Hardworking lawyer shows up to work hours before everyone else and still gets fired: 'The three hours early riser put in before the sun was up did not count, because no one was there to see them.'

You know what they say: "The early bird gets the worm." But in this case, being early to work backfired on this lawyer. It's a tough job market out there, and you can lose a job for a number of reasons – layoffs, poor performance, absences and tardiness, and apparently, being early?

In this instance, we have a lawyer who'd start work in the wee hours of the morning in order to finish at a decent hour and spend time with his wife and kid. He'd come in around 6:00 a.m. and finish his day at 5:00 p.m. The other lawyers would put in the same amount of hours but just at a later timeframe, starting around 8:00 a.m., going to the pub together at 5:00 p.m., and then working until 9:00 p.m. Despite consistently being the first one in the firm each day, the early bird was let go because, to his bosses, it looked like he was slacking.

Among many red flags in the workplace, not valuing an employee's time and hard work is one of them. Is time even real, anyway? We live on a floating rock floating through space. How dare a man want to get out of work a little early to spend time with his wife and kid…

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A lawyer I knew got fired for coming in too early

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The lawyer's misfortune inspired the original poster to start his own practice. He didn't want to go through what his former coworker experienced.
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Moral of the story? Try not to work too hard – your boss will probably assume you're not working hard enough anyway. If you can, work for someone who views you as a human being and not a machine.