Ask Lemmy

Honestly, it depends on your job.
Some jobs will fire you for taking too long in the restroom.
Those are not good jobs.

At other jobs, nobody will flinch if you send a quick note saying you gotta leave now for personal reasons and just take off.

Any personal crisis is a good reason, child sick, significant other in a crash, you getting sick.

In Germany, this is acceptable whenever you feel unable to continue your shift (be it due to personal distress or sickness). If you showed up at all, your shift will be paid in full and not counted as sick day or anything if you have to stop it because you have become unable to continue working.

Any reason at all. It’s your life, not theirs.

• Shitting their pants.
• Family emergency
• Active shooter on the job site
• natural disaster in, on, or around the job site
• nuclear war is declared
• alien invasion
• the second coming of Christ
• Elvis is back on tour along with the Big Bopper, Richie Valence and Bill Haley
• You felt like it

Some reasons I've done this:

• Family member in hospital (ER/ICU)
• I get a migraine
• I generally just feel super tired for some reason and I cannot continue
• House emergency (basement flooding)

Nice weather

As others have said, it depends on your job and what's going on that day, but in my career, I have left work early just to take my kids to the zoo.

I told my boss I was leaving. He asked me why. I said, "It's a gorgeous summer day, life is short and I'm gonna take my kids to the zoo."

He kinda eyeballed me for a second and then laughed and said "Ok. Have fun!"

And we did.

Shit ma pants

They've pulled an all-nighter getting things ready for a presentation with a big client, everything is perfect, then the client postpones the meeting at the last minute. Good afternoon, I'm going to bed.

If you're an American, I'd go with diarrhea if you're in a workplace with bad management. If you have a boss that actually cares about you, tell them you have a migraine.

When 9/11 occurs and you believe your building is being targeted next. When you are on the 46 floor and have a clear flight path right at you.

When a psycho murderer with am assault rifle mass murders people across the street from you (101 California street, San Francisco, 1993)

We worked through that one. But my boss hated his job so much, he said let them kill me.

Anything medial realted to a family member or close friend. Anything witch requires the response to an emergency service, something you own on fire, or will soon be on fire, gas leak.

I did this in 1997 on the day that Final Fantasy VII came out. Just straight up walked out and didn't come back for a few days. If I'm perfectly honest, nobody noticed. I'm not sure whether this means it was acceptable or not.

I worked as a landscaper just after high school and while working on a flower bed behind an apartment I stepped directly on a yellow jacket nest. Before I realized what had happened there were yellow jackets in my pant leg. I was stung well over 100 times. I was allowed to take the rest of the day off.

• They’ve decided to quit
• They were physically attacked
• They got sick
• They just found out a close family member died or was rushed to the hospital
• The promised working conditions have not been maintained: A/C stopped working, the bathrooms don’t work, there’s no water supply to the building, etc
• They work outside and the air quality index got too high

Winning the lottery. Not "acceptable" maybe, but a valid reason nonetheless.

Loved one in serious car crash

• Upset stomach
• take pet to animal hospital
• grab niece from day care
• a personal matter
• Dr's appt.
• the office is too hot
• the need to watch training videos in peace
• urgent issues
• having to do something work related in the morning, off site, so why go in after your done.
• biopsy
• the tax office to register your car
• something broke and you need to get it fixed.
• the thing that broke didn't get fixed the first day, so now you need a second one
• the thing that broke happens to be your ac, so you have to take your pet somewhere to cool off.
• your niece has lice and it's up to you to take care of it.
• you need to pick someone up at the airport
• thier flight got in late, so you need to pick them the next day instead.
• a cold, not covid
• a different cold, still not covid.
• your car needs an oil change.
• a different doctors appt.
• to swing by somewhere that closes at 5.

Ok, look, i have about 300 of these. One for almost every day of the week. Lady (no, not me) is always making an excuse to leave early or not come in at all. Does it piss some people off? Sure, but nobody has stopped her yet.

Get pooped on by a patient

Context needed.

Accounting, sure, not much going to happen immediately.

Infrastructure worker (as in electricity, water etc.), no, you can't really do that unless you have a substitute at hand.

Any reason is good enough especially in America. There are nuances and stuff here obviously but in general, fuck your job. Unless you somehow live in an actual socialist society which many don't, your job doesnt matter and pays less then it should by design. Everytime you get out of working or do malicious compliance that is less money going to a ceo somewhere.

I’d say any health emergency, for anyone you care about, should count. Although, the validity comes more from how the event affects the worker than from whether or not the event is objectively serious, since that’s impossible to measure. So it’s hard to say anything with certainty.

I have flex hours, so on occasion I'll leave early if I have nothing critical to do.