At your job, are you allowed any leeway with being late? If so, how often is it tolerated and what are the implications if it's not?

It totally depends on the teachers. Some are pretty tolerant while others aren’t. And those who don’t range from being slightly annoyed by the sight of students coming to enforcing severe punishment. I’ve seen a teacher ban a student from going to class and mark them as “absent”.

I can be late but I work in a more fluid, professional environment. I have certain deadlines to make, scheduled meetings to attend and projects to complete. It’s a mandatory 40 hours outside of leave or illness but I can make up the time if I am late. It’s up to me how I make my schedule as long as I get the work done and make improvements while I’m doing it. It’s more autonomy than I care for at times because when the buck stops with you it tends to be a bit more stressful than if someone is overseeing your work. I can also be called out of bed at 4:00 in the morning if something breaks though.

It depends on whether one is a non-exempt or exempt employee. And it depends on the role.

Non-exempt employees have specified arrival and departure times and scheduled breaks.

Where I work, the market opens and closes at precise times every day. Certain exempt staff must be in place at those times. But the rest of us who are exempt are hired to do a job which means as long as we are performing our job requirements, the timing of arriving or leaving is not important.

My former son-in-law does. He works in IT and knows what he is doing. His boss appreciates his skills and knows that he will work as long as it takes to solve a problem; working late if necessary or coming in early if needed so he allows him a little leeway about when he actually arrives.
In construction I really don’t have that leeway. I have to be there early, if I drag in late then my subs get the idea that the job isn’t high priority and they start arriving late. If I am there on the phone hounding them if necessary, they will be there and get the work done.

Where I work, I’m given no leeway at all. I work seven days a week for an eclectic group of tyrants. If I haven’t fed them and put them out to pasture by 0730, the goats and sheep are bleating a chaotic chorus, my horse won’t look me in the face all morning, the burro responds in especially bad behaviour even for her, the chickens are cackling, my cat picks a high place from which to glare down at me from, my dog thinks I’m sick, the pup is confused and the message is that I’m just one big fuckup.

I can determine my work schedule myself.

There is no such thing as “being late” at my job; hardly anyone in tech works 9–5; I usually work 10–6 but if I show up 10:30, 11, no one cares, long as I’m getting my work done. On the other hand, I have occasional evenings where I stay at the office till 9, and almost every Thursday I work 12–2 in addition to my regular day because of the nature of our release cycle, so don’t get thinking I’m too spoiled (I’m quite aware that I’m fairly spoiled though).

I have been very lucky in that for the past three year, I have had a job where I can come and go as I please. I am supposed to do 35 hours a week, but basically, as long as my work is done, I can work whatever hours I want. I just need to post a schedule on my office door and alert the admin assistant as to where I am.

I cannot answer this fairly as I own the company. Our work hours for salaried employees are 7 am to 4 pm, hourly starts at 7:30 am and work till 4 pm. I am perpetually late and roll in anywhere from 7 to 7:30 not just because I can because I own the company but I stay till 5 pm most days and will work another hour or two in my home office almost every night and on the weekend. I need a break and I take that break in the morning by not rushing to work. In turn I do not badger employees if they are a couple minutes late. There will never be a clock to punch here.

If I’m late the workload goes over my workmates and not only is that not fair to them but it isn’t fair to the 17 little souls we are there for. They understand if the bus is late but we have an understanding and routine now so it would take something quite bad for me to be late and I would always ring.

Yep. For a law firm my place of work is very flexible. I usually roll in between 10am and 11am and leave anywhere from 6pm-7pm. Love it, because I have insomnia and I have had to quit other jobs because I couldn’t maintain their strict schedules.

As I open the building there isn’t any leeway for me to be late as usually customers are waiting outside ten minutes before we open. Luckily I live 3 minutes drive away, 10 minutes walk so there is no reason for me to be late.

I work from home but for an employer, so I do have a work schedule to maintain. It’s a weird schedule that works for my life/health issues, which I negotiated before taking the job. My set-in-stone hours are 2pm to 7pm M-F, then I also work late nights at hours of my choosing and of a duration to get the work done M-F and Sundays, which all adds up to roughly 40 hours/week. I pretty much always know in advance if I’ll be late for my 2pm start time, and give plenty of notice, so have never had any trouble with it. My employer rocks.

I can pretty much dictate when I work. As long as I get my work finished, nobody is clock watching. I also have to attend meetings and if I was often late that would be frowned upon and I’m sure someone would tell me to resolve whatever was causing my tardiness.