I go to work to work and then go home. I calculate how much time my commute needs so I can maximize my free time and don’t waste time at the workplace before the shift begins. I don’t owe my employer any unpaid time.
I’m the only one who thinks like this: my coworkers are full in the “we are a family” vibe and some of them come 30 minutes before the shift begins, what to me is an extremely idiotic idea. Why being at the workplace more time than needed?
This is nursing and I need to hear report before working. Our second shift begins at 12:35 but some coworkers want to start it at 12:30, even to the point of giving report without me, which is fine as long as they give me report about my patients. Each of us has, theoretically, 3 minutes to change into scrubs, but this is also ignored. They expect me to be at 12:30 fully dressed and seated, ready for report. Union says 12:30 is the time I enter my unit and change into scrubs, so I start at 12:35. My coworkers simply don’t want to hear that shift begins at the hour it begins, the manager is passive.
Our union is very conflict avoidant.
I’m not the kind of person who does things like expected just because that’s how it’s always been done but if I question why I get yelled at. I like following the book because otherwise the manager’s favorites get away working less and blabbing more.
I don’t know if this is one of those situations where I should pick my battles and let it go. I feel they steal my free time.
And the union doesn’t care as much as I do.
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I don’t know if this is one of those situations where I should pick my battles and let it go. I feel they steal my free time.
Getting along in work environments is always a matter of which battles to pick and which compromises to make. You will always have to make some. To my mind, starting your shift five minutes early is a pretty minor concession to not irk your colleagues and get on everyone’s shit-list. But…you can always search for a new place to work. Just bear in mind you may be walking into an even less compatible environment for yourself.
Out-crazy them. Turn up at 12:20 and be ready by 12:25. Shout at them for not being ready when you are. Then when they start turning up at that time, move back to 12:10. Then 12.
And then when they’re turning up and ready at 12, go back to 12:35 and tell them you don’t know what they’re talking about, you’ve always started at that time, it says so in the official documents and you’ve never varied. Tell them they’re crazy.
I mean, hey, if you’re going to quit anyway, might as well have some fun before you do.
I wish I worked a job where my biggest concern was the difference between starting at 12:30 or 12:35.
What was the question again?
Get a standalone voice dictation device list this $20 one:
- Walk in at 12:30 and set this while recording in front of the co-worker that starts their report at 12:30.
- Walk away and get changed into scrubs.
- Be ready for your shift at 12:35
- Sit down and press “play” and listen to the report
Everyone wins!
Everyone wins!
no, I’m afraid you don’t understand. Yours is what a rational solution looks like, the ones in charge of the unit don’t want this, they want to control at what time I enter the unit.
If you have 2 older coworkers on a power trip looking for any excuse to explode on you for any perceived slight they are going to use this as ammunition.
It’s though a superb idea and I’ll be using my phone to record those first minutes and be ready to be ridiculed for it.
I need to quit.
Last I knew, nurses were still in pretty short supply, so there’s no good reason not to quit and pick up a job with better pay and working conditions.
About that family thing. If anyone ever tells you that “we are family” it means you can call them for help when you’re moving. If you have trouble configuring your router, call your new family for help. If you need to drill a hole in a concrete wall, but you do don’t have the right drill bits or other tools, call your new family.
If your boss doesn’t want to come over to drill some holes in a concrete wall on a Saturday afternoon, they’re not really family, and they can’t expect you to act like family either.
You have a very different family than me.
If work was like MY family, we’d all work in different countries and I’d visit my manager once or twice a year and get the jobs done that we couldn’t sort out over the phone or email. I’d find out about all the stuff they’d been letting slide and sort out as much as I could over a weekend. When I got home people would ask me if I had a good holiday.
Wait. That IS how my workplace operates!
If you’re not getting paid for it, don’t do it. You’re not a volunteer. You’re an employee.
Who cares what others do if they want to waste their time go ahead, just follow your contract, if it states start at 1230,shift begins at 1235 then show up at 1230 and begin at 1235.Anything they decide to do prior to you is not your problem.
