Ask HN: Always late to the office, is this OK?

Get a new job.

If what you say is true, and you can find work elsewhere, do so. If they're silly enough to throw away 7 hours of productivity over a 6 minute delay, fuck'em.

For a customer-facing position, your happy ass should be in a seat and smiling fifteen minutes before the client shows up.

For development work, though, especially if you aren't coordinating with other people, you should be able to focus on producing quality work quickly.

The time fetishism I've seen is something I mostly see in folks older than their 30s--basically, they don't get that time isn't the big factor it used to be, especially for developers.

If you never work with anyone else it's not a problem - all that will matter is getting stuff done. But when you work with other people it will be a problem. You will get the reputation of being unreliable, and a reputation once acquired is almost impossible to shift. Even devs end up interacting with other people. If you're any good, people will start coming to ask your opinion on things. If it's noticed that basically you're not there when you're expected to be there, you will get a bad reputation, even if you think that ass-in-seat time is irrelevant to getting things done.

And you may think it's unfair, but a reputation for unreliability in turning up on time will spill over into an expectation that you will be unreliable in other matters. That's how things work.

If you freelance or contract and fail to meet deadlines then you will lose clients, contracts, and money.

So it's entirely up to you. People under 30 have a much more relaxed attitude, but ask whether they have the wide range of experience necessary to make a nuanced decision about whether this is important. And will you only ever deal with people under 30?

I wouldn't have made you go home, but I would think twice about trusting you with anything important. If you can't show the discipline to be at work when you're asked to be there, how can I trust you with other aspects of self-discipline?

Added in edit: A lot of other commentators are saying "asses in seats is a dreadful policy" which is true, or "Provided you get your work done, who cares?", which is true. But once you are a member of a team, even if you don't formally interact with people in the code you're writing, you still have knowledge and experience that other people might want or need to tap into. If you're not there, you're depriving them of the ability to interact with you. Interactions in a team are not limited to formal meetings and formal pairings. In the best teams, it's the informal interactions that are the hardest for management to understand, the hardest to foster, and yet give the greatest rewards. If you're always late, you can break that.

If they want you there at 9, get there at 9. That's not unreasonable.

On the other hand meeting commitments is a pretty basic life skill, and probably one you should learn. It is no harder to be places at 9:00 than it is to be there at 9:06. Being late often signals to the other people involved that you do not respect them or their time. Whether that is true or not, whether you mean to say that or not, that's the signal that is received. It's even used in power games, where the more powerful person intentionally makes the other person wait for no reason.

However as you advance in your career, odds are you will find you prefer flexibility (because life rarely runs on schedule), and more importantly, you will likely value working somewhere that pays you to get a job done, not fill a seat.

One of my biggest requirements now is having that flexibility--once you have it, it becomes VERY hard to go back. More importantly, it is increasingly common for companies to want you to be there at a fixed time in the morning, but then work unknown late hours. That seems a bit off to me for many reasons.

In any case, it is worth a discussion with your boss as to their expectations and reasons for needing you to be present at a certain time. Don't do it in a way that comes off as questioning their direction, but try to do it in a way to help gain perspective on where they are coming from.

Personally, my brain doesn't switch on before ~10-10:30am, so that's wasted productivity. I learned that I do well at companies that treat their employees like adults who can manage their time and work when they will be productive. As a result, I tend to get in ~10am or a little after, and leave around 6-7pm, and then typically wrap some things up from home for an hour or two at night if needed. I put in the late nights and weekend when it is necessary, and the flexibility my company offers means I don't have to worry about punching the clock or marking a time card...I can simply focus on getting my work done to the best of my ability to deliver the results they pay me for.

With regards to your own habit of being late, to echo what others here have said, it is something that you should fix. At one point I fell in to a pattern and I was constantly late for everything, it took a concerted effort to fix it and I think it was quite necessary.

Generally, being late is seen as disrespectful and an inability to keep your word. I've had people in my life at certain points who would show up up to 20-30 minutes late for some events. At that point I was too rattled by their tardiness to even want to interact with them. I am sure the same can be said about others towards me when I fell into a habit of being slightly late for everything.

Take yourself out of the equation and think about how your behavior makes others perceive you.

I generally get to the office at 10:30, but then work a ten hour day.

This blows my mind. Are you a contractor or salaried? If you are salaried they are idiots (for throwing away a day of work while paying for it) and if you are a contractor I question their ability to require you to show up in the office a certain time...

