Even though a mild revolution is happening as far as the rights and treatment of American workers is happening, the facts are that it’s going to take a long time before every person and every employer buys in.
Which means there are plenty of places where people are going to crab if you’re five minutes late here and again, even if everyone knows there are ongoing road closures and construction, etc.
My commute to work got progressively longer and unpredictable over the past year due to 4 bridge closures occurring within months or weeks of each other. No date has been given for their reopening, so for the time being, short of heading off for work an hour or two ahead of time, you risk arriving a minute to 5 minutes late once or twice a week.
Everyone has been impacted by the traffic in one way or another, which I mention because there was no way someone could feign ignorance.
OP’s boss didn’t say anything about his occasional lateness, but one of his coworkers just could not let it go.
Eventually, after much eye-rolling and huffing, they bothered their boss enough that OP was written up and told they were expected to be on time.
One coworker, though, didn’t care about legitimate reasons for my being slightly late for work every now and then, and complained so adamantly behind my back about it that my immediate supervisor reluctantly wrote me up.
I knew it had to be that one coworker because they would get noticeably irritated whenever traffic conditions were brought up. They would leave the room, loudly interrupt with unimportant questions or comments, or roll their eyes.
They’re also known for complaining about every little thing, at one point having played a big role in not having a seasonal employee rehired the following year.
This meant leaving around an hour and half earlier, which means that most days, OP is super early. Other days they’re around 15 minutes early, and no matter when they get there, they are earlier than the complainer.
Despite that coworker, I love my job. So I started leaving for work an hour an a half earlier than before. My arrival time is now anywhere from 15 to 45 minutes before my shift starts.
And that’s when I noticed the annoying coworker always arrives about 10 minutes early and always has a very convenient street parking space available.
I used to park on a different side of our building before traffic got bad, and had never noticed that they’d unofficially claimed that public parking spot as theirs.
OP soon realized that the complaining employee arrived early and always parked in the same prime spot – so he stole it.
Most of the time, I’m at work early enough to get my pick of any spot in our always crowded employee parking lot, but no parking spot other than theirs makes up for my having to wake up at 530 in the morning.
That coworker can’t complain about my being late now. They know better than anyone that I’m at work way before I have to. I’ve mentioned my arrival time to other coworkers with them in earshot, so they know I’m parking there out of spite. I’ve also gone as far as parking right in the middle of a space large enough to accommodate their car and mine.
I have no idea if they’ve complained to our supervisor about it or not, but I really want them to have been stupid enough to complain about my taking their public parking spot away.
The other guy knows he did it on purpose but he hasn’t complained…yet.
The top comment says all employers who are able should offer flex hours.
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This person says employers like this are the ones who find themselves constantly searching for workers.
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And this comment agrees, saying it should be a thing of the past.
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People are so ready to just burn it all down.
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This commenter says employers really need to take the whole picture into consideration.
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If people want to keep employees they need to start treating them as human beings.
If the rules have no point, then why enforce them?