The Time Clock

As mentioned before, I am a wage worker. From 8:00am to 4:30pm I am a prisoner to the time clock. For those of you with a salary, or some other easier way to clock in and out, this is what my boss looks like...

The time clock works in quarters and each employee is given a seven minute window to clock in and start their eight hour day. In the eyes of the clock, anyone that arrives at work anytime between 8:00am and 9:00am is considered "clocked in" at either 8:00am, 8:15am, 8:30am, 8:45am, or 9:00am. For example, if I come into work anytime from 7:53am-8:07am I am considered clocked in at 8:00am and can leave anytime from 4:23pm-4:37pm and it is considered 4:30pm. Or, if I come into work anytime from 8:08am-8:22am I am considered clocked in at 8:15am and can leave anytime from 4:38pm-4:52pm, and it is considered 4:45pm. I hope that is not as confusing as I think it is, but hopefully by the end it will make sense.

Because the clock works the way it does, anyone with any common sense would try to arrive and clock in at 8:07am, and leave at 4:23pm. In the eyes of the clock, you have arrived at 8:00am and have left at 4:30pm. This way, you will get paid for 8 hours (with a half hour unpaid lunch in there somewhere) and you are only "working" for 7 hours and 46 minutes. Because of the seven minute window, the clock can essentially pay you for approximately 25% of your hourly wage that you weren't working for.

That being said, enter my OCD personality. I like to clock in at an exact time (like 8:00am), clock out for lunch exactly four hours later (12:00pm), clock back in from lunch exactly thirty minutes later than that (12:30pm), and leave four hours after that (4:30pm). Honest and stupid. That's my philosophy.

The weird part about the whole thing is that I will keep this staunch time schedule regardless of what time I arrive. If I happen to get to the time clock at 7:53am, I'm not going to wait seven minutes to clock in at 8:00am because I am not patient or dumb enough for that (I will get paid the same amount anyway). Instead I will take lunch at 11:53am, clock back in at 12:23pm, and leave for the day at 4:23pm. It sounds exhausting but it's second nature at this point. If you are wondering how I get to the clock on time, every time, I have my wrist watch synchronized to the time clock and I set my phone alarm to go off one minute prior to the time I have to clock in. This way I can make my way over to the clock and wait a few second for the time to be exact.