Random Thoughts

[Max Rockatansky]

If you are required to do one of the following at work, would you rather have to come in early, or stay late?

For me, the former.

I'd rather just defer the issue to my qualified staff.

[Rothman]

I stay late much more often than I come in early.  I think I like it this way.

[JayhawkCO]

During my restaurant management days, it just depended on the day/shift I was working. If I was closing, obviously I more likely to come in early rather than stay late, and vice versa for opening. In reality, it was more likely that I'd go in for a couple hours on my day off if there's something I needed to accomplish and didn't want to delegate.

[ZLoth]

If you are required to do one of the following at work, would you rather have to come in early, or stay late?

When I was managing a team, I wasn't so anal-retenatiove as to require everyone to be logged in on time. I could tolerate about five-ten minute as long as you check in online, and because we were all working remotely working, you could say "Hello" in the chat room while you are making coffee. I really didn't care as long as your cases were updated, your customers were happy, and you attended all meetings. I may challenge my top people with some leave early request.... "Yeah, we may have an issue with you leaving at 2:15 PM to attend your kid's game on Friday after. Can you leave at 2:00 PM instead?" The result... my team were more than willing to work late to get their work done and were happy, and we had the top customer satisfaction scores.

Of course, someone in management decided that I should be replaced, and that replacement was one of those military types.

[kphoger]

... if this was another job I'd worked, I would rather stay late. Reason being that the other jobs I've worked were ridiculously strict about what time you showed up, so I wouldn't want to take my chances agreeing to come in early and getting in trouble for being a few minutes late because I didn't know what traffic was normally like at that time. Much easier to get there at a time I know I can get there, then just not leave at the time I normally do.

But going in earlier than most people actually helps me avoid traffic delays.  I start at 7:30 am, and most people haven't started their daily commute yet, so the roads are still decently clear at that time.  Then I get off at 4:00 pm, which allows me to beat most of the afternoon rush.  After-work traffic can cause delays clear up to 6:00 pm or later, so staying later wouldn't be much help in that regard.

[Scott5114]

... if this was another job I'd worked, I would rather stay late. Reason being that the other jobs I've worked were ridiculously strict about what time you showed up, so I wouldn't want to take my chances agreeing to come in early and getting in trouble for being a few minutes late because I didn't know what traffic was normally like at that time. Much easier to get there at a time I know I can get there, then just not leave at the time I normally do.

But going in earlier than most people actually helps me avoid traffic delays.  I start at 7:30 am, and most people haven't started their daily commute yet, so the roads are still decently clear at that time.  Then I get off at 4:00 pm, which allows me to beat most of the afternoon rush.  After-work traffic can cause delays clear up to 6:00 pm or later, so staying later wouldn't be much help in that regard.

But I started at 2pm. If I agreed to go in at, say, 11am to cover half of first shift, I would have no idea what the traffic was normally like at that time, since that would normally have been an hour before I woke up.

One thing that extremely pissed me off when I worked at that job was that one time they were having trouble finding enough people to cover a Wednesday or something like that. They asked me to pick up half a shift on my day off and I agreed. Well, since it was around 6pm when I was going in, I hit traffic and was 60 seconds late clocking in. They wrote me up for that. Here I was trying to help them by taking the extra hours, when how it ended up working out, it would have been better for me if I had just told the manager when he asked for help to go fuck himself.

[kphoger]

If I agreed to go in at, say, 11am to cover half of first shift, I would have no idea what the traffic was normally like at that time, since that would normally have been an hour before I woke up.

You have no idea what 11am traffic is like?  It's... uh... normal.  Like, totally normal.  Probably exactly like it is at 2pm.

I ... was 60 seconds late clocking in.  They wrote me up for that.

No matter the reason for the late arrival, that's sucky.  Not giving someone at least a couple of minutes' wiggle room is just tyrannical for not good reason.

Then again, I work in such an environment that I could just mention to my boss as we were leaving yesterday that I'd be coming in late today—and then I started four hours into the day, no big deal.

Here I was trying to help them by taking the extra hours, when how it ended up working out, it would have been better for me if I had just told the manager when he asked for help to go fuck himself.

Yeah, and I bet that, if they ever asked you to cover an additional shift like that again, you said no.  And somehow they think that's a good way of doing business.

[Scott5114]

If I agreed to go in at, say, 11am to cover half of first shift, I would have no idea what the traffic was normally like at that time, since that would normally have been an hour before I woke up.

You have no idea what 11am traffic is like?  It's... uh... normal.  Like, totally normal.  Probably exactly like it is at 2pm.

My commute involved taking OK-9 past the OU campus area. Between the dogshit light timing and the various campus goings-on, a trip down that highway could take anywhere between fifteen minutes and an hour, and the only way to know which was more likely would have involved researching class and sports schedules more thoroughly than an actual student would have.

At least going through at the same time every day meant I could eyeball the football and basketball schedules and know to leave more time when there was a morning game, since it would probably be letting out around when I was going through there.

[kphoger]

OU campus area

OK, never mind.

By the way, my wife is from Branson and still has in-laws there.  I've learned that commuting to work every day across town via 'the Strip', which is just two lanes with TWLTL and always clogged with a zillion geezers from Arkansas, is just completely normal there.  I don't know how they do it without just ramming someone every so often.

[Scott5114]

OU campus area

OK, never mind.

By the way, my wife is from Branson and still has in-laws there.  I've learned that commuting to work every day across town via 'the Strip', which is just two lanes with TWLTL and always clogged with a zillion geezers from Arkansas, is just completely normal there.  I don't know how they do it without just ramming someone every so often.

We fortunately live on the same side of the Las Vegas Strip as my wife's job is on, so she doesn't have to interact with Las Vegas Boulevard itself to get to work. She just has to deal with Frank Sinatra...which is sometimes just as bad. If you do need to cross LVB as a local, there's a tunnel under it on Desert Inn Road, but it's of marginal use because the intersection with Paradise Road is just as bad as the ones on LVB itself. DI itself isn't much use for getting to work on the Strip, because it doesn't connect to Koval, which is the east-side counterpart to Frank Sinatra.

When we had to cross LVB regularly to drop off the recycling at UNLV, I figured out it was easiest to just cross at Sahara. That's the very north end of the Strip, so traffic is mostly thinned out up there, so the light timing is more reasonable than at, say, Dunes-Flamingo.

Commuting in that area has a lot of bizarre problems that you don't have to deal with in other cities. The other day (fortunately on my wife's day off) a bunch of Zoox self-driving taxis had a software crash, which meant they all just stopped where they were, in the middle of the road. That apparently tied up Spring Mountain Road, Sammy Davis, and Mel Tormé for the better part of an hour (presumably since someone from Zoox had to come out and reboot all the taxis). But it's okay, guys, AI running the entire world is gonna go great.

[formulanone]

Commuting in that area has a lot of bizarre problems that you don't have to deal with in other cities. The other day (fortunately on my wife's day off) a bunch of Zoox self-driving taxis had a software crash, which meant they all just stopped where they were, in the middle of the road. That apparently tied up Spring Mountain Road, Sammy Davis, and Mel Tormé for the better part of an hour (presumably since someone from Zoox had to come out and reboot all the taxis).

If I didn't know those were all roads, this is would be some serious sci-fi fanfic right here.