Aibu. ahhh boss quibbling over 1 minute.

[Peterbear]

IWork for a council in E England. NEw boss has just emailed to say that she has checked my time sheets - on a couple of days last month i have written start time as 8am. ( work from home since covid) I did not however send in my 'log on' email till 8.01. I am being asked to go back and amend my time sheet.
Wtf?? Do I say don't be ridiculous that is a complete waste of taxpayer money or do I just play along? Worth saying that I often work a bit over and don't log this as feel it's petty to put for example 5.07 on a time sheet. Wwyd? Aibu to think jesus get a bloody life??

Wow. I work in LG and we are SO flexible atm, no pressure time work core hours, the main priority that is getting drummed into us is that the emotional health of ourselves And our families come first.

You could send that 8am email and sit surfing the web for all they know, surely work should be measured on productivity rather than hours.

And actually I would be forwarding the email so their manager and asking if this is the kind if work environment they want to be setting

Urgh this behaviour is so irritating.

I had an offsite meeting that finished at say 4.30pm. I asked to work from the site until COB as it was a 30 min walk away but my boss insisted that I returned to the office afterwards.

Meeting over ran slightly, I had a lovely walk back, returned to the office with a cheery hello to all. Sat down, logged in and logged off about 5 mins later with a cheery goodbye.

Another colleague piped up ‘you may as well have worked from the other site’, to which I responded ‘that’s what I said’ while smiling at my boss.

My boss at least had the decency to look ashamed, not that it stopped her power plays.
Sad thing is until then I was the only staff member who didn’t clock watch.

I feel really sorry for you - I could not be micro-managed like that. Time to look for a new job!

I feel Microsoft teams has been designed for this kind of spying. That light has to be green allllll day. No consulting books, toilet breaks...

Play her at her own game.

I had a manager this petty in my first job. I started half an hour eaerly each day and wanted to finish 10 minutes early. She didn't like it but agreed to five minutes. I continued to start half an hour early and finish 10 minutes early. In the end she told me I had to work my contract hours. The very next day she asked me to work late and told me I could come in an hour late as that was 'fair'. I had no choice.

From then onwards I never started work a minute early, never finished a minute late, and never took less then my full hour's lunchbreak. She knew what I was doing and why, but there was nothing she could do about it.

I think I'm really lucky. Work for Local government. Have a start and finish time, I do tend to log in early as my commute is now just walking downstairs! I also work until I've finished what I'm doing. Not usually more than 20 mins over. Sometimes I take a lunch, sometimes I want to finish something.

My manager is lovely, he trusts us to do what we should be doing and shares out time off in lieu fairly.

He knows which afternoon each of us finds more beneficial to have off and we take it in turns.

We can also ask for something as hoc and I've not ever known it to be refused.

There are possibly some of the team who do less than others eg the mouse click thing. I haven't and it's only a suspicion about the minority. But I think overall it works.

We work hard, he knows and respects that.
We respect him more because of it.

Also I suspect he is a mouse clicker some days

I feel Microsoft teams has been designed for this kind of spying. That light has to be green allllll day. No consulting books, toilet breaks...

People actually dothat?

That's just shitty and insanely petty. I'm personally operating under the assumption that my own boss hasn't even quite figured out that this is even an option - either that or he just has a weird thing for good old phones ...

And these organisations wonder why employees have no loyalty and act surprised when at the dismal staff survey results.

I work in the NHS. In an area that has been particularly busy as a result of Covid (but admin). I have obviously been stretched. I was picked up recently for being 2 minutes late (once! and not affecting anyone) and I absolutely lost it, pointing out how many times I had worked after hours. And I was told to log what time I came in and left. As a result I am well in credit (nearly due a day off in a matter of weeks) but still feel completely demoralised by being questioned about the two minutes. If I hadn't have been questioned, the minutes each day I worked extra would have been goodwill, but not now.

My mum was a middle manager for a huge company you would have heard of. She worked around 90 minutes extra every day. On her last day she finished a couple of hours early and went home as she had nothing left to do.

Her manager actually rang Payroll and told them to debit two hours from her final salary. After my mum had probably worked hundreds of hours unpaid! She just laughed and said it reiterated she was glad she could retire early and never have to deal with those sorts of people ever again.

Tongue in cheek I would suggest she takes the money out of your salary and then send her a bill for your OT.

I would genuinely email back and say 'sorry i don't have time do to that but would be more than happy for you to take 1 minutes worth of pay off me'

But then again i made a formal complaint against two seniors at my work last year because they tried to punish me for asking to change our monday morning meeting back to the Tuesday we discussed it would be, as i had clients to get back to from the week before.

Hate people that think they can treat you like shit because they are your manager.

