To think we shouldn't have to work the day before Christmas Eve?

These corporate events where some self important CEO who wouldn’t know most of us if they passed us in the street announce how wonderful they think they are because of how much money they’ve made are dull enough as it is. We get to watch them on teams because we WFH, but doing a six hour trip for what will probably be a twenty minute self congratulatory monologue followed by a few Canapés? Na stuff that.

I would tell them that you’ll be going into the shop on the 23rd, but that you absolutely cannot travel to Manchester and back the day before Christmas Eve.

You are moaning about having a company engagement event, all costs covered, including your time. Well just think… there are thousands of nurses, doctors, paramedics etc that DONT get 2 weeks off, and most have to work everyday except one day with Christmas and new year if they are lucky. You are being unreasonable.

I notice you've cunningly set the times to get the cheap day return price 😁
If she has to be there by 9, the cost... triples, I'm going to guess?

It's the 6 hours travelling time for tram bonding they're complaining about not the actual working.

I travel quite a lot for work, but if I was expected to be in a city 3hrs away for 9am I would request an overnight stay and travel the night before. Work would pay for both the hotel and the travel.

Being expected to leave your house at 5am and drive for 3hrs at your own expense is unreasonable I think. If they were paying for travel and hotels I would be fine with it.

If you don't want to go couldn't you say that you have plans already and take it as leave?

But maybe there are other locations and this is central or another reason we don’t know about?

I don’t understand how you think it’s unreasonable for your employer to ask you to work on a working day. You may not like the agenda and travel (sure we don’t always like to do this!) but it’s a work day.

Unfortunately attendance isn’t dependant on days activities if dictated to by the company and is perfectly reasonable.

I get you don’t want to go and it’s a pain but it’s perfectly reasonable.

Surely they haven't changed this? The shop is still closed from Friday 20th December. From then until Christmas the days were always working days and you needed to take a days leave to cover them. You now have the option to take one less day's annual leave and to go to this get together in Manchester.

If you don't go to Manchester, you have to use a day's leave as you were already expecting to do (or not get paid, as it's a working day you're not working).

If you do go to Manchester, you don't need to use the day's annual leave that you thought you'd need to take that day.

For some people a day of nibbles and socialising would be an easy day, and they'd prefer to save their leave. For others it will be their idea of hell, so they can take their leave instead or choose a day of unpaid leave.

No biggie.

I think that the issue is you've equated "the shop is shut" to days off. They're not the same thing. Working days are working days regardless of whether or not the shop is open, so they need to be worked, covered from the annual leave allowance or taken unpaid.

Are you in Carlisle? Black eye Friday is a gave away 😊

Looks like the usual corporate insanity. Nobody can just have a job any more, can they?
I find it fascinating that so many people on the thread ( and elsewhere on the forum) have bought into all this nonsense and made it normal.
I've worked Christmas and bank holidays due to the nature of my work but I knew about it and expected it. It's a very different thing when you're expected to do what OP is talking about.
I'm often aghast at the lack of critical reading/thinking skills in some posts.

Honestly, it’s ridiculous. They’re not even paying your travel?

take the day off. Or go off sick/car breakdown

What is the financial difference between the cost of the train and the amount you get paid for a day's work. If its an amount you can afford to lose then take the day off as unpaid. Is there career progression within the company that would apply to you or are you intending to be shop based for the foreseeable future? If you are in the shop location and happy to remain there, and do a good job, then its unlikely not attending a jolly will impact your career.

You can do what most everyone else does - book your holiday in advance around Christmas. Then you can plausibly say you have other plans.

I booked my days off for Christmas in July.

how will you travel to Manchester? Who will be driving? Is the car insured for a business trip? Commuting to work is a different insurance than driving to a business meeting in another city and if you don’t notify your insurance, then you’ll not be insured.

my previous work asked me to do this, I could for £50 extra on insurance and work didn’t want to pay the difference- so I used public transport which I could then put in as expenses

somet insurance don’t charge anything to change to business, but some do

This has actually happened to me?!!!! live in rural area so had to travel to a hospital last minute (many times but just at Xmas)who were short staffed more than an hour away.

What is Black Eye Friday?

Yes but if you were told your Christmas eve or Christmas day shift would be at a hospital 3hrs away and you had to pay your own transport, which is the point of the op, surely you'd object?

Plus you are going eat a buffet 🤯🤯 it's not even as if you at work work. Such an entitled insensitive post. Think about the millions of people who are actually working hard over xmas

No sympathy whatsoever here, healthcare worker who has worked literally years and years of Xmas and NY. It's a luxury in my eyes to just have Xmas day off.

Having to do this for some excruciatingly boring forced "fun" and having to travel 6 hours without expenses is not at all reasonable especially given the undoubtedly appalling traffic that day from people travelling for Christmas. Take the day as unpaid or try and take annual leave if you can and then in the new year look for another job. It's very nasty of them to then threaten to curtail your career progression if you don't attend.

Have they actually said you’ve got to be there at 9, through until 6pm? If so, that’s a bit of a jig ask as it’s effectively a 15 hour day for you.

If they had said leave home at 9, get there at say midday, and leave at 3/4pm then that’s a bit less of an arseache

Perhaps they are going to announce a Christmas bonus for everyone if they have said that they are going to go through the years results.

You keep saying about black eye Friday but that's the 20th not the 22nd?

Working on the 23rd in your normal place of work should be expected. Travelling be it by train or car for a meeting that could take place say in early January is not. Many of those travelling long distance on 23rd December don't do so on many occasions in the year, so for example on the roads you will have more than the usual share of middle lane hoggers and other driving that should result in a ban.

The comment about progression could be taken as bullying.