School run and TOIL

So if the school.run is 50mins to an hour you are 20-30 mins over every day? Your manager is right, its either give and take OR work to rule, you cant have both.

I think it’s the “quite chill” wfh days too that sound very flexible and may get taken away if you push too much.

You get an additional 20-30 mins every day (school run 50-60 plus 30 min lunch). So yes i would work late occasionally when needed. If i was regularly working more than 2.5 hours over my weekly hours I might have a rethink but otherwise it is cheeky.

It’s a bit hard to respond on this thread with limited info.

OP can you tell us more about the time it actually takes to do the school run. Is it 50 mins for both and then you still take a lunch break?

If I was your boss I would be telling you that going forward it’s 1h lunch , if this is taken up by the school run bad luck .
You have taken the piss with asking for Toil .

Sounds like she has gone out of her way to accommodate your needs.
You WFH, which in your own words is chill, that to me says you're not working flat out whilst WFH, so have quite a charmed working life.
You repay her flexibility by taking the piss when working a few more hours.

Don't be so entitled!
If you'd been a little more humble and explained you'd worked over and why, she may have been more amenable to give you TOIL.

I dont understand this if you are in a salaried position.

Paid by the hour like a cleaner or a supermarket worker...yes fine.

But you are a salaried office worker.

I take time in lieu when I have to get up at 8am Sunday and go to nyc for a monday meeting and its agreed in advance.

A 9pm meeting or working for 2 hrs after kids go to sleep is not a TOIL situation.

You need to read the room if you like your job and the money

You are taking extra time off every day for the school run. You can't ask for toil. You should be doing this every week to make up the time lost.

If I’ve got this right you take 50m for school run and 30m lunch so that’s 20m everyday they give you which equals 6.5 hours a month
yet you want to give nothing back

tbh attitudes like this spoil it for everyone

So if you added up all the hours you've worked, and excluded all the time you've spent on lunch or on the school run, have you worked 4 hours more than your total contracted hours over the time you've been there?

When do you pay back the additional time you have had off for the school run?

It's entitiled attitudes like this that make it really difficult for management to be flexible around childcare etc because there'll always be somebody that takes the absolute piss. OP people have spelled out in black and white for you why you shouldn't be expecting this TOIL It sounds like you're skipping out on at least 4 hours a fortnite of contracted work time. If I was your boss I'd be being hair splittingly pedantic about your working hours from now on and coming down on you like a tonne of bricks for any contract violations. Like your boss said it's give and take and you don't have a divine right to this job or the flexibility that it offers.

Yes you are very unreasonable.

You are taking 1h30m of lunch everyday with no compensation, a benefit to which only you are entitled and expect to otherwise have all the benefits to which your coworkers are entitled? Why only you?

TOIL has to be mutually agreed, and OP’s was turned down so I don’t know how well ‘of course I’ll take my 4 hours toil at this time’ will go down

You get lunch and time for school run? Unpaid?
Count your hours - flexible working isn’t about working for free.

YABU. She had given you more time off than you are entitled to so that you could do the school run and also get to have a lunch break on top of that, and now she's told you that the quid pro quo for that is that if you need to stay late, you will do so. These are not 'extra hours' that you are working, because you're getting a few hours a week equivalent of lunch breaks on top of the hour for the school run; they are replacement hours for the time you're spending doing the school run.

It is perfectly reasonable of her to expect you to be flexible and to expect you to work the overall hours that you are contracted to. Sounds like you've been a bit oblivious, but you know the score now.

Hey, so I get a lot of flex with my work and while I can claim TOIL I really only do it if it’s been an absolutely excessive amount ie not 4 hours. It has to be give and take, as it stands I get unquestioned time off or flexitime if my child is sick, needs collecting early, has an appointment, has a Christmas concert. This week school is off and I haven’t been made to take holiday, just told I can wfh and juggle whatever I need to with my husband.

I know from friends these type of roles sadly aren’t guaranteed, and it’s clear you’re also aware of this given your last job wasn’t flex. It’s shit because as parents I do feel we’re often stuck, but I personally wouldn’t be getting my self upset over four hours TOIL. If it’s really genuine overtime you did ie you can comfortably say it wasn’t extra hours you did to make up for the drive etc. then my advice would be don’t do much genuine overtime again.

And you’re still having an extra 30 minutes lunch break on the company? If so yes you’re very out of order. It does work both ways and you seem to be very much taking.

But what about the hours you took for school run? This is exactly what she means by give and take. You want a strict 9-5 with toil for every extra minute worked, you need to put your dd into wrap around care. My work is very much give and take and I’m so grateful for the flex, and I would never ever think I can claim for attending evening meetings- which are not just for fun, just like your extra hours, they are part of my work.

This has to be a reverse, surely!

So every day you are given 20 minutes extra off anyway.
Four hours every fortnight.
If you work an exrtra four hours per fortnight, you are even
.
Try not to work more than that much (4 hours) in overtime; be more efficient with your time and prioritise what the boss wants you to prioritise. Sometimes you will need to work more overtime, particularly while you are trying to learn new skills and get ahead.

@Mumguilt25 I’m feeling really annoyed by this. I didn’t choose to work extra hours for fun, it was work that needed doing. I also don’t see how flexibility around school runs = unpaid overtime?

Right now, you're fitting perfectly into the entitled zoomer stereotype.

I've worked countless additional hours and not asked for anything in return. I suppose I'm from a different culture and upbringing. Rather than being stroppy, I've always just rolled up my sleeves and got on with it.

You sound very young and inexperienced. If I was your boss, I would be regretting having this informal arrangement with you and would be looking to ask you to formalise your hours
with a view to never flexing again. You have misjudged this. That’s ok we can all misjudge things, but with a role that is so flexible, I’d be looking to keep it as is. Say no more about this, learn and move on.

Even if you didn’t take time to do the school run, I still think you’re being a CF to request TOIL for the sake of four hours!

Every job I’ve ever had - even at the most junior level - has stated that I work a certain number of hours but that I also agree to work additional hours if necessary for business reasons. Your job is a step up from what you had before so presumably not even junior.

I would say I work at least an additional three or four hours a week anyway just to get through everything. I don’t argue against it because I could probably be more efficient during the day and I don’t want people setting a stopwatch each time I get a glass of water.

I could understand requesting a slightly early finish on a Friday if you’re quiet, and had regularly been working until the late (or early) hours for a whole week. But not a few hours.