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 think you should ask yourself why you are asking the question

It’s skiving. You’re being paid to work until 5. So work until 5.

Reading all the comments, I’m amazed - but not surprised - at how obsessed people are about hours and the idea that you must work a set number to be productive. Obviously there are many exceptions to this, but for office-type roles I’ve worked in so many places where people just sit at their desks counting down the clock without doing much.

A friend who works at a large well-known tech company is monitored by performance only and pretty much comes and goes as she pleases. As long as she performs well, all is good.

Totally the way forward imo. Goodness knows most people end up working all sorts of hours anyway with 24/7 emails etc.

If the OP is managing her work well and getting good appraisals despite leaving early occasionally, what’s the issue?

@Aquilla ?

Used to have a job that necessitated being out of office for meetings a lot. These could be all over the country. If I started from work, travelled to a job and would manage to get back to office for usual finish time then I did. If travelling would mean I would arrive late back at work and I had no cause to go back then I would go home, about 25 mins drive from work. When I had to leave early to get to a meeting say leave home at 8 am to get to meeting for 9 am then I would credit myself with the 35 mins early start I had. Worked flexitime but no way would just finish around 2 pm and go home, only if I had enough work to do at home. YANU.

Should be YABU!

I am in a professional position but when I finish a meeting at 2pm, I go home and work from home until around 6/7pm. That’s because I often do more work when I’m at home.

Finishing at 2pm to go home and do nothing is not good. Sounds like a piss take to me.

If you went back to the office would you have work to do? If you've been doing this for a while and your boss hasn't complained about your lack of productivity then it's probably OK. As others have said in senior roles it is more common to be measured on outcomes rather than hours clocked.

YABU
Not that it makes any difference what you do or where you work...
I’m in a ‘professional’ job, take shorter lunch than I should, work very hard etc as you have told us you do... and as most people do...
but I feel cheeky even if I leave at 6.10 and I’m paid til 6.15. 🙈

What would you do if you saw your boss?

lindoee
I don't intentionally skive off. In fact I have never even thought about it as skiving before. It never crossed my mind.

Well now you know! You have had dozens of people on here tell you that regularly skiving off work 3 hours early is unethical. It’s stealing your employer’s time. And it’s still wrong even if you don’t get caught. My goodness does nobody have any scruples any more!?

Is this the kind of job where you have your own workload, or is it a team where everyone pitches in? If it's a team YABVU as they will have to pick up your slack for the 3 hours not worked. For instance, I lead a team where everyone has their own portfolio of projects, but the nature of the work is that everyone experiences peaks and troughs in workload and you're expected to pass on work to others when busy and do extra work for others when quiet, to avoid delivering late to the client. If I found out one of my staff was going home at 2pm (and they are on a similar or lower salary to yours) I'd be LIVID and haul them in front of a disciplinary.

So I guess it depends if there is someone else picking up your slack as to exactly how unreasonable it is.

On your present wage (outside London) I worked 45-50 hours a week despite being contracted to 37, rarely with overtime pay. That's a work ethic. Not coming in at 8.40 LOL. I don't actually agree that people should have to put in those sorts of hours, but at that wage I'd expect it tbh.

I’m quite shocked anyone would think it was ok to go home at 2pm when 5 minutes from work! I am very pro flexible working and let staff I manage work flexibly if they are performing well - WHEN there is a reason to. So you have caring responsibilities / a health appointment and have to leave at 2? Fine. You are leaving at 2 because essentially you can’t be bothered walking back to office?! NOT fine.

Ooh tricky, if you start going back to the office then other people might get cross that you are making them look bad. I would take some work to do at home.

Don’t worry! All jobs have their own quirks and rules of thumb. Seems like you are falling in line with what everyone does.

Wow, you are lucky your workload allows you to do that, if I finished a meeting early I would be jumping for joy that I have some time to catch up on other work!

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

Well that's what you're being paid to do so no need to mention this.

To go home at 2 is a piss take. And you know it.

Where's OP?
Not liking the responses? Or boss is on here? 😱

If the meeting was in your office, rather than 5 mins away, would you still think it was OK to clear off home if it finished at 2pm?

I've had lunch breaks end at 2pm. You need to go back to the office!

On your present wage (outside London) I worked 45-50 hours a week despite being contracted to 37, rarely with overtime pay. That's a work ethic

No it isn't. It's being sold a lie that your actual contract isn't the real contract. Of course people with a work ethic work as the job demands, but if the job regularly demands a day a week extra work (45 compared to 37) then somethings badly wrong.

You don’t work very hard, you work very slightly more than your minimum contracted hours 4 days a week, and skive off for half a day on the fifth!

”I don't intentionally skive off”
Yes you do, you’ve just admitted it!!
Without question, you are being a CF.

You can’t possibly qualify yourself as hard-working. You are contracted presumably for 35 hrs per week and you are delivering 32 hours per week plus a dribble more in the mornings which doesn’t close the gap. It’s not gross misconduct under employment law but it would be grounds for managing you out the business if you work for anyone who actually cares about their organisation. If you don’t pull your socks up soon you’ll be in danger of being replaced by someone more motivated at some point!

This would be fine in my role, but I often have more than a week's worth of contracted hours in TOIL sitting on my time sheet, if it was ok to do you'd be open about it, the fact that you don't say anything to people in the office tells me you know it's not ok. In that situation I'd say to my team, I'm off to X meeting I'll be clocking off when it finishes, but you can still contact me on my mobile if you need to etc.