Civil Servants Give Each Other Tips on How to Flout Office Attendance Rules – Guido Fawkes

EXPOSED: Civil Servants Give Each Other Tips on How to Flout Office Attendance Rules

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Civil servants have spent the weekend advising each other on how to stay out of the office. In case co-conspirators thought there was any discipline in there…

Sometimes Guido looks at the Civil Service subreddit which provides rare entertainment. On Saturday one civil servant – in the office three days per week – asked for advice after his senior took issue with his novel interpretation of the 60% office attendance rule:

“I tend to do around 4 hours of a 7.5 hour day in the office, before using an early lunch to commute home. It’s not ideal, but it’s the way that works best for me seeing as I have a 40 minute commute each way and quite honestly would rather not be in the office at all. I’m an early starter, so getting in for when the office opens means I can theoretically leave by 11:00… For the past few months, I’d been being hounded by my previous manager and Director of that area, constantly asking why I’m leaving ‘early’, even though I’m achieving the 60% and following the guidance of ‘the majority’, albeit by the minimum amount… 1754329223 the Director from my old directorate is still messaging me on teams asking why I’m leaving so early.”

Many others have chipped in since then:

• “In my department no one monitors it or cares as long as the work is done and you’re contactable during core hours (10-12 and 2-3.30).”
• “I was in the exact same situation, but now just sit on a different floor out of the way. Out of sight, out of mind.”
• “If you’re leaving early, that’s more of a “gentleman agreement” between LM and you. If you really truly want to be able to leave early without people grassing on you… sit in a completely different area in the office (if possible) and don’t out loud say you’re leaving early because of the ‘gentleman agreement’ that really doesn’t exist in official comms/docs, etc.”
• “the people that managed were the ones that quietly went about their business, had their background blurred etc regardless of location.”
• “If you are leaving at lunch you should be doing it discreetly, just leave quietly. Don’t be announcing it or making a big deal of it. All that’s tracked is office attendance, not hours in the office, as far as I’m aware.”
• “If you’re worried about your teams toggling to “away” there’s a way of adjusting the settings so that it only reverts to that after a few hours.”
• “I also exploit this loophole probably once or twice a week.”

Enough tips and tricks to keep getting away with it for a few more years at least. Some non-blockhead civil servants pointed out: “Doing 3 half days in office = 30% a week not 60%“. UK DOGE is ready to deal with this sort of thing…