*Unreasonable, *no. A bit excessive, maybe, but not something that would make me outraged.
Sure. There are assholes in every walk of life, and sometimes people will take advantage of you and be mean to you. It’s my personal opinion that this isn’t justification for lowering my work ethic. How they behave not an excuse for how I behave, in other words.
I have to disagree. If a job’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well. I give the same dedication no matter where I’m working or for how long I expect to be there. Secondly, if the peons don’t do their jobs well, how can you expect the chiefs to do theirs? To use another cliche, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. Damned if I want that weak link to be me.
I’ve worked a ton of extra hours for free, because I wanted to help out. I’ve gone in on days off and helped co-workers with projects they’re working on, or because the museum’s getting ready for a big event and they forgot to do this-or-that. I get no material benefit from it. I’m paid in the gratitude of my co-workers and the knowledge that I’m an esteemed and valued member of the team.
I’m not one of the “us salaried people.” I make only a little bit more than minimum wage, and I get no vacation time or benefits. (You don’t go into the museum field to make money, that’s for sure.)
Lissa, it’s obvious you really like your job. That’s great, and I’m happy for you. I like mine too.
But you do realize you’re lucky, right? There are lots of jobs that are not even worth doing for minimum wage, let alone doing for free. I have done them and was good at them…and even found aspects of them that were likeable. But I would hate for someone to think I was being selfish or lazy just because I don’t want to do those jobs for FREE. Would you scrub diseased diarrhea for FREE–day after day after day–just so someone who barely knows your name can say you’re an excellent worker? I can say I have scrubbed diseased diarrhea and lots of it, but I sho wasn’t doing it for free! If that makes me lazy, then I hope I’m lazy for the rest of my life!
Now an employee who can’t give a little isn’t my idea of someone I’d want to hire. But working extra every day is not “giving a little”.
I think people who go above-and-beyond are fantastic and deserve all the good things that flow to them. I just think it’s unreasonable to define work ethic based on the “above-and-beyond”. I could work 24 hours a day and totally make my coworkers, the ones with kids and spouses and lives, look like horrible slackers in front of my boss. But that wouldn’t mean that they are horrible slackers, or that I’m even a better worker. People shouldn’t have to be saints to be defined as good workers. Just like companies shouldn’t have to offer every perq in the world to be defined as a good company.
Gee, I wouldn’t know about that. I’ve only got a pair of teenagers. And despite that, I always gave my commute cushion time for the million of little things that can slow down a NYC subway train, and if I knew I would be cutting it close because of morning errands, I let someone in the office know the night before. Likewise, if there was a possibility I was running errands and might be out of the office a little longer than expected, I told someone.
And I did all this even though no one cared, as I was putting in very long work weeks anyway. I considered it my duty as a professional, regardless of how I felt about the job, my boss, or my coworkers.
It’s not all fun and games at the museum. I’ve done my share of scrubbing up diarrhea (an elderly lady had a terrible accident in the bathroom) and school-kid puke. Today, I had expected to be cleaning some artifacts and instead ended up vaccuming the stairs and washing window sills.
And I fucking hate the social gatherings hosted by the museum. In all honesty, I’d rather go to the dentist, but I know they’ll need help.
When I was sixteen, I got my first job at McDonalds. It was a brutal awakening for me. My cynical co-workers called me Rainbrow Bright because of my cheerful eager-to-help-you attitude. My boss actually took me aside and chastised me for following the orientation video too closely: I didn’t really have to use hand sanitizer before I touched food every time I handled money, and those trays were clean enough-- I didn’t have to scrub them. I was very confused, because I had been raised to do a job to the best of my abilities, not “just enough” to coast through the day.
At my next job, in that little gas station, I learned that life runs more smoothly if you just go ahead and do a task that needs done instead of waiting for another person to realize its their turn. Did I have co-workers who took advantage of that? Of course. But those people never lasted long. Sooner or later, they’d drift away to another job, most likely complaining that the boss didn’t respect them and only the “brown-nosers” got raises. They will do this for the rest of their lives, most likely, never figuring out that its their laziness, sense of entitlement and lack of initiative which has kept them from advancing.
