When did we become so concerned about trivial things at work?

There is no written rule for a starting time at our work, but most of us start at 9am. Two of my colleagues sometimes come into the office after that time.

Recently, I’ve noticed a growing number of other colleagues are grumbling about this later starting time. Just to clarify, both of these colleagues have good reasons to start when they do. They also both do very good work.

At first I thought it was just a bit of grumpiness that would die down, but now it’s a consistent moan and it drives me crazy! Where has this come from? When did we become so concerned with work trivia?

I think people being concerned with trivialities has been a problem for as long as modern workplaces have existed. It’s probably been a problem since people have worked together full stop. So on the question of when, I’m not sure it’s a recent phenomenon. But let’s look at your specific case a bit more closely.

To me, the whole thing boils down to a simple question: are these colleagues doing their job well? Or, to put it a slightly different way, is coming in later than others affecting their own work or the work of their peers?

If these two were traipsing in late with no particularly good reason in defiance of an unspoken convention, I think their punctuality would be a legitimate source of broad annoyance. I can also see that even if it wasn’t generally irritating, it might cause inconvenience and even disruption. If you came to work at 9am hoping to get working on a collaborative project as early as possible and one of your collaborators decided they couldn’t be bothered turning up at that time, you’d have good reason to be grumpy.

But this has nothing to do with laziness or rule-breaking. To protect anonymity, I won’t mention why those co-workers occasionally come in later, but I can confirm that they indeed have “good reasons to start when they do”. In fact, the reasons are so hard to dispute that I’d be surprised if managers hadn’t already discussed (and agreed to) them. What’s more, the fact that you know these reasons suggests they’re not a secret.

So why are others having a whinge?

My best guess is that you’re in an industry where much of your work is highly subjective. There are no equations to correctly solve or easily measurable quotas to fill. You and your colleagues are doing mostly judgment-heavy knowledge tasks every day.

I also suspect one of two other things about your particular workplace is true, with both possibilities leading to the same result. Either your management team hasn’t nailed how to measure “good work” or they have, but the consensus is that these measures are not fair or sensible. There is burgeoning discontent because workers have an underlying feeling that what constitutes a good job or work well done is disputed or vague. Or both.

What members of your team may be trying to do, then, is bring certainty to an uncertain situation, linking a very clear unit of measurement (purported lateness) to work standards.

And perhaps the link isn’t explicitly stated. Perhaps nobody actually says: “This person comes in at 9.45 and their work suffers because of it.” But it probably doesn’t need to be. For the “grumble” to be logical it has to relate to performance. If you’re worried about someone coming in late or being at their desk at a certain time or making a contribution at meetings, you have to be able to connect it to the quality of their work, or you’re just being a busybody.

To my mind, the question that follows is this: are you encountering colleagues simply being petty or is the inability of your organisation to measure “good work” creating such a powerful vacuum that it simply has to be filled? The answer might be a little from column A and little from column B. And if so, the situation might be hard to resolve.

If I were to offer any advice, it would be to spend less energy being annoyed at the annoyance — which I don’t blame you for — and more on gently reminding those around you that the work of these so-called latecomers is, and always has been, strong.

Unless these “tardy” co-workers are taking liberties you’re not aware of, that’s really all that matters.

Send your questions through to Work Therapy by emailing jonathan@theinkbureau.com.au

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