Losing time due to my boss being consistently late

Question

Hospital pharmacy hours as per contract are 7:30-2:30. Pharmacist arrives 15-35 mins late daily. I cannot clock in until the pharmacist is there as I’m just a technician and cannot legally work without a pharmacist. In addition, the computer to clock in is inside the locked pharmacy.

My issue is I’m getting to work on time consistently and waiting, unpaid, for about 30 minutes daily, four days a week.

At first, they were adjusting my hours but now they are just late daily and not apologizing and not fixing my time.

I am not a jerk about being on time and even appreciate the idea of flexibility myself, but it feels rude. One thing that I really like about this job is the fact that I get to go in at 7:30 in the morning, which is ideal for me. But it’s clearly not working out that way because they’re late constantly. I have worked with people who are constantly late, and I know that this will not be fixed except perhaps changing the hours of the pharmacy to 8 o’clock. But if it’s 8 o’clock I have a feeling this is a lifestyle problem and they’ll be getting there at 8:15 or 8:30 instead. Also, I don’t think it’s simple to change the hours that we open due to the contract.

I have never had a boss with this problem before, only other coworkers. It’s bothering me and I’m only about 8 weeks in. I’d say it is unintentionally toxic.

How should I handle this situation?

Edit: state of FL. Not government work. I do have periods of unsupervised time in the pharmacy, as the pharmacist has rounds and takes many breaks to smoke outside.

Thanks for all the thoughtful input and suggestions. I was able to request another computer location to be able to clock in when I arrive and this was implemented yesterday, so that should solve my issue.

Answer 1

"Hey, boss, I usually get here at 7:30 but I can't get to the time clock to clock in until the pharmacy is unlocked. I really hate having to bug you to adjust my hours. Is there any way I can clock in before the pharmacy is unlocked or otherwise get my timecard to reflect my actual hours, without needing to ask for help every time?"

From the comments: Send by e-mail/text or do the normal "just following up on our earlier conversation" so you have this in writing, to document that you are actually showing up on time.

Answer 2

Hospital pharmacy hours per contract is 7:30-2:30. Pharmacist arrives 15-35 mins late daily. I cannot clock in until the pharmacist is there as I’m just a technician and cannot legally work without a pharmacist.

You might not legally work without a pharmacist, but you still can get paid without a pharmacist.
What is stopping you from clocking in 7:30? If you can clock in at 7:30 and you have a written agreement that your shift starts at 7:30, then you should clock in at 7:30. If you cannot clock in at 7:30 because of some software limitation or something, then I would raise an HR ticket every time your couldn't clock in at 7:30.
Don't put any blame on the pharmacist, just state the factual, e.g.: "Monday the 26th, my shift started 7:30, but the system didn't allow me to clock in until 7:54. Can you please correct my hours to start at 7:30 that day"

Answer 3

You should be able to clock in on time even if you can't do any actual pharmacy work until your supervisor arrives. Take this to the next level of management, whoever supervised your supervisor.

If that doesn't work, you can try asking HR whether the hospital is violating your contract. You might want to talk to a lawyer first, to put some weight behind that implied challenge.

Answer 4

(I'm still waiting to hear your answer on some of my questions, but for now, here is a partial answer to your question).

For now, you do need to document what's happening. Keep a log of your exact hours, there are phone apps that can help you do that. And keep track of your unpaid hours.

And the more corroborating documentation, the better. Some apps will even add time-stamped GPS tracking during your commute hours to corroborate your clock-in and clock-out times. And either keep a paper journal at home, or take pictures of your parking receipts, fueling receipt, bridge tolls/transponder logs, transit card logs, and store those items/photos in chronological order. Again, the more corroborating evidence, the better. Just be sure to have all of this backed up on the cloud in case something happens to your phone. And be sure to have all of this organized from the get go, since it's more difficult to organize such information after the fact.

At first, they were adjusting my hours, which I think basically means they were falsifying their own time.

You probably know this already, but do not say this part to anyone in your company.

Now if someone in HR/legal offers this as a potential solution, that's fine, but even then, just play dumb, do not volunteer the fact that this is what your boss did at the beginning. Just say that your boss would probably have a problem with falsifying his own hours (which is technically the truth, it's just not the whole truth).

I cannot clock in until the pharmacist is there as I’m just a technician and cannot legally work without a pharmacist.

Please verify everything you've been told and try to find the primary source of that information. Go over your contract, read the employee manual, go over the rules of the pharmacist trade, carefully read any relevant any laws in your jurisdiction. Do not trust everything you're told. Verify it.

I'll just give you a made-up example, since I know nothing about the law and nothing about pharmacies in general. Let's say there is a law that says that technicians aren't allowed to be in the presence of controlled substances without having a supervising pharmacist present. Now, I don't know if such a law exists, but for the sake argument, let's say that's the case.

Once you know the reasoning behind the rule, and once you've actually verified that it's true, then you will be a much better position to find an alternative solution.

Answer 5

...waiting, unpaid, for about 30 minutes daily, four days a week. ...and not fixing my time.

Well, this is entirely unfair: you're showing up at the time requested, so morally they need to pay you for that, and it's very likely (depending on your jurisdiction) that they legally must pay you for that time. The other answers address this in more detail, but I'd suggest you not simply live with taking what amounts to a 5% pay cut. (I assume here you're being paid hourly.)

But this seems to be the crux of the problem:

It’s bothering me and I’m only about 8 weeks in. I’d say it is unintentionally toxic.

You're upset because something isn't working smoothly. This happens to me all the time, too: I'm always finding situations at work where something could be done better, or more smoothly, or more efficiently (or all of those), and I find it annoying when I encounter strong resistance to fixing such things. (Really annoying at times; I've left jobs over this.)

But the best thing you can do, once you've sent (gentle) suggestions up the chain about fixing such things, is to change your mindset a bit. Every business has certain inefficiencies in it, and other people in the business will prioritise fixing them differently from you. If you can bring yourself around to thinking of this as Just One of Those Things that is is one of the many drags on business that isn't doing enough harm to make others co-operate to get it changed, and see it as just natural business overhead, you can hopefully find it less "toxic"; you're just getting paid for a different part of the job: waiting at the start of the day and dealing with the administrative hassle of getting your hours updated to the correct start time after you clock in. Every job has in it some stuff we enjoy less than than the core work of the job, and you have to balance the value of making a fuss over this to try to fix it with just living with it in order to get along better with the other people involved in this area of your workplace.

This may expose you to complaints from hospital patrons who expect the pharmacy to be open and serving customers during the stated hours: for them you should sympathise, point out that you are a "lowly" tech that cannot fix this problem, and suggest someone else (the pharmacist, hospital management, whatever seems best and least likely to blow back on you) they can talk to about this.