My coworkers have had various reasons to leave the office early. 30 minutes, sometimes hours. One has kids that are graduating. Before that she had something legal going on.
My other coworker has had things happen with her adult kids and her teenage granddaughter and was out of work multiple days, then leaving crazy early (like 2-3 hours) on the days she was here. Her kids and grandkid are fine now, but she has continued to leave early every single day.
My boss is pretty much never at work so I won’t even get into that.
I have found myself working alone for the last half hour or more almost every day of the week for months now. And I don’t mind working alone, but is the principal of it. Technically speaking, I’m working more hours for less pay (I know I make less than them. They’re sales, I’m just service. And they have a couple years on me.) So I have found myself leaving when the last one to pull out of our parking lot leaves. Usually about 15-30 min early. The only exception being, I won’t leave hours early. The earliest I’ll leave is 4:30. We close at 5.
Would you do the same? Would you feel bad if you did? I don’t know how to stop feeling guilty about it. I mean, if they get to leave early pretty much every single day, sometimes hours early, don’t I deserve to shave a little off my days too?
***I think it’s more worry than guilt now that I think about it. Worried that someone will catch me at my act. Then that’s followed by anger. How would it even be right if I were reprimanded for taking it upon myself to leave 30 min early when everyone apparently gets to come and go as they please? It’s the worry I have trouble with.