To leave work 15 mins early?

[hnagw]

Work in a busy office environment. Standard office hours are roughly 9-5, 5 days a week in office. Sometimes people work from home if they have a doctors appt or something. Hours are often a lot longer though (think 9 or 10pm) but people leave the office around 5:30pm to eat get home for dinner and then work again.

The other day, I had finished all my work and someone was reviewing a task. I would need to process the revisions that afternoon. I’d finished all my admin stuff. It was 4:45 so I thought I’d take the chance to beat rush hour and hopefully the task would be ready for my review when I got home.

Get home and have multiple missed calls from a manager I very rarely work with. No voice mails or emails. Then it appears I was needed to help him with something but he had to give the task to someone else instead. This is despite me being around all day and seeing him in the corridor multiple times he didn’t say a peep.

AIBU to leave 15 mins early when waiting for work to come in?

Did you ask a manager if you could leave? It really depends on your work policy.

None of us can answer that surely? It makes not a jot of difference if a stranger on Mumsnet thinks you can leave early if it's against your Employer's policies.

Sounds annoying to call you like that, but also not a big deal. They found someone else to do the work.

Bigger issue is the overall hours with routinely working until 9 or 10. I hope you're a super high earner!

Did you let anyone know you were going? Not an unreasonable thing to do/use of time but you should have mentioned it if it’s not normal practice at you office.

If you left without telling anyone, that might be a problem. I'd have told my manager to cover myself, so then I could say, "I ran it by Bob."

It is mad, though, that you all travel home to pick up where you left off. That is no work/life balance.

Doesn’t it depend on your work’s culture?

My current team would be relaxed about things like this as long as you didn’t take the piss. I worked in another place where the manager would literally run after you if you left more than a few minutes before 5pm.

If no one leaves early, even though working late is expected, then you shouldn’t have left, but you also should find a new job that gives as well as takes.

If you work set hours then leaving early isn't usually allowed. If you work flexibly then it's fine. All depends on the type of place you work at. I set my own hours so it's very flexible

As other have said it is unreasonable to have to go home and continue working. Why is this required?

Each workplace has their own policies, so why you're asking here, I have no idea?
Did you tell someone you were leaving early?
As for having to continue work when you get home, I'd be seriously questioning that, as that isn't a 9 - 5! What does your contract say?

Sounds like a bad work culture.

Why the hell are you working such enormously long hours!? This must go beyond the working time directive - have you signed a waiver that you're happy to work beyond those hours? They need to employ more staff if they can't do the work without the staff they have all doing an extra 21 hours a week!

Look for a new job! Working until 9/10pm on a regular basis and not being able to take the odd 15 minutes back occasionally?

I expect my managers to ask. I've never said no, but I'd be pissed off if they just up sticks and left, whatever the reason.

The logging on once home is concerning? Are you being paid? Have you opted out of the working time directive?

I think ideally you need to let people know where you are if you're going to be uncontactable during working hours - e.g. I block as 'travel' in my calendar if I'm travelling to a meeting.

However, your working hours sound ridiculous if you are on a 9-5 contract, as you are working till 10pm regularly, what you have done is not at all unreasonable.

This wouldn’t be an issue where I work at all. But if you’re getting in trouble because you left at 4.45pm, with the expectation you would then log on from home and work until 10pm, I’d be rethinking the logging back on at home. Flexibility needs to work two ways.

If you left outside of ‘core’ normal hours and/or didn’t tell anyone, then YABU.

I think that’s a pretty toxic culture. Guess it also depends on the nature of your job and how ‘urgent’ the item was. I think it’s extremely bad form for management to be asking for new urgent work at 5pm. I’ve worked in a team with your kind of environment before and thought it was normal, then I moved and wouldn’t look back. Flexitime is pretty standard in most office type roles now. I would look for another role in a company that has flexitime and not requiring 5 days a week in office. Life is short.

You should have messaged to let your manager know what was happening.
However as they seem happy for people to work unpaid overtime, go for malicious compliance and strictly work your hours, next time a situation like this arises tell the person they need to get the documents across to you by 4pm at the latest or whatever you need to review them and leave at 5pm.

It really depends on the workplace. In some it would be fine, in others there’s very much a culture of at your desk until at least finishing time.

Yeah I'd say its fine to finish 15mins early given all the additional evening hours you do, but I'd have Teams messaged My line manager

"Taking advantage of the unicorn that is my to do list being done already - heading off 15mins early. Catch you tomorrow"

You all get paid for the hours working at home too, right?

The unicorn of my to do list.

I don’t think you should have decided you could finish early without asking your manager. I’d use that time to tidy my desk, make a plan for tomorrow etc.

If you’re working such long hours involving working evenings at home, then I’d expect you to be on a higher salary and able to manage your own time without having to ask someone for permission to leave the building.

If you’re on a low hourly rate, then you need to join a union!

It depends on your role and company policy. DH has to stay, even if he's started early or finished his work as someone may visit or call. In my role it's expected for me to finish work to deadlines, which often means working late at peak times, but equally means flexibility to start late/leave early when it's less busy.

It sounds to me like someone moaned that you'd left early so the manager made up.some spurious task to 'catch you out' and if that was the case, I'd be looking elsewhere - I'm.a fan of direct conversation over pettiness every time.