If you start work at 9 am, is it OK to walk through the door at 9 am ?

[mmhhhkkkk]

Or is that a bit ' late ' ?

I'd say that was late, you need to be ready to start actual work at 9am

But I've unfortunately worked with a number of people who think being in the same street at 9am is sufficient

We were always taught at school to be at work about 10-15 minutes before we were due to start in order not to be late.

I live like that now even for hairdressing appts.

Depends on the job and expectations of your employer.

When I worked in a call centre that would be late because you needed to be logged into all your systems ready to take calls at your start time. Whereas other roles I’ve had have been more flexible as long as there’s give and take.

Do you live on the dot?

Sat in your desk by 9. Once you press the button to turn on the computer you're working in my opinion. Some people seem to think they have started working as soon as they enter the building and carry on that attitude gor the rest of the day. I used to work with someone who hardly had his bum on his seat the whole day but would have been very unhappy if he had received less than a full day's pay, despite only doing an hour of actual work.

When I worked on retail we had a start time 15 minutes prior to opening to get set up ready for customers when the doors opened at 9. So we had to be on the shop floor at 8.45 on the dot to start whatever job we had that day.

Depends what you’re going to do. If you walk in at 9am, go straight to your chair and start work by 9:01, then fine. But if you get in at 9, mess about with a coat, scarf, go for a piss and make a cup of coffee, then no that’s a piss take.

I start at 8.30 for 9 because I need at least 2 coffees and a surf of the news before I start.

I start at 9 and get to work for 8:55 latest and have been asked if I have a problem getting in on time as that's late apparently. It's not like a make tea or anything im at my best by 8:55. Really annoys me

Surprised at all the responses - I doubt that the majority of jobs are time sensitive!
I’m the ‘saunter in and take my time with breakfast’ sort but I leave later to make up for it. I need the time to settle in for deeply focused brainwork

Any job I've ever had (and they are many and varied) expected you to be at your work station ready to go at your start time whether that meant being at a checkout with my float checked, at a call centre desk with my headset on or in a clinic ready to see patients I couldn't have walked through the door at 8.59 and been ready to work at 9.00. Whatever job I did there was always some prep time needed and I didn't get paid for that. Even when I was 15 and worked in a sweet shop I had to get there a few minutes early to hang up my coat, use the loo etc before the shop opened.

It depends. All those who think you should be at the desk by 9:00 probably run out the door on the dot at home time, whereas those that get in the door at 9:00 probably take their time leaving as well.

I stopped getting in earlier as people would expect me to work early

Depends whether you are being paid for time present at your desk or for work completed.

If it’s the latter some give and take is normal, but you would probably also be expected to stay late without overtime if work wasn’t completed.

Depends how much you get paid.

Low pay (less than 25k) - on time
Mid pay (25-50k) - late
High pay (50k+) - early unless its a meeting

Dont ask me the logic. Their is none

late

I just have this vision of people sat at their desk facing the computer all logged on and ready to go, counting down 10, 9, 8 ….. just so they don’t do a few minutes more work than they have to.

I'd say be at your desk ready to go ..so coffee already made etc if that how you roll !!!
Or on the shop floor in uniform and ready to go ...

I officially start at 8 ..the latest I'd arrive is 7-45 am ...give me chance to get in....say good morning ..make a drink....check my computer is on etc ..I'm a TA

Every company I have worked for would expect you to be sat at your desk and ready to start working at 9am. Walking through the door at that time is considered late.

That said the 'IT' crowd waltzed in when they felt like it and not a word was ever said. Caused a massive amount of friction

Work aren't paying you to be in the building. They're paying you to do a job and you should be ready to start the job at your start time.

It really surprises me how many adults don't realise this. Especially if you're providing a service. Are customers supposed to wait 5 minutes until you get logged into your till/phone etc? What if a colleague is finishing at your start time? Do they wait until you've stuck your stuff in your locker and sauntered over to the tills?

