my manger a very hard working man usually arrives to work at 7am and doesn't leave until 8pm
Answers
Explanation:
I once worked (in the IT department) for a large bank that had this same culture. We had to arrive between 8:30am and 9:00am. They didn’t even allow once-a-week exceptions, which is accepted in most companies here in São Paulo due to the traffic restriction program. The traffic restriction program once a week forbids us from driving from 7am to 10am and from 5pm to 8pm, but we weren’t allowed to start working before 8:30am (let alone after 10am) or leave work before 5:30pm - so my manager suggested to me that on my restriction day I should arrive at 7am but wait outside of the company until 8:30am, and leave my desk at 5:30pm but wait outside the company until I could pick my car at 8pm. That is, she suggested that I arrive before 7am and leave after 8pm(!).
I used to arrive daily around 9:10am. In almost one year of working there, I arrived after 9:30am only two or three times. But every single week my manager warned me that I had to come earlier or else they would have to punish/fire me, for those ten or fifteen minutes delays. I told her (to no avail) that despite arriving a few minutes later, I was always working late (to meet the daily 8 working hours), delivering much value, and working on important projects. None of that really mattered for them.
They also followed some strict labor laws that we have here in Brazil, like not allowing someone to skip lunch or having lunch in less than one hour, which most other companies also treat in a more flexible way. (Yes, according to Brazilian labor law we can’t skip lunch to go home earlier—but most companies are more flexible with that rule). Additionally, you couldn’t stay late and work overtime without pre-approval of the director— even if you were willing to work without being paid for those hours just to catch up with late work.
On the top of that, I was still a junior engineer but I had much more knowledge than the senior engineers there. In a few months I was able to learn Cobol much better than some of the old employees who had been there for 10+ years. I brought lots of innovations to the company, and I was frequently praised by the team.
Now comes the funny part:
By the time that I arrived (9:05am, 9:10am, etc) no one was at their desks yet. Everybody used to arrive daily between 8:30 and 8:45am, go to the coffee machine, and spend 1 to 1.5 hrs talking about their weekends, about their vacations, about politics, telling jokes, or just reading the newspaper.
When they came back to their tables (9:45am - 10am) they would open up news portals, read some news, discuss some news, etc., while I had already been programming or answering emails for a long time. And my manager even told me a few times that I should arrive early just to having a coffee with them every morning, because that would be important for my career.
I resigned for a better job offer in another company, but learned a few lessons:
If a company has inflexible rules and gives much more importance to small things (like a ten-minute delay) than they do to employees performance, they should really rethink their values.
Bureaucracy should not be more important than delivering value.
Some bureaucracy is ok. You have to play the game.
I understand that politics and social skills are important, but if this is the only criterion for a job promotion, you should leave this job, unless you don’t like what you do and believe that you’re better doing politics.
No company should encourage employees to spend more time on politics than doing their jobs.
If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re probably in the wrong room.
Having said all that, I must say that it all depends on your business. For most IT companies (my case), strict working hours are not that important.
I’m sure that for Wall Street and financial market, it’s totally important.
So, my advice for your specific case: forget all my answer above, and play the game. You’re in the financial market, and for this business arriving on time is really important—probably because you interact with stock exchanges around the