Context: a co-worker had sent an email and was worried about possible collateral damage.

Co-worker: uhm, you know how it is when something just doesn't feel right?

Me: sure, every time I clock in here.

Well, if you have to clock in and out, you likely have good reasons to worry about your job...

@Oktokolo How so? The work contract is about a certain amount of weekly hours, not about a certain amount of output. It's not freelancing.

Essentially, the clock system is there to protect employees from doing unpaid overtime because we also have flextime so that you can slack off overtime later.

In a previous company, the employer tried to fend off a system for clocking in because people tend to forget 15 minutes overtime here, half an hour there.

@Fast-Nop
Well, in that case, it is okay.
I only heared about clock in in the context of big corps trying to make employees clock out for bathroom breaks and stuff like that...

@Oktokolo In our system, half an hour is deducted automatically because work regulations require you to do at least that amount of break anyway. If you do more than that, then you have to clock out and in.

Or when I do e.g. some weekly shopping during WFH hours when the supermarkets are empty, I just clock out while I'm away, and that's fine.

Also, time beyond 10 hours per day is capped and not paid because both work regulations and subsequent management orders forbid working longer than that. Discarding excess time is meant to reinforce the message.

> Me: sure, every time I clock in here.

Almost every job ever.

Maybe the problem wasnt them though. Maybe it was me.

@Fast-Nop That so much reminds me of a Swiss company I used to work for. Except we couldn't go over 40h/wk at all. If we needed to do it we had to obtain our line manager's approval in the system before logging the overtime.

On a plus side we could work 10h Mon-Thr and then be forced to take Friday off 😁