I personally think that caring about "asses in seats" is a terrible policy and shows your employer doesn't trust you and you should consider moving on to another company. If you are getting your work done as expected then I'm not sure why people care if you are in the office on time.

Meetings are a different story, if you show up late to a meeting your are wasting a lot of time and it feels (regardless of your intent) disrespectful, this you should work on but showing up to work a few minutes late isn't a really issue IMHO.

Lastly this: "I’m underpaid, but it’s comfortable and low pressure." leads me to say GET OUT! Don't waste your life making less than you are worth for a boss who is going to get all pissy about 6 minutes. Developers, or at least most, don't "shut off" their brains when they leave the building. Sometimes problems are kicking around in my head long after I've left work and I've solved a number of problems in my off time (not actively working but I can't always fully control what I fixate on or think about). Because of this I don't any bullshit about being at work on time (though I'm normally on time or 10-15min early) or leaving a little early if I need to make another appointment. As long as I'm meeting expectations on the work I'm getting done I don't think it matters if you are a few minutes late every day.

This kind of thinking is the bigger problem. You COULD get hired and you COULD make more money...until you were always late and get fired.

Grow up.

This kind of thinking is the bigger problem. You COULD get hired and you COULD make more money...until you were always late and get fired.

Grow up.

Is punctuality useful? Yes, if it accomplishes something. Plenty of business meetings always start late because everyone is always running late. Other meetings always start on time, and running late is unproductive. Factory production lines also come to mind. But in an ordinary professional workplace the important thing is getting the work done.

Finally, Your boss sent you home for the day, you aren't getting along well. So again, it's probably time to move on.

Good luck.

[1] There are circumstances where running late a few minutes is unprofessional, e.g. a critical meeting, but not an ordinary one.

OP says s/he's always late. But everybody responding "fuck the boss who sent you home" is explicitly assuming that OP being sent home is an isolated incident instead of part of a pattern. The thread title says always late to the office.

I think failing to show up on time as a pattern is destructive and disrespectful of colleagues. What is kind of amazing is that so many answers here are presuming a pattern (arbitrary and capricious boss) while at the same time overlooking a stated pattern (perpetually late employee).

This was an Old School gentle warning, use this day-off to think about what you want in your career, and whether this job is important to you. There are plenty of learned hacks to make yourself come in early.

Relative to the relationship with your boss. He may be taking your tardiness as sign that you're not serious about the work. Presumably, he wouldn't mind if you worked late into the evening, especially if you took on additional, more challenging assignments. Suggest reading on Managing-Up> http://www.forbes.com/sites/richkarlgaard/2014/06/14/12-easy...

If you have a good reason, explain it to your boss. I managed someone who lived a 40 minute drive away (that was variable) and absolutely could not leave earlier (because of a private issue) -- we had a daily scrum in the morning and he was always late -- he explained the issue and we accommodated.

Or --- get a job that doesn't care when you show up (there are A LOT of tech jobs like this).

There are plenty of times when being late isn't a big deal. When others have to wait for you however, you are signalling that you don't value their time. It is perceived as selfish. I'm not saying that you are selfish, it is just that it can be perceived that way.

If you're lucky, people will start telling you that the meeting is at 8:45 just to get you there on time. Some places lock the door when the meeting starts. I had a friend who would always be late to our lunch appointments. When we instituted "late guy pays", things improved. ;-)

You can try to find a job where your problem doesn't effect others but you would be better served if you just learned how to be on time - at least until "habitually late" becomes a protected class. ;-)

Late for meetings makes you a jerk. If you get your shit done and show up later than some arbitrary "start time" at work... your boss has a right to be like "c'mon dude" but not to penalize you. That's childish and petty, and another reason to move on.

With the large companies that have shuttle's the flexibility is because they need to stagger all their busses.

It really depends on the culture and the type of environment though, much more "corporate" positions and cultures would require better on-timeliness, but being told to take the day off for being 6 minutes late seems odd for a developer position.

I'm an employer and if a new employee who has not gained by full trust continually comes in late, then yes it is horrible.

But I do have employees that I really trust. I know they are 100% committed to the business and committed to helping it succeed. They have proven over time that the company is always on their minds. In this case, I could care less if they come in late, work from home, etc. But it does take time.

Also, it is worth noting that losing trust is a lot easier than gaining it.