I dont know where you are OP. But business is back and so are happy hours, it's packed by the DuPont Farragut North corridor.

My spouse works in municipal government but his hours are 7:30-4 with a 30 minute lunch. He works with people who work 7-3:30 or 6:30-3. Lots of people in management work these early schedules and there is a cultural preference it. They have mandatory meetings at 8am regularly, so coming in any later than 7:45 would be frowned upon, and earlier is better so that meetings start on time and people are prepared.

Anonymous wrote:My husband works for VOA and takes the red line. Since they've been put on admin leave this week, nobody is there. So that freed up about 1,000 folks. His hours were 7am-3pm so that would have been his regular time to leave. 😢

I'm really sorry to hear that. It does sound like people within VOA are working to save it. It doesn't even cost that much money to run, I think it's such a weird thing to target. They just hate journalists.

Anonymous wrote:Why is anyone allowed to leave early? The only reason you should be on a train going home at 3:30 is if you clocked on at 6. You did your 8, plus your unpaid hour for lunch, and left at 3. And I seriously doubt most govt offices are open and running at 6 am.

There have historically been plenty of feds who worked a schedule like that. Usually more like 7-4:30, but that was a very standard schedule for a lot of fed (and plenty of non-feds) for a long time. It used to be standard for federal offices to be totally full by 7:30am and totally empty by 5pm. In the 90s and 00s, this was pretty standard except at places like DOJ, the White House, Congress, and a few other agencies where longer hours were standard (I think some of the financial regulators adopted hours more similar to the markets/financial industry, which has more of a start late, end late culture). But like OPM or HHS or something? 7-4:30 would be very normal and certainly there were people who would do a 6-3:30 shift (you were generally required to take your lunch break for legal reasons).

This was all before Covid and WFH though. Everyone came into the office every day. A lot of people chose the earlier schedule because it allowed them to skip morning rush hour, and then got them home in time for dinner with kids. You might have a SAHP at home if you live far out, or if your spouse worked, they had a job that enabled them to take kids to school.

The early work ours of the fed would impact other industries, too. I have colleagues who started at law firms around or before 2000, and DC firms had really different hours from NY back then. At my old Big Law firm, people apparently used to work 8-4 or 9-5 regularly, and then commute home. A lot of people would do work at home later (this was before smart phones and the always connected culture, so if you did work later it would be offline, reviewing docs or writing, not responding to emails or having meetings) but hours expectations were lower back then too. I know a bunch of people who chose DC over NY specifically because it was a more family-friendly Big Law culture, with more standard hours. And that was due to the influence of the federal government where so many people worked an early schedule that accommodated spending evenings with family.

That changed well before Covid though. DC still doesn't have NY-style Big Law culture, but it's more similar now, and thanks to smart phones and the change in culture, it doesn't really matter. You might go home at 6 and have dinner with kids, but you'll be online and working in a visible way (not just holing up in a home office to draft part of a memo after kids went to bed) for the rest of the night. It sucks. It was better when the fed had a 7-4:30 standard and lawyers cued off of that.

My husband works for VOA and takes the red line. Since they've been put on admin leave this week, nobody is there. So that freed up about 1,000 folks. His hours were 7am-3pm so that would have been his regular time to leave. 😢

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is anyone allowed to leave early? The only reason you should be on a train going home at 3:30 is if you clocked on at 6. You did your 8, plus your unpaid hour for lunch, and left at 3. And I seriously doubt most govt offices are open and running at 6 am.

Lunch is 30 minutes, not an hour.

Probably a good 20% of my office is in by 6-6:30 am.

When I was a fed these people were always the laziest and least productive

The people who got in early were the laziest and least productive? Why was that?

It is my best time of day. No one is chatting . No meetings or emails. People are in though due to commutes and needing to be hohe for kids in the afternoon.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is anyone allowed to leave early? The only reason you should be on a train going home at 3:30 is if you clocked on at 6. You did your 8, plus your unpaid hour for lunch, and left at 3. And I seriously doubt most govt offices are open and running at 6 am.

Lunch is 30 minutes, not an hour.

Probably a good 20% of my office is in by 6-6:30 am.

Yep. If you clock in at 6, you get to leave at 2:30.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is anyone allowed to leave early? The only reason you should be on a train going home at 3:30 is if you clocked on at 6. You did your 8, plus your unpaid hour for lunch, and left at 3. And I seriously doubt most govt offices are open and running at 6 am.

Lunch is 30 minutes, not an hour.

Probably a good 20% of my office is in by 6-6:30 am.

When I was a fed these people were always the laziest and least productive

The people who got in early were the laziest and least productive? Why was that?

Because getting in early had nothing to do with productivity. These folks usually got in before their supervisors (by design) and were invariably the ones whose behinds were getting hit by the door at 3pm on the dot. The hardest workers who brought the most to the agency and who worked until the job was done (instead of working until a specified time) usually got in later. Just my experience.

This was my experience as well. There were some parents who got in early because they were splitting child care with a spouse, but the others were usually the least productive. Early birds tensed to like to get there early and socialize until the boss got there. Not all,.but most.

Who wants to share their commute with high school students?

Most feds will be leaving later OP. Also, lots of feds work at agencies in VA and MD.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is anyone allowed to leave early? The only reason you should be on a train going home at 3:30 is if you clocked on at 6. You did your 8, plus your unpaid hour for lunch, and left at 3. And I seriously doubt most govt offices are open and running at 6 am.

Lunch is 30 minutes, not an hour.

Probably a good 20% of my office is in by 6-6:30 am.

When I was a fed these people were always the laziest and least productive

The people who got in early were the laziest and least productive? Why was that?

Because getting in early had nothing to do with productivity. These folks usually got in before their supervisors (by design) and were invariably the ones whose behinds were getting hit by the door at 3pm on the dot. The hardest workers who brought the most to the agency and who worked until the job was done (instead of working until a specified time) usually got in later. Just my experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is anyone allowed to leave early? The only reason you should be on a train going home at 3:30 is if you clocked on at 6. You did your 8, plus your unpaid hour for lunch, and left at 3. And I seriously doubt most govt offices are open and running at 6 am.

Lunch is 30 minutes, not an hour.

Probably a good 20% of my office is in by 6-6:30 am.

When I was a fed these people were always the laziest and least productive

The people who got in early were the laziest and least productive? Why was that?

Anonymous wrote:Why is anyone allowed to leave early? The only reason you should be on a train going home at 3:30 is if you clocked on at 6. You did your 8, plus your unpaid hour for lunch, and left at 3. And I seriously doubt most govt offices are open and running at 6 am.

My office is teeming at 6 am.

Many commute from far away so drive early to miss some rush hours

Fed here. I have to be in the office 80 hours a pay period. That’s the rule. I just do a 8:45-5:15 routine and leave at 5:15, leaving my computer and phone in the office

I wish I could leave at 4 and do the last hour at home. I really do

Anonymous wrote:3:30 pm is a dangerous time to be at some metro stops due to teens fighting and robbing people after school. A lot of people try to leave earlier than that.

Feds are out of the door at 2:30PM.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is anyone allowed to leave early? The only reason you should be on a train going home at 3:30 is if you clocked on at 6. You did your 8, plus your unpaid hour for lunch, and left at 3. And I seriously doubt most govt offices are open and running at 6 am.

Lunch is 30 minutes, not an hour.

Probably a good 20% of my office is in by 6-6:30 am.

When I was a fed these people were always the laziest and least productive