What does a few minutes matter when an employee is finished for the day?

It is one of the worst-kept secrets of the working world that most of the time, the hours that you are supposed to work are not always the ones that you actually work. A good portion of office workers only spend about half of their time in the office actually working, and those in roles where they have to clock in may well be able to finish most of their tasks for the day long before their shift is over.

The only problem is that staying on the right side of management usually involves doing things by the book. Most of us couldn’t get away with walking out of work halfway through the day, and many won’t be let off the hook if they leave any time before the official end of the workday, no matter how productive they have been. Sometimes they simply want to keep up appearances, and other times, it is a pure power trip. You might think it is a good thing that an employee is preventing what some would consider to be time theft, but it does not always work out that way.