Honestly, I knew this hammer was coming. Working in The Fourth Department from the outset was so stressful that I needed to indulge in some self-care before I went in. So, I bought myself a coffee and some breakfast to eat -- sometimes McDonald's, sometimes a gas station, sometimes a coffeehouse. And I would sometimes park my car at work and eat the sandwich or biscuit or muffin before heading in. I simply didn't want to rush in to work and face the shit that was The Fourth Department. And if I got in five minutes after the top of the hour, well, I felt entitled to it.
Now, I will say that it's gotten a lot better. But I still have days. Also, and this I think is an important distinction, while the work is getting easier, it's not getting shorter. In other words, most of the crap I deal with now I know how to handle, but that doesn't mean there's a lot of it, especially on Mondays when I need to tackle all the work that piled up over the weekend.
Thus, I still feel like I should, you know, treat myself for working that position. But I've started to take more and more minutes to myself, even as the stress over it has eased. Five minutes became ten, and lately, I've been pushing 15. I've been doing it for the past few months, to be honest. I just thought my start time was kind of flexible, especially since I often have to stay more than eight hours to get all my stuff done anyway.
With that being said, however, I remember talking to my boss about starting at the top of the hour. We are hourly, so there is some regimentation to my positions, all of them. So I kind of knew that what I was doing was not OK, especially since I've been slipping later and later past the top of the hour.
Now, with that said, I need to tell you how he busted me. He did it via text yesterday, while I was not at work. Being called out like this, justified though it may be, still rankles me because it hurts my pride: "How dare you question my integrity?!" is something I still viscerally feel. I thought about not commenting, and then being defensive when I text back to him. Finally, after breathing deeply and thinking about it for a few hours, I decided to give a somewhat half-ass explanation -- that I just gave myself time to myself -- but fine, I'll start showing up on time. To which he only replied, "Thanks!" I thought we were going to have a bit more of a back-and-forth on this. The hell?
However, there is a tardy policy that the company has. I don't know how consistently it's enforced, but if anybody has demonstrated a pattern of tardiness, anodyne as I think it is, it's me. Frankly, if the company went by the strictest definition of "tardy," I think I would be tagged for it dozens of times. That would be really bad. But in his text, my boss said that he'll chalk it up to a "misunderstanding." I have to take that. I don't have much of a choice.
And yet it's going to be both awkward and a bit humiliating coming in "on time" from now on, especially if I walk through the front door and see him walking by. I will have half a mind to say, "What the hell was that text all about!" But I know I don't have a leg to stand on. I can bitch and protest all I want; he's the boss, he can set my hours, and I'd be lying if I insisted I could come in whenever I wanted to.
And yet ... goddamn, I need that breakfast in the morning! Can't I just get five fuckin' minutes! Well, that led to ten and then 15, so. ... Anyway, if I really want to buy something in the morning, I'll have to, like, wake up half an hour earlier, or -- well, stop lolling in bed and get to work sooner. But that fucking sucks. Man, I don't know what I'm gonna do, especially tomorrow, the first day after getting busted like this. Dammit. ...
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