this post was submitted on 29 Oct 2025
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It's disrespectful of the coworkers or customers thats waiting for them. Have heard so many stories of construction interns that kind of show up when they feel like it. They don't last long.
Had one blithering man child at my job that came in 3 hours late because "he was tired because he was playing Fortnite". He didn't stay long.
If you're working in a team and they have to wait for you so they can start, sure. If there's some fixed appointment with others, absolutely. If you can't get your stuff done on time, definitely. But if your work isn't that time sensitive, it really doesn't matter if you start painting the wall or doing paperwork ten minutes later.
We're talking about 10 minutes.
On the other hand, did that coworker's work have to be done synchronously? If it's something he could do on his own at midnight and hand in whenever it's done, why care when he does it?
Again. If his tardiness results in work not getting done, I get it. I'm just arguing against the normality of expecting fixed working hours from people for no other reason than normalcy.
Normalcy doesn't really weigh into it for me. I wouldn't care if you were expected to work 8 or 7 hours a day in a "normal" day. I care about the agreed upon time where i fulfill my end by being on time, the agreed upon time. If you want flex, then you need to be in a job where flex is the agreed upon method.
If we agree on a specified time and you are expected to show up at that time, then it's on you if it is a repeating issue.
If you ever come to sweden, don't be late to agreed times. It will not be looked upon kindly.
My argument is that flex should be the norm. If there is no explicit reason for rigid times, they shouldn't be rigid.
Put differently: Why agree on a fixed time? Why does it matter? If the only answer is "It's normal to agree on fixed times", that's what I meant with "for the sake of normalcy".
If you're running a shop and need people to be there for customers, or you're running some on-call service or whatever, yeah, having people available for agreed-upon time frames is important. But if you're just looking to put ass in chair from 7 to 11 and 11:30 to 15:30, with no regard for whether their work gets done well in that time frame, that's just dumb.
There is no norm. It depends on the country and their social structure aswell as their laws/agreed upon methods. You can always look for jobs/appointments etc that have flexible times. But good luck arguing with, e.g. a doctor about your appointment being flexible.
I think the other poster covered that by specifically talking about appointments. Reread what they said, its pretty damn valid. My job for instance would have very little consequences if I'm ten minutes late. I've told my manager that I may be later dropping off kids and such, they are fine with that. The point is the culture doesn't change if we don't push it to change.
Cool. Then you have that flex agreement with someone. If that works, it works.
In a social context, aka not work, the agreement with me would say that the time is the time. If you don't value my time the same as yours, then we will eventually stop spending time together.
Cool. So if I push that and that becomes the social norm at the workplace, then you should also be cool with that because that's the direction. So if we as a society starting pushing for those things, everyone is hunk dory with that being a normal thing and this whole conversation is fucking moot which what the original replied was saying. but by all means let's shift this all to a discussion on social context all of a sudden.
Nope. I'm not ok with it in a social context.
You are talking about changing about a social structure, then get confused that i talk about the social factor? Get your thoughts in order.
Yeah but swedish people are insane when it comes to be on time. It's like you'll go to hell and burn forever if you're 5 minutes late once i your whole lifetime.
The upfront cost is too high for the benefit IMO (I am swedish, and I'm automatically always on time).
A better way? The french way maybe? Let people arrive 5 minutes late until everyone is present, in the meantime chit chat with coworkers. You get to know people and it's low stress.
What you're describing sounds like shift work. Also, 3 hours is WAY different than 10 minutes.
Not at all. It could be a consultant going to their customer, with the customer waiting. That has happened in my line of work. The example of 3 hours was with a waiting customer.
Being late also means you will call ahead to tell them that you are late. It's simple courtesy that doesn't require education och skills.
The post says late to work, not late to a meeting.
...and that depends on the work.
If you're meeting with someone and you're late that's rude. If you just need to be in an office at a time but don't have any specific meetings then it isn't a big deal. If you're doing shift work when people need you there at a very specific time then it's rude to be late. If it's not shift work and you're not late for a meeting, I don't see the problem.
What you call shift work is different from the swedish definition of it. Shift work is typically a term reserved for those types of work where there is a briefing between shifts. Industry, hospital etc. 24-hour kind of operations.
What i think you mean is office work, but that could also mean set times. But you would never call it shift work.
Lets say a call center that has a set opening time, or mechanic that has to open the shop at a given time. Those would not be considered shift work, unless they are open 24/7. So thats where we misunderstand each other.
Yeah, that's definitely it then. In the US we call things shift work of you have a shift. Which are things like, show up at 2 PM, leave at 10 PM. It's typically reserved for jobs that relieve other shifts. So showing up late means your coworkers have to work alone for a bit. Something like an office (not call center) wouldn't be considered shift work here because you're generally not directly interfacing with customers or relieving people from a previous shift.
Yeah, but Jimmy from back-office isn't going to get anything done in his first 10 minutes wether I'm on time or not.
What does that even mean? If you have a customer waiting for you at a site, you get payed for being there on time, but you kind of ignore that. Do you think thats ok?
How much starting at a specific time matters highly depends on the job at hand.
Yes
if you have people waiting for you the minute you clock in, then you're on shift work or just in an incredibly poorly managed workplace