My job before the museum was in a hotel as a front desk clerk. My boss used to roll her eyes when I would do complicated searches to get information for the guests or to find out what happened to their reservations. Since the hotel didn’t have one, I made up a local resturants/attractions leaflet to give out to people. The general manager shrugged. He didn’t think it was necessary, but if I was willing to do it, hey, go ahead.
Did I love that job? Christ, no. If you care to, you can go back to some of the posts I wrote around 2000 and read some of my rants. It was a shitty job, for shitty pay and my boss was a vindictive, evil bitch (and I don’t use those words lightly.) I went the “extra mile” because maybe I helped someone out and made their day a little brighter. Maybe some of the maps/info packets and instruction sheets I made up for the workplace helped my co-workers (and maybe they’re still using them today, and they’re still helping people.)
That’s why I do it. Because it helps my co-workers have an easier time at work, and thus, my day goes more smoothly. I am fortunate to have co-workers and bosses who express their appreciation for what I do, but even if they didn’t, I’d do it anyway.
It’s not just so someone will say I’m an excellent worker. I do it so I will know I’m an excellent worker.
No, it doesn’t mean staying late every day, but it does mean making sure the project gets done. If that means having to put in some extra time to meet a dead-line, then so be it. And, if my boss wants me to arrive early every day, or my co-workers ask me to do so to spare themselves a hassle, I will.
I’m certainly no saint. I’m incredibly clumsy, first of all, which is a certified Bad Quality to Have in a museum. Today, I padded my smoke break to a cool 20 minutes because it was nice outside and I wanted to finish the chapter in the book I was reading. I forget when it’s my turn to buy the snacks, and I always try to pawn off washing the windows on other people.
However, I can look myself in the mirror every day and know that I’m doing the best job I can. I’m not trying to make anyone look bad. I’m just trying to live up to my own standards and work ethic.
Lissa, you sound a lot like me. But I guess I feel like people should be given a choice in how they should go the extra mile, if they are so inclined.
I don’t want to show up early (or work late) and not be paid for it. But I have no problem stepping out of my job description (doing accounting, signing for deliveries, picking up my boss’s dry cleaning) or helping people out in ways that are unusual or dangerous (like wading out in chest-deep water to retrieve clipboards that fell out of a helicopter).
I will do all these things and more. But I won’t stand for people are saying I’m lazy just because I don’t want to give up my free time. I can show how valuable I am in countless other ways. Why does my work ethic rest on the number of minutes I’m willing to volunteer?
It doesn’t. It’s not that simple. For me, it means giving whatever is necessary to get the job done. If that means extra time, so be it. If it means doing a gross job, so be it, just so long as everything’s running smoothly.
If it came down to coming in early or having a personel conflict or causing resentment, like in the OP, I’d come in early. It’s just one of many kinds of potential sacrifices we all have to make to keep things going in the right direction.
There’s nothing wrong with going “above and beyond.” I do it every day. The only difference is that I demand to be paid when the boss asks me to be at work. That’s how it’s supposed to be. That’s why we have labor laws (and time clocks). Going the extra mile refers to the effort you put in…not being a doormat for a tyrant.
You’re not getting it either. The commute cushion is dictated by the employEE…not the employER. That’s the whole point! When your employer demands that you be at work at a specified time, the employer is expected to pay you from that time.
Two employees with the same start time who lived in different towns would have different commute cushions. If I live a mile from work, why would I leave 1/2 hour early to avoid the perils of traffic delays? I can figure out how long it takes me to get to work on my own. This is not a case of “going the extra mile.” It’s sucking up to an unreasonable boss out of fear. Well I’m not afraid. And I’m not feeding a manager’s overblown ego. If you want an 8:00 start time, you pay for an 8:00 start time. Simple.
Why don’t you just volunteer? Ask for a pay cut? I’ve worked overtime at nearly every job I’ve ever had and not ONCE has an employer asked me to work for free. The ethics thing works both ways. Refusing to be taken advantage of is not the sign of a bad work ethic. At least not on the employee’s part.
PRR wouldn’t allow you to be a little late to run errands, and that’s the contract you signed up for. You are supposed to do errands during your personal time. Not work hours. That’s why your free time in the morning is at your disposal. That’s why working for free is a bad idea.
Tell me…what are the employer’s responsibilities here? How many free hours does he get? What if things never run smoothly? Do you just refuse to accept your paycheck?
