To leave my 9-5 job at 2pm if I finish my final meeting of the day early

[lindoee]

I've never given this much thought. I've got a decent job. I earn 36k a year. I often have to attend meetings. I never have to stay at work later than 15 mins past 5 but usually you are expected not to leave the building any earlier than 5.

I have two meetings a week that have an estimated end time of 5pm. One usually finishes around 4pm and I head home after that (by the time I got back to the office it would already be 5 anyway).

The other can finish any time from 2-4pm. I have always understood that after the final meeting of the day, I can finish for the day. Everyone else does and it seems to be the norm around here. We are pretty much flexible workers but I am wondering if the expectation is to work the final hours from home.

I live just with my son so I have never discussed this with anyone before but I told my parents today and they were shocked I left at 2pm. A full 3 hours earlier than I am paid for. I don't work from home after the meeting.

AIBU to not return to my office after this meeting? This particular meeting is a 5 minute walk away from my office. The meeting that finishes around 4pm is almost an hour drive away from the office.

I'm a hard worker. I don't take long lunches or sit chatting all day.

^That is your choice not to take your lunch break. Really only a fool does that.

At my work. This would be fine if it took more than 30 mins to travel from the meeting to the office. Or if the meeting is held nearer your home than our office

However, you would absolutely be expected to work from home for those few hours.

I regularly have meetings in a building 5 mins away. Not a chance would people expect you to go home after that. Even if the meeting was scheduled to last until 5pm. Chances are no one would know. But I like my boss and employer to actually trust me.

You say this is common practice l, but haven't actually dared raise the issue with your manager. That suggests to me that you know it's not ok and people doing it are just getting away with it. Not actually allowed to do it.

How lazy! Why on earth wouldn't you log on and work until 5pm at home or go back to the office? I would fire any of my team that did that!

It’s not really on is it OP? You are basically taking an unauthorised half day.

4pm finish - leaving early, fine.
Leaving at 2pm 5 mins from your office - a bit piss takey. I would at least log on at home and do a few emails.

If you are a flexible worker then that means give and take in toil.

If you are in at 8.40 x5 days a week then you are 1h 40mins a week up in toil. If you go home at 2pm once a week then you owe 1h 20 minutes a week.

Total mickey take regardless of flexibility. You are utterly wrong to go home 3 hours early, that’s half a day. I had a meeting today which finished at 2, I was back in the office at 2.40 and left at 5.20. Didn’t occur to me not to and i would have serious discussions if my team did this without running it past me and using up TOIL

Irrespective of whether others do this too you are setting yourself up for a fall if they want to manage you out for any reason (including to avoid paying you redundancy money). You're effectively stealing time/money from them every time you take a 3 hour early finish.

Starting 20 minutes before your shift and finishing 15 minutes after it is pretty normal in my field which is "professional" but on the lower end of the pay scale (pretty level with you). I'd laugh if a colleague suggested doing that would balance against 3 productive hours in an afternoon.

If you're so confident you're in the clear speak to your line manager about this and make sure it's authorised...in writing. The you can skive take an early finish without worry.

As the owner of a micro business I would not be happy with you finishing work at 2pm when you are 5 minutes away from the office - 1 hour away is fine. As you say you never work much beyond 5pm. There would be no annual bonus if I found out - usually 10-15% if salary plus £1k xmas bonus. I would look to ease you out of my company

I'm surprised you need to ask.

I’m all for skiving off work but unless you have flexi you can use to leave 3 hours early you could get in trouble if your manager found out or if somebody else reported it.

On the other side of the coin, looking at other posts, people are doing hours of unpaid overtime every week. So it’s fine for the employer to benefit but not the employee?

Finishing at 2 and not working from home is massively taking the piss

You’re not leaving early Op you’re managing yout time effectively. Senior roles require flexibility because often require overtime and sometimes you might be in meetings from 7am - 6pm with only coffee to sustain you — so to offset those days it’s perfectly fine to have days where you finish early / work from your mobile.

Cherries101 the OP has said that she doesn’t work late though.
When I worked in senior roles I was often in meetings until 6 or 7, or on a 5am train to London, or working on my laptop at 11pm. Absolutely I would manage my time where possible and there would be no issue with me going home after a lunchtime meeting if that was what I decided. The OP isn’t in that situation though. She’s in the office for 8.40am and leaves at 5pm on the days she doesn’t have these external meetings.

@soydora — oh wow. I didn’t read that part. Wow. I actually don’t know what to say to that. I take it OP / her teamdoesn’t work around the decision makers in her organisation— if I saw that kind of work ethic I would consider offshoring / outsourcing their work (or redundancy) as there’s clearly not enough work.

Are you sure others who leave early after a meeting don't work from home afterwards?

My usual finish time is 5. I went home after a meeting today finished at 14.30 however last night due to an emergency I stayed late until 21.30. I don’t get paid so I took today as time owing. I would never leave early in the circumstances you are describing and if I found any of my employees were I would be putting them through disciplinary proceedings.

Presumably if this meeting is at another office/building, you will be signing in/out? I'm a senior NHS manager and have used this method to check when a member of staff left meetings, as I was advised (by many) that they were effectively skiving by leaving either during or following the meeting. If you were my member of staff and we're regularly leaving early without claiming it back as time owed, you would be dismissed for timesheet fraud.

I think you're pushing it a bit with the 2pm finish.

How long does it take you to get home from this meeting? I'd probably go home but actually do work when I got there to make sure I could justify my 'worked' hours. I suppose for me it would be making sure I've completely covered my back, you never know what can come back at you if a company needs to get rid of staff.

Ive always worked in roles where success was measured by doing the jobs you had been tasked to do, not by hours, so I would go home in both cases.

But that's a specific type of role where extra hours are a given when required too - it works both ways....

If you were at this meeting with your boss, or your boss had to attend this meeting unexpectedly one week, would you go home then? Because there's your answer.

I don't think she's coming back.

In my job before last, I had nothing to do. For months. Long story. I didn’t have a line manager.

I spent my days doing nothing. I didn’t put myself on the flexi system. I worked from home a lot and watched boxsets. On my last day, the office was empty so I packed up at 11am and left! My annual leave and sickness ended up not being recorded either as I had no manager!

The fact you are even posting this questions speaks volumes. You know you are doing wrong after the 2pm finish by going home.

If you have flexi time, sure, go ahead and take it off, but to just go home as a 'perk' is not defensible or justifiable.

You've minimised and given a range of excuses as to why it 'should be ok' but at the end of the day it amount to time theft. If I were you're employer and discovered this, you would be out.

I find your lack of work ethic quite staggering.

Of course you go back to the office or log from home if your mtg is over by 2pm. You say you are flexible workers but never stay 15 minutes past 5pm and yet you are ready to skive like that. It only flexes one way! You would last approximately 5 minutes where I work with such behaviours.