Took a salaried job at a shop in Reno and felt guilty clocking out at 5, then my lead showed me his hands
Turns out the old timers who stay late are just slow, not dedicated, and I only figured it out when my lead pulled me aside and said the grinder marks on my cuts are from rushing to prove something nobody asked for.
Calling the old timers slow seems like a pretty easy thing to say from behind a desk where nobody judges your output by how many parts you crank out. Think about it, if they've been doing this for 20 years and still take longer, maybe that's because they learned the hard way that rushing gets fingers cut off, not because they're bad at their jobs. Your lead telling you to slow down isn't proof that speed doesn't matter, it's proof that he'd rather keep a new guy than watch him get hurt in month two. Nobody clocks out at 5 out of pure laziness either, some of those guys might have kids or second jobs or just bodies that hurt after 8 hours of standing. So which is it, are you the smart one for leaving on time, or are you just new enough that nobody's handed you the jobs where staying late actually matters?