At all the places where I worked, there were regulations in place to arrive at a certain time in the morning. I have never been an early bird and often getting up early made me really tired and less productive.
At every workplace I’ve been, I would start the first few weeks being punctual. Over the weeks, I would slowly start to arrive later in the morning and leave later at night. Couple of minutes at the time. My goal was to subtly shift my work schedule.
Surprisingly, at most place, I would never hear anything from management. The snappy comments would come not from executives (because they were never there anyway), but from jealous coworkers. THEY had to arrive on time everyday so why wouldn’t I have to. Comments like ‘’good afternoon’’ when I would arrive an hour ‘’late’’. Telling me how they arrived AN HOUR early (never mind the fact that they sip coffee and chitchat around for most of that time).
Those comments always came from the same coworkers who, at 4:59 PM, are already sitting in their trucks exiting the parking lot. And I would watch them go as I had to finish my day. They were so focused on that little ‘’privilege’’ I was able to scavenge out of this common shitty situation we were both in.
The bosses, CEOs and execs in the meantime? They could walk in at 2 PM and leave at 3 PM and no one ever bats an eye. They could be away from three days for a golf trip, no one cared about that. Management doesn’t need to be there; they could always count on employees to rat on each other. Dragging each other down, making sure nobody gets favoured treatment.
Let’s make sure we all slave our lives away just the same while the boss is giving himself a 6 figures salary and working 2 hours a day.
We are forgetting who is the enemy.