Thanks for attempting to state my official policy, but no.
As I said, even with the surly unsubordinate employee I was thinking I would have to fire (and did fire eventually), when she knew she would be late I was willing to cover for her, to open up the Center for her, etc., if she couldn’t make it into work one day. I’m really easy to work for–if you let me know what’s going on.
With employees who demand to set their own hours (and put in for hours that they think no one’s aware that they’re not there), I have my problems.
In the case that you describe above, where an employee lives walking distance from work, obviously there are fewer potential commuting problems, so cutting your margin of error is just fine. But you overstate the extent my punctuality policy restricts you by making me out to be a maniac with unrealistic strictness: no one could stop you from having a heart attack on the way to work, no one could stop you from being held hostage by a bunch of Libyan terrorists during your commute. But plenty of employees have given me excuses like “traffic” or “delayed train” or some quotidian reason they were late on a regular basis, utterly not getting that the real problem was that they were planning for a commute of x minutes on average to take them precisely x minutes every day. (If you have a five minute walk, maybe 5 minutes is the correct amount of time to budget, but not if you’ve got an hour ride on a train and two buses.) Trying to point out a better way to budget one’s time usually gets me the sort of entitled “I’m usually here on time, aren’t I?” resentment that you’ve been spouting, Kalhoun, and flatly stating “I want you here on time. Period” just gets me the sort of “What if a meteor lands on me, huh? What then?” kind of deflective acts-of-God b.s. excuses you’ve been generating.
It’s your responsibility to get here on time. I can’t have you fired if you’re here on time, even if you show up with 12 seconds to spare. But if you show up with 12 seconds to spare, and I remark that you’re not leaving yourself a lot of margin for error, and then you start showing up late regularly, I can have you fired for excessive lateness, and there’s nothing remotely illegal about that. If it happens after I’ve discussed your inadequate margin of error, then I can even feel pretty good about replacing you.
Unfortunately, that’s not what we’re discussing here. You’ve tried to twist your original position of demanding an employee show up a half hour early for no pay, and that is the scenario I was illustrating. If you’re going to get your knickers in a twist just anticipating recurrent tardiness, to the point where you demand people come in a half hour before their shift starts, you’re out of line.
I never demanded anything of the kind. I might recommend that someone who is often late allow enough margin of error to get in as much as a half-hour early (someone who is sometimes up to a half-hour late due to “acts of God,” for example), but you haven’t answered any of my questions about your illogical position yet, namely:
Can you really shoot for 8:29 and consistently get there at precisely 8:29 every day? if so, great, I’ve got no problem with you whatsoever.
But if not, then you’re leaving some reasonable margin of error, one that will make you x minutes early --how do you reconcile this early arrival, for which you cannot and should not be compensated, with your position of never arriving early for work? Do you loiter outside, just so you never are in the position of being at work but not compensated? That seems silly to me. Or do you show up a few minutes early and accept not being compensated? If the latter, then that’s x minutes of uncompensated time: isn’t that an affront to your sensibilities? Why is it then ok to show up one minute or ten minutes early and not be compensated but it’s a horror to show up fifteen minutes or a half-hour early and not be compensated? It’s the same exact principle involved in both cases, and it’s the principle I’m objecting to. Once you accept that it’s a condition of employment that you show up on time, and it is in this hypothetical, then there is a certain amount of uncompensated time built into the deal, whether it’s moments or a half-hour. That exact figure is determined by what it takes to get you at your desk, ready to work, when your shift starts.
Okay…you may have not demanded it, but you defended the OP’s boss’s rule through this entire thread. Same thing. If you agree that it’s wrong to require employees to show up early and not pay them for it, just say so.
The point is, that any uncompensated time is MY choice; not my employer’s. Of course I’ve showed up at my desk a few minutes early. I also work overtime. That’s not the issue here. The OP’s manager put a rule in place that is unfair to his (presumably) low-level employees. He’s created an environment of fear and threats. It’s not right and it’s probably illegal.
Your posts suggested I would be fired by you for not being what you consider to be a “go-getter”, i.e., working without compensation. I’ve been a go-getter all my life and no boss of mine has ever expected excellent performance without expecting to pay me for it. Time is money. It works both ways.
