To leave work at 5pm?

[sunshineandrainbowz]

My work hours are 9-5 but it seems all my colleagues stay later than that (I come to work on a morning to emails sent at 8/9pm!) and it gets commented on a lot that I shoot out the door at 5pm.

I don't particularly enjoy my job but I do it well and everything is done by 5pm but I get snarky comments that I leave at 5 and don't stay longer. I don't care for overtime pay etc. and just want to get home. (I've been here a year and the comments have been consistent)

Am I coming across as unprofessonal/is it making it obvious I don't absolutely love my job? My boss has never called me up on it it's just side eye and comments from coworkers but it's making me uncomfortable

AIBU/rude? (I have anxiety so I'm probably overthinking this)

[joan04]

@FishyDuck

I'm a senior manager and director of a company and I am certainly not impressed by staff who race for the exits at 5pm. We want staff with an excellent work ethic who are passionate about their jobs and excited to go that extra mile to support the company and their colleagues.

If you are finished with all your work for the day, you should be asking your managers and colleagues whether there is anything you can do to help them.

Are you absolutely sure that you're not making cups of tea during the working day or switching off your computer before 5? These behaviours are not acceptable at my place and you owe your employer significant amount of time if you've been exhibiting them!

This must be a wind up, if not your company culture belongs in the 80s, if not the Victorian era. What is your companies Glassdoor rating?

[PhilCornwall1]

Presenteeism, because that's what being in work longer than your contracted hours is at the end of the day, is misguided if people think it will go in their favour when situations like redundancies come up.

We had 5 people go last week, one a Manager (although this one I think was a case of "we don't want you, you're a pain in the arse) that would regularly do 50 to 60 hour weeks, it didn't do them any good. Told on Tuesday, gone on Friday. Working longer hours did nothing for them.

An employer ultimately has no loyalty to you, you're just a number.

[PhilCornwall1]

• I'm a senior manager and director of a company and I am certainly not impressed by staff who race for the exits at 5pm. We want staff with an excellent work ethic who are passionate about their jobs and excited to go that extra mile to support the company and their colleagues.
  
  If you are finished with all your work for the day, you should be asking your managers and colleagues whether there is anything you can do to help them.
  
  Are you absolutely sure that you're not making cups of tea during the working day or switching off your computer before 5? These behaviours are not acceptable at my place and you owe your employer significant amount of time if you've been exhibiting them!*
  
  You're either winding everyone up, or you work in a shit place.
  
  I'm Senior in a large organisation and would never expect this bollocks from my team.

[FluffyKittensinabasket]

No matter how much unpaid overtime you do, surely this whole pandemic has shown how disposable we all are to employers? It’s really just a job. Your colleagues are not friends, who cares what they think.

[Nat6999]

When I worked, there was one manager who started work at 6.15am when the earliest start time was 7.00am, she never finished before 6.30pm when the latest finish time was 6.00pm, she worked on one of three floors but would go marching around the whole office telling anyone off she suspected wasn't working, even telling staff off in front of their own managers who were the same grade as her. She had been there from the year dot, managers had started & been promoted over her sometimes two or three grades, she never got promoted. One of my friends got promoted to the same grade as her & when she saw members of her own team being told off in front of her by said manager repeatedly, went to group management & asked if said manager had been asked to supervise her management, was told no, every time said manager approached her team, she publicly told her to leave her area & sit down. After seeing this other managers did the same, within a year said manager had applied to retire & gone. Usually when anyone retired there was a gathering, a presentation, staff bought gifts & cards, the day she left there was nothing, group management ended up having to dash out to buy something, it was usual practice for there to be cakes handed out, every single staff member refused a cake, there was a weird group stood in the middle of the office of group managers who had been forced to attend & said manager, come lunchtime, the entire office went to the pub except said manager who sat working at her desk. She was the last staff member to leave on her last day, come the following Monday morning it was like she had never worked there, her name was never mentioned & her staff were shared around other management teams.

[thecognoscenti]

@FishyDuck

I'm a senior manager and director of a company and I am certainly not impressed by staff who race for the exits at 5pm. We want staff with an excellent work ethic who are passionate about their jobs and excited to go that extra mile to support the company and their colleagues.

If you are finished with all your work for the day, you should be asking your managers and colleagues whether there is anything you can do to help them.

Are you absolutely sure that you're not making cups of tea during the working day or switching off your computer before 5? These behaviours are not acceptable at my place and you owe your employer significant amount of time if you've been exhibiting them!

Wow. Heaven forbid any of your staff want a cup of tea! Do you time their loo breaks too? If they've done their work they are entitled to leave at the time you stop paying them. They don't need to stay late, unpaid, to help out the people who have too much to do.

[Shizzlestix]

I'm a senior manager and director of a company and I am certainly not impressed by staff who race for the exits at 5pm.

