The underlying question is "why do you need to be at work a 7 in the first place". If Betty can chat with coworkers half an hour longer than the other person starts working, that half hour can't really be that critical. In that case, 7 is just an arbitrary number and the difference is that Betty starts work at 7:40 while the other commenter gets in trouble for starting at 7:10, which is just plain bullshit.
If I need to start working at 7 for some reason (shift work has been mentioned) and I start at 7:10, we can talk, but Betty's 7:40 ass better get four times the amount of shit.