DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work in an informal environment (academia) where I receive a set salary. It is the kind of job where the amount of work fluctuates and sometimes requires me to work more than eight hours in a day.
Because of the nature of my workplace, there is no set 9-5 rule; nevertheless, some colleagues appear to think it’s necessary to follow that schedule.
I have never understood this. If I have a meeting at 9 a.m., of course I will do my best to arrive at work before that. If I am running even five minutes late, I will notify the other meeting attendees and apologize. For all other workdays, I feel I should be able to arrive later and leave earlier, as long as my work is not suffering. But I still feel guilty when I do so.
For what it’s worth, my boss primarily judges employees based on performance and not the number of hours put in on any given day. Am I committing a workplace faux pas by straying from convention?
GENTLE READER: It is presumably the boss’s opinion that matters, not that of your co-workers, colleagues -- or whatever new term the university may have invented to obscure that professional manners, not social ones, apply. If you worry that there might be misunderstandings later, you could ask for a written attendance policy -- and hope that this will not jar your boss into changing it now.
(Please send your questions to Miss Manners at her website, www.missmanners.com; to her email, dearmissmanners@gmail.com; or through postal mail to Miss Manners, Andrews McMeel Syndication, 1130 Walnut St., Kansas City, MO 64106.)