What a silly comment. Don’t you have children? Many nurseries fine you if you’re late picking up. Why should an employee stay longer than the hours for which they’re paid?

[BarbedBloom]

Until recently I was a manager and I told my employees to leave as soon as work is over. I am very much focused on a work life balance. If someone had to stay late they are either inefficient or have too much work and I would take steps to sort both. I ensured they regularly took holidays and never contacted them outside of work unless it was an absolute emergency.

I cannot stand this idea that people should stay unpaid beyond their working hours. It is not acceptable. It is a job, end of. The whole company I worked for felt the same way and they have good staff retention. They also had a wellbeing week each year where staff were encouraged to go in work time for meditation, or a massage.

I have a disability. For years I worked in this ridiculous company that expected everyone to stay hours past their finish time and to put work over their family. I had such a flare that I had to be off work for a year. During my time there, 2 people on my team committed suicide. Another had a mental health breakdown that has left them unable to work to this day. Eventually their reputation became so bad that they could not fill positions. They closed down the year after I left. Absolutely unacceptable.

[ChockyBicky]

I used to arrive early and work late unpaid for a long time until one day I got stuck in traffic phoned to let them know and ran from my car to the office and was 4 minutes late for the first time ever and was told to stay 4 minutes into lunch to make up the hours.
Never again was I early or if I was I waited until start time to start work and logged off at precisely 5:30 and left, bosses will take you for a mug so long as you let them.

We also had a policy where if you were off sick 3 times you were fired, I was ill once and forced myself back to work through guilt before I was ready and before the start of work I was visibly ill and had over done it coming back in when I thought I could manage, I was told it would be counted and a second sick strike so if I was ill again in a year I'd be out the job so I found another job because of the insecurity of knowing if I was ill in the next year I would be unemployed.

[RiftGibbon]

Chocky the last place I worked at was a bit like this. I was off sick and then broke a bone in my foot. I had an hour's commute and the trains were always packed at peak hours. My doctor had forbidden me to travel.
I tried to liaise with work to see if it was possible to work from home (my job would have required me to log into the work system and put things on a spreadsheet) but they dragged their heels. My direct manager rang me every single day to see if I was "well enough to come in" - even though she was aware of why I was not in the office and not able to do anything. She made an appointment for me to go to an occupational health clinic which was reasonably near to where I lived.
The appointment was on the 3rd floor. I hobbled out of the lift on crutches, and along to the consultants office. He took one look at me and said, "Oh you're not REFUSING to go in, are you? You can't travel like that." and signed me off for another month.
{I was being investigated for underlying problems which work, and he also were informed of}
When I went back I resigned.

[hellsbellsmelons]

everything is done by 5pm but I get snarky comments that I leave at 5 and don't stay longer
'Well... I can't help it if I'm good and efficient at my job. If any of you need a hand then let me know! Or I could do a general half day training if would help you all get a better work/life balance!?'

[Mary46]

I would just do my hours no more. My boss hadnt manners to commit to me back in office after Covid. Nearly year half there.
Just a number. Zero contact

[Tappering]

I don't go switching people's computers off - instead I keep in regular contact with them and ask them to finish up and go home. If someone's routinely working over their hours then I want to know why - are they overstretched? Are they using their time productively?

Regular and routine working over your hours is a sign of a problem. And what people unconsciously do "willingly" quite often turns out to be because they are scared not to - they don't want to be the odd one out that finishes on time. Which in turn makes the person that does finish on time, look as if they are shirking or less committed - a judgment which is totally unfair.

As a manager you have a responsibility to intervene and ensure that your line reports are maintaining a work/life balance. The occasions where something is so screamingly urgent that everyone needs to work late, should be few and far between in a properly functioning team.

[bumblingbovine49]

Good grief. I'd hate a manager to be telling me I have to go home. I do tend to work past my finish time at work. This is because I am not the most efficient person, I do tend to procrastinate and work much better in the afternoon than in the morning. I do a good job and have been promoted a few times. I am an excellent employee and colleague. I know this as I have been told in several of my reviews .

As I have got older I realised I almost certainly have ADD but I have managed over a 30 year career to make up for some of these deficits, however some things do take me longer to do than it might take someone else. I always meet my deadlines but I have to work extra hours to do so. Since this does not impinge on my employer ( I don't get overtime or toil) than fail to see what the problem is. Some of us may be a bit less 'efficient' but we still do a good job.

[Tappering]

And that's fine @bumblingbovine49 because that's your working style. But the majority of people want to leave on time and those that don't, are often only lingering because of a culture of presenteeism - which is pointless, counterproductive and harmful.

I have one person in my department like you. She takes a while to 'warm up' and works better in the later afternoon and evening. We've adjusted her working hours and start/finish times to reflect that.