One can be a mooch with time, too. Be the person that occasionally is at their desk until 5:15 or 5:30, not the person who starts packing their stuff up at 4:58 to absolutely, every day, be gone at 5:00. Be flexible giving time and nobody will care when you take some. Never, ever give time and get a reputation as the person who never does anything extra, even if everyone is working the same number of hours.It is very easy to earn the reputation of a mooch. It’s very hard to get rid of it.
When worlds collide. Anyone who 'gives work' off the clock at my job gets ridiculed so fucking hard for taking money out of someone else's pocket. You setup the work area before shift started? That's great. It's so clean and we're ready to go! But Jim over there normally sets up. He makes $33 an hour. He hit over time today, so that's 20 minutes of OT he might of gotten but didn't. Over time is 1.5x payrate. That 20 minutes of work you did cost Jim $16.50. And so, the advice I would chip in here: In a work place, relationships can be mechanical just as much as they are social. Don't always take everything that happens personally. Evaluate the situation, and try to realize what pressures are pushing people to act in the ways that they are. Then extend that, and try and see how your actions will filter through that system.