Can I realistically shoot for 8:29? Absolutely. I’ve done it successfully all my life. I don’t need Big Brother to tell me how long it takes me to get to work, how to plan around the various delays that might befall me, or when would be a better time to get my chores done. I’ve come in early when asked to, and I’ve been paid for it. That’s the agreement and that’s the law.
Your obsession with your legal rights throughout this thread concerns me. I’ve suggested nothing illegal–all I’ve said is that I would promote, give a raise to, write a great letter of recommendation for, etc. the employee who’s always at work on time, and that I would fire someone who’s consistently late. Both perfectly legal and perfectly sensible.
Your references to your legal rights suggest to me an employee who’s looking for an opportunity to file some specious lawsuit based on purely imaginary rights–another good reason to terminate that employee and look to hire someone who’s more interested in doing her work properly than in protecting her right to every single benefit, perk, nickel my company owes her. There’s a certain benefit of the doubt here: I’ll wait for you to be late a couple of times, or cut it very close a few times, before mentioning that you might allow some extra commuting time, because I give you the benefit of doubting that you’re like other lazy slackers I’ve dealt with in the past. How about cutting me some slack and finding out if you arrive promptly enough for me whether I’ll be reasonable about cutting you some slack on things you might consider important? All I’m interested in is your work, not your excuses for not doing your work. Again, if I make clear that I need you at your desk every day at 8:30 sharp, I’ll allow you only a few hair’s breadth close calls before suggesting that you might leave a wider margin of error–if I do that, and you’re then late a few times, you’re gone. If the principle that those few minutes are YOURS really worth an otherwise good job? If so, it’s probably best that we don’t work together, and it doesn’t really matter if you quit because I’m a wonky tight-ass or I fire you for being late a few times too often.
It seems that my merely suggesting that you’re putting yourself in danger of being late really sets you off. So if I warn you of the danger, I’m an asshole for warning about something (being late) you haven’t done yet, and if I don’t warn you when I see potential problems, I’m an asshole for coming down heavily on you for just a few infractions. Do you see why I’m suggesting that you’re constructing this so I’m the asshole, and you’re made of solid gold, either way?
Again, if you’re working the kind of job where it doesn’t matter if you’re in promptly, none of this matters. But I’m specifically discussing the kind of job where your promptness does matter, very much. How would behave any differently on one type of job or the other? Your posts imply that on neither of these types of jobs would your position change: you’re in charge of how promptly you arrive, and it’s none of my business how you plan for promptness. I agree with that, but on the one type of job, I’ll fire you if you’re late a few times and on the other one I’ll cut you some slack. Would you behave exactly the same on each? Would you ever take a job that had as one of its conditions your consistent promptness?
I’ve always taken jobs that require promptness. Promptness is what I’m good at. And yes, if you start with the hypothetical “you’re cutting it close and you might be late one day” bullshit with me, when I haven’t been late, you’re out of line. If I’m late, it’s a discussion. If I’m not, go find something else to do.
Regarding my “obsession” with lawsuits :rolleyes: …Again, you’re inventing issues that won’t exist as long as you perform your duties properly. I’m the least litigious person you’ll ever meet. But if an employer dares to ask me to come in 1/2 hour early every day, and doesn’t compensate me for it, you bet your ass I’m calling the labor board. Why wouldn’t I? Because I should be lucky I even have a job? That might fly in Indonesia, but it doesn’t cut it with me.
You keep implying that I simply *must * have tardiness issues even though I’ve repeatedly said I’ve been on time to work nearly every single day in the last ten years (and not one single tardy in the last five). You continue to assume that no reasonable person could ever have a near-perfect attendance and on-time record without kowtowing to an overbearing manager’s paranoid “reminders” that the sky might be falling. If you’re not picking me up for work, it’s none of your business how close I cut it, as long as I’m there on time.
The threat of losing my job because I’m not arriving early enough for you is quite clear. I’m sure your employees simply adore you. A person can work their ass off for you, do an A+ job, and you’ll be looking for a new employee because they don’t come in early without pay? Fuck that. My time is as valuable as yours. This kind of thinking is precisely the reason unions exist.
It wouldn’t go quite like that…it would be more along the lines of, “You know, there’s medication you can take to ward off the symptoms of paranoia you’re exhibiting.” Seriously…do you have NOTHING better to do with your time?