written warning after 3 months on the job for being tardy (9am) - wtf

First off, "I am suppose"? You are not suppose. Suppose is a verb. You are "supposed to be" in at 8:30. Use it correctly.

"... and more times then not I get in ..." What does this mean? "Then not I get in"? You mean "more often THAN not I get in at 8:45 ..."

Now with that out of the way, you sound like a complainer-baby. Maybe you are not? Maybe you are a solid worker and you just aren't starting when they wish you would? Maybe everybody at the office, or most of them, are also taking advantage? But guess what? Try looking at it from THEIR point of view.

First off: they are only asking you to get there at 8:30 for Christ's sake!! You admit that you are usually there at 9:00 or so (points for being honest I guess). That means (at best) if you get down to work really quickly you are being paid for 2.5 hours a week that you are actually NOT WORKING. Doesn't matter to them if your projects are on time, or how many new projects you are proposing. You could be doing 2.5 hours MORE PER WEEK if you would just get there at 8:30. A requirement that is in no way onerous, I will add.

That is 130 hrs a year (being conservative) that you are being paid to work and you are not.

Just try being in there at 8:15 for a few months and see if this doesn't mend some fences for you. In every office since the beginning of offices someone has said, "But when I come in at X:XX nobody else is here either!"

Where I work, I have to open the business and have to take customer calls and appointments at opening time. I got sick of being the only one there at THE OPEN and being the only one available to meet customers, so I started getting in :15 before THE OPEN and was ready to work when needed.

Nobody else changed their ways, but I felt much less stressed because I was never late and was ready when the doors opened. Try it for a few months and see if it doesn't change your enjoyment of work.

You should demand a raise.

I feel your pain and do think you should look for work elsewhere -- possibly in a job that allows flexible work arrangements (wfh, set your own hours, etc). It's never fun to be treated like a child. That said, it's common practice for people to ask their supervisors before deciding to set their own hours. So be careful that you're not behaving like an entitled child. That won't even go over well with a cool boss.

I caught the 'then/than' error right after posting. The 'supposed' I'm not great but I'll add it to the list.

Hold up. I frequently work until 5:30-6 and on occasion 7. Arguably, the firm just lost out on ~2.5 extra hours per week.

I'll try the 8:15 route but I'm looking.

You have to go Peter from Office Space on your job ASAP

maffeboner wrote:

if you're already getting written up with no prior warning 3 months into a job, it's time to look elsewhere. being incompatible with your boss is an absolute deal breaker.

get a new job asap and leave this one off your resume going forward.

True, there's probably some underlying conflict with my manager. She's an angry, old, lonely, religious divorcee who's only child lives several states away and only visits a couple times a year so the only thing in her life is work and facebook baby photo updates. I'm basically the opposite.

In the meantime, I need to come up with another way to ask for a four-day weekend in February to attend a bachelor party in Miami with my best friend who's knick name is Frank the Tank (pre-Old School) because I'm pretty sure that won't go over too well with granny.

I'm too honest to not include something like this on my resume. I can spin it.

I run a manufacturing line. I want my guys out the door at 5pm on the dot. Need them out the door. Don't want to pay OT. If they aren't clocked in within 4 minutes of their shift start time, they get written up. Do it twice and they can take some unpaid time off and think about whether or not this is a job for them. If they become a manager and think they can run a line on flex time, they can try and see what happens.

My point is you don't understand the business at all. Some places demand fixed schedules, for better or worse. The people signing the checks decide that. Not the new employee who has earned no benefit of the doubt.

By the way, a job left open for months is almost never a mission critical position, the company was fine without the OP for a while and will be fine without him again.

If you started dressing sluttier your boss wouldn't mind you showing up late.

In general, if you arrive late and then take only a short lunch break, are very productive during the day, perform essential services that only you can perform, and stay late to work, they will STILL come down hard on you. You can't make up for the start. It is not particularly rational but there it is. Make this one adjustment and they'll change their attitude even if you slack off with the short lunch breaks, etc.

This isn't a manufacturing job where the work can't get done if I'm 15 minutes late and the crew sits idle.

I never said this is a mission critical position. The firm {i}can{/i} exist without me. But they needed to get someone in the position - an unrelated recruiter that I had spoken to prior to my employment said they had been approached to find someone for the role. Given the offer - which was pretty good - this wasn't a role that wasn't needed.

I think the issue is 50/50 and a lot of people on here have helped with this:

50%: I need to get my act together, that is, better than it is. If I want to be the professional that I think I am, it involves getting in before everyone else. Ok.