Just get what info you need after the fact. It’s bonus because you also now can waste X Amount of time trying to recap what you missed since you wern’t present/working at that time.
This is the most obvious answer but given OP’s strong feelings on the matter, they presumably already thought this would be the best course of action and would already be doing it were it so easy. They didn’t say it directly but I think the problem they’re having is that their colleagues are not only themselves choosing to waste their time in this manner but because they are, they are expecting it of OP and it sounds like they’re having some kind of conflict about it that they’ve brought up with OP directly. I’m guessing some of them have complained to OP or indicated to them that they’re “supposed” to be ready by 12.30 even though they’re wrong.
This makes it difficult because in that scenario OP can’t simply plough on doing their job to the letter of the contract and just ignore the others, they have to choose to actively fight it out with them or just relent and start arriving early. It sounds like what they’re having the dilemma about is if it sounds reasonable to have that fight, given that although it feels important to OP, they recognise that it’s more about the principle of the matter than the objective scale of the problem. Seems like they recognise that 5 minutes of their time wouldn’t be that big a deal as their colleagues have concluded, making it seem petty or disruptive to have that fight and all the awkwardness that will ensue just for those 5 minutes, but the principle that they should have to give up any extra time at all, regardless how long, just because their workmates are doing it is troubling OP.
Depending on how whiny and motivated his colleagues are it might be advisable to pick their battles and let this go, but if they think they’re in a position to stand their ground and not have to suffer too many consequences and loss of standing with their workmates then of course they should, and even encourage others to do the same. I don’t think we have enough of an idea what their workplace is like to know which one of those situations they’re in.
I agree, but I really don’t think complying will be advantageous to OP either. Not only do they get less prep time out of it, it’s also removing from the benefits given by the contract.
There’s also a chance that if they’re firm on their action and make it clear they are going to follow the contract, the people running the meeting may stop doing it early days they work, as they need to recap the entire thing once they are on the clock anyway.
Regardless I don’t think OP should let it get to them, my old work was that way, everyone was expected to clock in early and work late, I stood firm and even made some comments on how I habe a life outside of work and I follow my shift, they eventually left me alone.
There’s no winning if you cave and just follow the mantra all you do is come out with less. Regardless of what the rest of the workers think.
That extra 5 minutes is ~20hours and hundreds of dollars of unpaid labor a year. It seems to me that the coworkers are being very irresponsible in exposing their company to a potential lawsuit over something so minor. That doesn’t sound like being a team player to me.
I see what you did there :D
management is sneaky, right? all my coworkers love drinking the koolaid.
Yeah, this is just socially enforced time theft. If your coworkers bitch to you, it’s not your problem. It sucks that your union doesn’t have your back on this.
Are you salaried or hourly? if you’re all hourly, the person showing up early, clock in as the first thing you do. You’re entitled to being paid for the time that you work. (and that might be why the person showing up 30 minutes early is showing up 30 minutes early. that’s 2.5 hours of overtime right there, every week.)
If you’re salaried, then start when the shift starts. They’re not entitled to anything more just because they want to knock off five minutes early.
In any case, the person showing up 30 minutes early in this case may be slow getting into scrubs, etc, may want to stop and chat people up on the way in, or just take a moment to adjust their thoughts. Alternatively, they take the bus.
I agree with this. Don’t work off the clock, no. Absolutely no. But 5 minutes early with 5 minutes overtime is good not bad, (unless it really is impossible with your commute.) there is no way I would complain about that. Your coworkers are basically showing that the job costs more than management thinks it does, that they need the prep time to do the job.
It’s possible your coworkers are playing the social game to advance their careers. That doesn’t mean you have to.
if I question why I get yelled at.
Yelling is bad behaviour. This person’s bad behaviour, not your’s.
One idea:
Tell them in your calmest voice (!) that the one who yells is wrong. Always. Didn’t they know that? Because, if he were right, he would not need to yell.
This isn’t the most solid logic, but then it’s better to argue about the yelling and not about your 5 minutes.
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