I always arrive late at the office, but I make up for it by leaving early.

The line is a compact joke about workplace timekeeping: the speaker admits to a fault (arriving late) and then offers a “compensation” that is obviously no compensation at all (leaving early). Its humor depends on deadpan logic and a self-portrait of cheerful irresponsibility, satirizing the way people rationalize behavior that benefits themselves. Read more broadly, it pokes at the mismatch between the language of duty (“make up for it”) and the reality of evasion, a theme common in comic essays and conversational wit. Even if often attributed to Lamb, it functions as a generic epigram about office life and human self-justification.