Your shift ends at seven. Your colleague was supposed to walk in at seven and take over. It is ten past, then twenty past, and you are still at the desk explaining what happened. Nobody pays you for those minutes.
Each single time is too small to call out, and regular enough to quietly eat your rest. Here is how to deal with it without turning the handover into a fight.
Most people who are always late are not doing it to you. They misjudge traffic, take one more call, leave the house late because nothing has ever cost them anything. That does not make it your problem, but it changes how you open the conversation.
Talk about the handover, not the character. “The handover keeps running past my finish time” is a fact you can both work with. “You are always late” is an accusation, and accusations get a defence instead of a fix.
Do not save it up for a month and then explode. Raise it the first time it happens, calmly, while the details are fresh.
Each of these gives the other person something to do. That is the difference between a complaint and a request.
Your shift end is yours, not a negotiation. Write your handover note before the other person arrives: open jobs, anything unfinished, anything the next shift needs to watch. Then hand it over in five minutes and go. If they are not there, leave the note in the shift log and leave at your time.
Log your hours at the moment you actually finish, not later at home from memory. Ten minutes here and there adds up, and a written record is what settles the argument afterwards. Shiftat-E is useful here: you log the shift as it happened, so the pattern is visible instead of being a feeling.
Before you go to the supervisor, build a short record. Three lines per incident: the date, how late they were, and what it cost you — a task left undone, a rushed handover, a bus you missed.
One late arrival is nothing. The same person, on the same shift, most days for a month is a pattern, and a pattern is what a supervisor can act on. Bring the pattern, not the frustration.
Keep it short and about coverage. “The handover on my shift has been starting late most days. I have been staying past my finish time, and I need the handover to start on time or move earlier.” Then offer the fix you want: written notes instead of waiting, a short overlap, or a change in the rota.
Say what you need, not what they should punish. Supervisors move faster when the request is easy to approve.
If late handovers keep eating your time, keep your own record straight. Download Shiftat-E from Google Play, log your shifts and hours, and plan your leave without guesswork. Get it on Google Play
