The Clock Watcher

I used to work in a Cube City where one of the overpaid suits spent way too much time being concerned about when you left work for the day. His office was positioned near the exit, and his door was always open so that he could see you come and go. He was The Clock Watcher.

It was the type of job that drained you pretty easily. You had little interaction with others all day and got a lot of work done. You basically spent the day inside your head. To maintain my sanity, I kept very regular hours. I would come in at 7:00 AM and leave promptly at 4:00 PM. I rarely went out to lunch and usually ate at my desk while working. I was extremely productive at that job.

However, none of this seemed to matter to The Clock Watcher. He wasn't my manager but wanted me to know that he didn't appreciate how I left consistently at 4:00 every day. Were there issues with my performance? No. In fact, I was very well-respected at this job and was known for cranking the work out. I didn't get it.

I tried in a nice (or perhaps stupid) way to point out to The Clock Watcher that he didn't come to work until 9:00 AM, often took two-hour lunches, and left by 6:00 PM. (There were some occasions when I was on a deadline and stayed later, and there was never a sign of life in the office after 6:00.) One could argue that he didn't work as hard as I did, and he certainly got paid a lot more.

But this is how it happens in Cube City. There are conservative weirdo types who think you aren't dedicated to your job if you leave at 4:00 PM. They can't see past their conservative views of what a work day should look like. It's like those two hours that you work in the morning while they're still trying to get out of bed don't count.

I think there was a part of The Clock Watcher who was envious of my schedule and my discipline. I left work at 4:00 so that I could exercise, cook a healthy dinner, and still feel like I had an evening to unwind. But all The Clock Watcher ever did was to come to work, go to lunch, come back to work, and go out to dinner with his spouse. He was unhealthy, he was about ten years older than me, and he didn't have a healthy work-life balance figured out yet. Surely his comments about my work schedule stemmed from his own insecurities about the need to get a life.

Nonetheless, The Clock Watcher had a voice in my career path and pay. He was the bean counter. So I had to eventually leave that Cube City because I wasn't getting raises and knew that I deserved them. It's hard when you won't play the game by somebody else's rules in Cube City. The minority can't win if they're outnumbered by losers.