To be secretly fuming about my colleague ruining the early finish today for everyone?

[felixnavidad]

I work in the public sector and apparently it’s an unwritten rule that if work is quiet and there’s no emergencies, we get an early finish from the office. We were warned by other colleagues that this is by no means guaranteed. It’s an arrangement between the managers and the staff.

One colleague this morning swans in and starts talking about how happy she is to finish at lunchtime today. Nothing mentioned by the managers, just her decision. The manager immediately side eyes her and says it’s not a guarantee.

All morning she craps on about it to the point that the manager says “if you sit down and do your work we’ll see, and get off your phone”. Said colleague refuses, keeps going on and by lunch the manager says that unfortunately we won’t be leaving early, because of this colleague.

We’re all pretty annoyed by that point but this colleague is now going about the office whinging about the fact that we didn’t get to go early, but it was her fault.

Now I know this is pretty crappy management by the manager, but AIBU to be pretty fuming about the colleague not just sitting down and doing her work?!

In a private company this may well work. But in the public sector it just isn’t that simple.

I dont agree that it is punishing everyone. I've worked in the public sector where there are quiet little perks, but you keep your head down, down crow about them because there aren't rules to take them. As soon as people start talking about them outloud they disappear because they aren't officially there.

If you all pack-up quietly from the office and go home and no one notices, fine. If someone is making a big song and dance about it and a service user hears and then wonders why your shut, or another department hears and wonders why they havent got the same it all causes trouble.

Shes been saying it outloud, I bet theres a little worry that she has brought it to the attention of the wrong person, so manager hasn't wanted to be caught out.

Theres no way manager wanted to be there either

Maybe it depends what the job is? I work in NHS and none of that ever happens because we have to provide a service. If you work in a business you could do that I guess though it maybe wouldn’t be the most successful business.

Still at least neither of us have to put up with the “if you leave at 5pm on the dot instead of working unpaid overtime or wash your cup on company time or don’t arrive 5 mins early to boot up your computer so it’s ready to go by nine then your a bad employee” bollocks I’ve seen talked about on here over the years.

i may have assumed it was a male manager because they weren't managing well, it may have been a mis-type.
Shocking, someone made a minor mistake. Why do you want to imply it’s an issue on my side that women can’t be managers?
I was interested in how the manager (whether male of female) could have handled things better.