They say to get ahead, you should try to get to the office before anyone else. I can never beat my boss into the office, because he starts work at 6 a.m. He has various reasons for starting so early, the most notable one being he has to be around when his kids get home from school, and his wife works later hours at her job. I probably could get in at 6 also, but I ask the question: Why?
Flex time
While my boss starts at 6, his direct reports, including me, report between 7:30 and 8:30. We’re on a flex-time schedule, so you can basically start whatever time that you want, within reason. You need to be around for the “core hours” of 8:30-3:30, so that you can attend meetings, interact with your colleagues, and what not. It’s a nice, family-friendly schedule, but there is a downside to it.
An early-morning ritual
Starting up to two hours ahead of the rest of us gives my boss some alone-time. He uses some of this time to send out a barrage of emails. Many of the things that he addresses in the emails have already been taken care the day before, after he’d left for the night. So the time disconnect is affecting his productivity, as he’s chasing after items that are completed. Of course, we’ll let him know the status of any major items, but it’s the minutia that slips through the cracks that make up the bulk of the early-morning email. He also has a nasty habit of ignoring our emails, and reading only the correspondence from his boss, the Grand Poobah.
Lost opportunities
By leaving earlier than everyone else, he misses out on many important events that seem to rear their ugly heads at around 5 p.m. We may need an approval that only he can give, unless we try to get it from the Grand Poobah, who is pathologically tied up and unavailable. The concern then gets addressed in an email, which he will undoubtedly ignore when he arrives in the morning.
I smell a paradigm shift
What do you do with a boss like this? You learn the nuances of his management style. You learn to work around his schedule. And if something absolutely, positively, can only be addressed with some direct face time, you get your ass in earlier than usual. Remember, you work for the boss, not the other way around.
Besides, I kind of like having nobody looking over my shoulder in the afternoon, anyway.
Follow me on Twitter: CorpBarbarian. Just not too closely.
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