50%:. She's not a great manager in part because her skill set is ridiculously dated and requires an 'old school' rubric to judge me, in part, because I'm exceeding expectations (versus what they'd have otherwise) in the technical realm. People come to me for answers even just after three months on the job.

I don't mean to bring this up again but I'm wondering if others have had this issue:

She's pretty hard Right (as am I though more libertarian) and I think that she thinks, because I've lost weight (training for a Spring marathon) and I'm not a ra-ra football fan and talk with a slight lisp, that I'm gay. I'm not and I'm not going to get into examples why, but I can't help but think that I'm being judged for reasons that are inaccurate. Paranoia?

Or maybe she just doesn't like me. Life is too short - finding a new job.

You sound like a self-righteous, entitled brat. I’m sure you are conveying that vibe without realizing it because you are so self-absorbed. No matter how good you are at your job and then some, you are new and should fukking show up on time or early. It’s really not hard.

Screw you with the life is too short and your skills are highly coveted BS. You are still a neophyte at the company and you are logging in 35 min late. You are lucky you still have the job.

If you had a better attitude and punctuality skills, plus the commitment to working late instead of leaving at 5 now because you are required to show up at 8:30, you might actually climb the ladder very quickly. Humble yourself, child.

My manufacturing post was directed at the other guy. You are troll or a loser. Either way, do whatever. I'm sure life will turn out great. Such a rebel playing by his own rules...

[quote]What will they try next? wrote:

First off: they are only asking you to get there at 8:30 for Christ's sake!! You admit that you are usually there at 9:00 or so (points for being honest I guess). That means (at best) if you get down to work really quickly you are being paid for 2.5 hours a week that you are actually NOT WORKING. Doesn't matter to them if your projects are on time, or how many new projects you are proposing. You could be doing 2.5 hours MORE PER WEEK if you would just get there at 8:30. A requirement that is in no way onerous, I will add.

That is 130 hrs a year (being conservative) that you are being paid to work and you are not.

Just try being in there at 8:15 for a few months and see if this doesn't mend some fences for you. In every office since the beginning of offices someone has said, "But when I come in at X:XX nobody else is here either!"

/quote]

Here's the thing, he probably wouldn't be getting 2.5 hours more a week done. A good chance he'd be getting less done.

If it really matters more that he's there on time than that he is producing, it's probably a not a company that's worth working for long term. If your average and late, yeah that's a problem. But a smart company/boss lets their top producers produce and stays out of the way.

Depends on the job of course. If you're digging ditches, be on-time.

It's not a matter of the company necessarily deciding that being on time is more important than being productive or vice versa. It's possible to want workers to produce and to show up on time. We have no evidence that the OP is one of the top producers or that he's not. He's probably average because by definition, most of us are average even if we really want to believe we're better than average so for most workers being late could be a problem. But sure, if this is a real issue for him, if he'd rather go through the process of a job search rather than show up a half hour earlier he should do that and probably try to get a sense of how punctual the next place he'll work will expect him to be.

Andy Capp wrote:

It's not a matter of the company necessarily deciding that being on time is more important than being productive or vice versa. It's possible to want workers to produce and to show up on time. We have no evidence that the OP is one of the top producers or that he's not. He's probably average because by definition, most of us are average even if we really want to believe we're better than average so for most workers being late could be a problem. But sure, if this is a real issue for him, if he'd rather go through the process of a job search rather than show up a half hour earlier he should do that and probably try to get a sense of how punctual the next place he'll work will expect him to be.

He's either misjudged his ability or misread the workplace. Vital to figure out which one it was.

Your boss could be insecure and feel threatened by your accomplishments so she finds a way to make you look bad hoping you will find a new job. Her boss is has their head in the sand. Even if this is not the case you are smart to move on BEFORE the next crash.

You beat me to the response! haha. Similar to you running a manufacturing line, I oversee contractors. These contractors all arrive to the shop in the morning separately and get into the fleet trucks and leave in crews. Therefore it is essential that everyone shows up on time. I can only imagine it applies to an office setting related to meetings and work-related conversations for trouble-shooting issues, etc.

In general, it would make sense if there was an inverse relation between how strict your work is about start times and how often they ask you to stay late.

My work often asks for last minute OT and weekend work, so as a fair trade off they don't complain when people roll in an hour late. As a result they end up with a higher quality workforce.

Been at other places in the same industry where they tried to enforce strict start times and lunch times while asking for the same OT and weekend work and people fled that place as fast a they could.

Sometimes the simple math isn't so simple....ie trying to squeeze an extra 2.5 hours a week in the short term can cost a lot more in the long run.

OP, what are your PR’s?