Note: Ooopsie, this was scheduled to post on Monday, 4th April so it’s a day early. Looks like I haven’t quite gotten the hang of the scheduled post thingy yet ;P Anyway, enjoy!
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This post is part of the A to Z Challenge. Each post will be associated with a letter of the alphabet with the theme ‘Today, at work…’.
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Today, at work, I clocked in while sitting in traffic, 15 minutes from my office.
My office hours are from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm and the organisation I work for requires all staff to log in to an online portal and clock-in at the beginning of the day and then clock-out at the end. This system only allows me to open the site on an IP address registered to the company so I can’t log in from home. Yep, I’ve tried.
Anyway, when I first started I thought that the system would have a buffer time for clocking in and clocking out. So, one day, I calmly walked out of the elevator, sat at my desk and clocked in at 8.31 am. Lo and behold! I was sent to a separate screen in the system asking for my reason for being late! I was flabbergasted, working up to being annoyed. I hastily typed in “Stuck in elevator”, clicked send and promptly forgot about it though the feeling of annoyance stayed.
Several days passed and I received an email from the administrator of the online system informing me that though I clocked in late that day, my reason for being late was accepted and I was reminded to not ever be late again.
Though this seems like such a minor thing to get worked up about, I was beyond worked up. Reason being that when I clock in, I start work. When others clock in, they go out for breakfast. There had to be a way around this. I didn’t want to be stuck in traffic and my only worry would be that I’d be late clocking in. It doesn’t seem worth it.
Then a lightbulb went on and for the next day, after clocking in at 8.28 am, I started researching my plan and by the end of that work day, I’d figured it out. I rubbed my hands together in glee that unfortunately (or fortunately) my colleagues could not see.
The next day, I was in traffic and it was 8.20 am. I was at least 15 minutes away which would mean a late clock in. And another email. I switched on my phone, connected to my desktop PC, entered the online system and clocked in. Phew, made it.
Thank you, remote access.
Does your office require you to clock in and clock out?
WORDS from SONOBE 