When you're late for work due to the bus/train being late or traffic, does your boss let it slide or not? Why?

Question

Stuff happens on the way to work. bosses should give some leeway.

Answer 1

Unfortunately the train service here isn't too reliable, but yes, my boss lets it slide. But I guess it depends on the situation; he also knows I have a commute of 1 1/2 hours door-to-door already, and the trains run once every half hour only. I guess if I worked in a larger town where the train/bus service was more frequent (buses in the city usually run every 10 minutes or even more often) & total travel time was not as long, I wouldn't think it unreasonable if he asked me to take one bus earlier just in case, and he'd probably do just that if I were often late.

For those who drive, he doesn't mind if there's an accident and it's much worse than usual, but we have one or two people who're always late, well he has told them to leave earlier. Which makes sense, if you know there's heavy traffic every morning it should be calculated in your commute, only if it's suddenly blocked because of an accident it's something you couldn't know ahead of time.

Answer 2

It depends on the nature of your responsibilities.
For example if your presence is required for a meeting or if your absence prevents others from working efficiently then you do have a duty to be punctual. You can always telephone if the delaying circumstances are quite beyond your control.
On the other hand if the nature of the work allows you more lassitude, as long as you work well and put in the total hours required, then an occasional lateness is of little consequence, unless you are setting a bad example to your peers.
In all instances it is up to the boss to set the parameters and guidelines, and you must accept the consequences if you needlessly ignore them.

Answer 3

yes to a degree but also it is our responsibility to ensure enough time to get to work, if you work regular kind of hours you should get to know the traffic fairly well and know which days you need to leave a little earlier, personally I would think only insanely heavy traffic, accident, roadworks or car problems should cause it at times. And if you make a habit of being very punctual, your boss should notice that and then would be more inclined to let the occasional lateness slide.

Though if you take public transport as long as you caught the correct bus its out of your hands

Answer 4

Mine will let that slide occasionally.

However, I call ahead always. And my boss is fairly desparate for people who do my job well, so I probably get away with more than some people.

I think a boss at a professional job/career would tend to be more forgiving than someone at a minimum wage job.

Answer 5

LOL, I don't live in a big city so it would be hard to use that as an excuse here. Darn the luck. But I do live 15 minutes from work right now, so I do have to time it so I leave the house plenty early to get their get sat down and get logged in. I do have leeway though....2 minutes. WOW-WEE!!

Answer 6

Depends on the situation, when public transportation is involved, you should get 10-15 minuted make up at lunch time leeway. If you're driving yourself and it's not habitual, no punishement, if habitual, you should just leave that much out earlier.

Answer 7

It depends really.

If traffic is known to be a PITA, then there is no excuse of "traffic is bad", as you should already be leaving earlier than you do to take traffic into account for getting to work on time.

Now, if its an accident, I could see that. If you have a cell, call in and state you are backed up in traffic because of an accident. If you can get around the accident do so. If you can't then you are stuck until it clears.

Answer 8

If it happens only once in a great while. Simply explained the situation to your boss, most people will let it slide, especially if they know you a are good worker.
But, if it happens too often, then I can't guarantee a forgiving response from anyone at all.

Answer 9

For the most part, he's ok as long as I call to let him know. Sometimes, though, his bosses get on his case about being too lax, so then he's more strict for a while.

Answer 10

Mine didn't. He would mark you late if you were one minute late. He'd grumble about not planning things well enough. He was supposed to be at work at 8 AM, and he'd come in at 6;30 or 7, just to be sure he was on time. He expected the same from us.