Friday afternoon is the most honest three hours of the working week, in that almost nothing happens in them and everyone is aware. The office empties at half two by a process nobody has ever formally agreed to. The last hour of a Friday is inbox tidying, which is the corporate equivalent of straightening cushions in a room you are about to leave. Which is why leaving work early on a Friday needs less justification than any other exit, provided you attach it to something delivered. 'Going at two, the week's shipped, everything's merged and nobody deploys on a Friday afternoon on purpose' is unanswerable. If you can point at a real train constraint, better still: the Friday timetable in most of the country offers a two o'clock or a six o'clock and nothing in between, which is a scheduling decision made by someone else that you are simply reporting. One piece of etiquette that costs nothing: if you're taking the afternoon, put it in as a half day. It removes the entire conversation and makes you the person who books things properly. Below are ten excuses to leave work early on Friday, plus twenty in the generator.
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