.30, I am off the clock so crisis or no crisis I'm going home'). In a previous job I left on time every day, both because there was never a really urgent reason for me to stay and because in those days I did the dc's pickups and had no choice.

Unless it is a job that involves last minute crises and vulnerable people or animals etc, I find those routinely staying late just show that they have not prioritised their work load and seem inefficient to do it in their actual contracted hours. I'm running my own business now but when employed, I arrived and left on time and usually made a point of taking my breaks, so that I was fit for work and could cocentrate fully.

Take the 30 minuets leave at 5:30

TemptressofWaikiki

We have a guy at my work who roundly leave late every day
My boss thinks he is inactive and fusses

@1981fishgut

Yep, there are many people like that. Some even delay going home on purpose to avoid interacting with whoever they live with. The only time someone made a comment about me always leaving on time and taking regular breaks, I cheerfully agreed and said that it showed how organised and effiscient I was that I could get stuff done in my actual work hours. That shut down this kind of dig

Or even *efficient

At my former company's Christmas lunch, I was awarded a special "clockwatcher award" for being the person who was the first to leave the office every day, on the dot of 5.30pm.

But my contracted hours finished at 5.30, and I had to rush out to pick up my baby DD from the childminder's before she finished at 6pm. My colleagues all knew this, but they still resented me. They were all men, funnily enough. Bastards.

God, I hate your colleagues Curls (I have had the same sort of colleagues).
No one should be made to feel bad about leaving work on time or have to give a reason. (Exceptions do occasionally apply, e.g. you're in the middle of a clinical procedure in A&E)

That’s bullying curls - glad you’ve left.
OP, honestly I would just do your hours and not a minute more, also look for another job too. A culture like this will be deeply embedded.

YANBU. If you have done your work then it is stupid to stay. Obviously your less reasonable colleagues will judge you but if I was your manager I would look on you positively for being able to act like an adult who can rise above office politics to do what you need to do to do your job most effectively. Bring able to achieve a good work life balance us the hallmark of a good employee, nobody wants to be replacing an underling ever year because they burnout in their eagerness to price how much they want their job.