If they need/want you to be ready to deal with customers/clients at 9, then they need to pay you for your time - not expect a freebie. All they have to do is make your start time (and start paying you from) 8:50 and then tell you that you have to have switched your computer on, taken your coat off, had a wee etc. and be ready to actually start work at 9am. Companies will bleat at that: "But that will cost us a fortune paying every single person for an extra 50 minutes a week!" Tough: if the employee is there working for you, you don't expect them to give you 50 minutes of their own unpaid time every week.

This thread has been very focused on office/teaching jobs so far, but when you look at jobs that take far longer to prepare, it becomes obvious.

Suppose you're a scaffolder (paid by the hour from 9am sharp by a contractor), would you expect them to 'have the scaffolding ready for use' at 9? Even if assembling it and doing all the safety checks take several hours? Try finding a plumber or electrician who has to drive for an hour into a city/to a central depot store for an urgent unusual part that's crucial to the customer's job, after diagnosis, and not expect to be charged for their time. Insisting that you are paying the builder to actually build your wall and that he should expect to be mixing up the mortar in his own time before you start paying him?

As long as people aren't taking the mickey, ten minutes is ten minutes - why should the worker (who is required to be there to do the job) have to pay for it rather than the employer who is paying for you to do the job? We've been conditioned to think what is 'reasonable' as an employee, but why is the employee more unreasonable to want to be paid for their necessary work time than the employer is to just assume and expect ten minutes of free prep work every single day?

Ten isolated minutes isn't that much to argue about, but over 48 weeks of the year, it comes to 40 hours - a whole working week (or more for some). Imagine the (fully justified) fury if your company nonchalantly told you they were only going to pay you for three weeks every February - and then called you in for 'a talk' if you had a problem with that?

At desk (or position of work) by 9am. That's arriving 3 minutes to 9.

lots of answers but it depends on the job
why are you asking?
i think most people try and get in before 9

@SirChenjins

If you walk in at 9, start work at 9.01 or 9.02 and work on when needed - not a pisstake.

If you do like one of my team (he and I had words quite often about it) and often walk in at 9, go and make your coffee, have a chat with the people in the offices round about and finally sit down to do some work around 9.20 then it’s an absolute pisstake. So glad he’s retired now.

Yep this.

I used to work with one smug idiot who would keep a track of when people arrived - she dropped her kids off at 8.15 so was normally at work for 8.30 for a 9am start.

She didn’t do anything in those 30 mins - she got a coffee and breakfast, she wasn’t being paid so fair enough.

But then she’d comment on everyone that arrived after 8.30.

If you came in at 9am she’d shout “good afternoon” down the office at you.

She was a peer, not a manager or anything. I don’t know how we all put up with her for as long as we did.

I'd be anxious to be any later in the office than 8:55 for a 9am start. But that's more a personal thing. I've worked in offices where it's acceptable to come in a bit later than the agreed time, but I worked in social
housing and housing emergencies are never convenient or fit around working hours so our bosses were quite flexible knowing often that we'd be working half hour past our working day in the evenings or would have no time for lunch if a crisis popped up. Generally they trusted us to run our own working days provided the work got done.

However, it does annoy me that the working day never includes commuting

Of course it shouldn’t

If you are employed from 9 you can arrive at 9. You can set up at 9. If an employer wants an employee there and seeing things up from 8.45 they should pay them from 8.45

You wouldn’t last long where I work with a self-entitled attitude like that
Our hours are 8.30 to 4.30 with half an hour for lunch. You are expected to actually be able to start work at 8.30, not 8.35. There is give and take where I work, and if anyone of us is late for one reason or another, as long as we make up our hours it doesn’t matter. But someone who permanently takes the piss by walking into the office at 8.30 gets short shrift from our HOD.

It's not late. You need to turn on your computer to do your job but it's part of your job so it happens on works time.