I had petty managers like this in the past. They were a married couple who owned their own small business, so obviously work was their life. For some reason, they expected minimum wage employees who saw none of the profits/overall satisfaction to have the same dedication to the job. I always showed up 5-10 mins before start time - would never have dreamed of going in even a minute late as they’d have kicked off - and was expected to stay half an hour, unpaid, after my finish time (which is actually illegal when you’re on NMW!). They would sometimes pay me for up to fifteen minutes, sometimes not. I was expected to cash out both tills, including sorting receipts and cash boxes, sweep and mop floors, and ensure the entire shop (about the size of a Tesco express) was tidy/presentable by ‘facing up’ all the products i.e. making sure everything was brought to the front of the shelf. For every. Single. Shelf. Just me working - fifteen bloody minutes. Needless to say it took longer, plus arsehole boss would often let in family and friends ten mins past closing and say “just serve these gentleman now, please” and also keep me behind, at 10:30pm, to give me and the shelf stackers a rambling, generic lecture about how hard he had worked and how he’d been to the university of life.
I fought it once but gave up. After that, I absolutely took the piss with my breaks, giving myself 5-10 mins extra, and I quit without giving notice. You reap what you sow.

Posted too soon - basically, managers like this are petty and on a power trip, with no respect for you or your time. I would do as PP have suggested: play the game by adjusting time sheets accordingly, but include your later end times and give yourself some nice long breaks. You deserve it

I logged my hours in a job once where my new boss wanted to deduct my salary by 30 minutes for taking DS to dentist. So I said, fine, I'll just put in overtime for anything over and above. I got paid an extra 3 days pay over the course of 4 weeks because of her nitpicking 😁 she let me take the odd 30 minutes after that

How unbelievably petty. This made me lol so much. Years ago a new Manager brought me to HR complaining my bad work attitude. His biggest gripe was he could see me sitting in my car until 8.45 before coming into the office (9am start) and apparently this showed blatent disregard for work. I told HR I used to just destress for few minutes before heading in and anyway, I was always at my desk ready by 9am and stayed 30mins late every evening. HR sweetly turned to manager, told him to cop on and wasnt he often late himself. I left the toxic atmosphere no long after and subsequently learned the manager tried to hire his cousin for my job... manager was let go as unsuitable not long after this. Petty people do my head in.

I’m currently looking for a new job (good old covid aye) and thinking about the generic ‘what are your weaknesses’ question. How could I answer ‘I’m not very good at being micromanaged but excel at being able to manage my own work load’.

@Tappering

I'd reply back along the lines of: I've amended my timesheet as requested and have also taken the opportunity to record the additional time I'd worked, which I'd also not recorded.

Exactly this. Why won't some managers realise they'll likely get less flexibility, not more, from their staff if they behave in such a petty fashion?

I have been there before and it's not worth the effort. But start logging those late finishes accurately! Don't ever give away your time for free to an employer that quibbles over a minute, it will make you bitter in the long run.

I am sometimes late logging on in morning, but my employer is flexible because they appreciate that I will log in for an important meeting on my day off, it's give and take.

@BanjoStarz

I hate petty shit like this.

I actually left a job over it - I got disciplined by my manager (the MD) over the lateness of my assistant.

She was persistently exactly 3 mins late due to public transport...but she persistently stayed at least 20 minutes over most days...so I had no issues with it, the company wasn’t losing out.

Our MD started working out of our site more often so noticed she was late, didn’t like my reasoning so moaned at me and said I had to enforce a 9am start time, so I did, assistant started arriving for 9am but basically ran out the door at 5 and left for good soon after - same as I did as I wasn’t happy with the interference and micromanagement.

complaining about those 3 Mins of minimum wage assistants time at 9am cost them min 15k in HR/Advertising/recruitment and on boarding costs for two new starters.

@BanjoStarz

Your boss was a bit of an idiot weren't they? Hopefully you work with someone more mature now.

Tappering
I'd reply back along the lines of: I've amended my timesheet as requested and have also taken the opportunity to record the additional time I'd worked, which I'd also not recorded.

To right!

@Mumoftwoyoungkids

Dh then explained that the team couldn’t possibly go back to the old way of working as they were really enjoying being “proper professionals” between the hours of 9am and 5:30pm. Team then got on call payments and overtime payments for stuff that they had been happily doing for free for years.
Nice!! ^^. I bet your DH's team really liked/respected him! 😁

She is an absolute dick but as pp have said I would go back and amend, and make sure to include all the extra time I had given them as well as taking off the few minutes she is so very concerned about.

What a sad little person she must be.

This thread has given me chills 😂 even with covid and the general uncertainty of working for yourself I'm glad I do.

Have had far too many experiences like this in previous jobs although fortunately also a couple of amazing flexible ones too.

Absolutely play boss at own game - and copy in whoever their boss is if you can?!