Christmas leave priority

Oh, do grow up, I did it, my parents worked, I managed fine. My children have managed it too. My DGD has also managed it.
Work is a fact of life.

And a lot of people have to take whatever job they can, they can't pick and choose.

When I worked at a supermarket, it used to PISS ME OFF when colleagues who have family living nearby (within 5 miles) and worked part time used to get the days between Xmas and New Year. Some of them worked 9am-1pm. They could get home, get changed and see their families mid afternoon. When they got refused, some cried thinking its the end of the bloody world. Not one manager said look you got family a few miles from you and you have the afternoon and evening.

Me working full time and family (when they were alive) lived 2 hours drive. I was sure that my late grandmother would loved to see me at 8:30pm-9pm when she was in early 90s. That was the time of day she went to bed.

I work in the civil service now and its quiet at Christmas. I have 5 days off 24-28 Dec. Xmas Eve is a privilege day which gets added and get a day's holiday given to do this. Plus 28th is a BH as 26th Dec falls on Sat. Then 29/12-7/1 (excluding NYD) are restricted as staff put in their requests in and the managers will give the days off, based on previous Xmases. You are not expected to work in the office. So staff cannot book the same days off each year. Normally, the holidays are granted to you automatically if there is enough allocation. The only time the managers will intervene is if you wanted a week off and one of the days has only 5 hours left when you work 7.5. They push it through.

It will be my 2nd Christmas in the CS but I was in academy then. From what colleagues said, the managers and TLs beg us to go home/log off, even using up your flexitime. I am building this up. Require 3.5 hours of it when I have 2 weeks off - had 9.5 days left next month. Then at the moment, got another 9 hours which I will probably build up back to the level pre holiday.

Although we need future taxpayers, the jury is out on whether having kids is good for the planet (unless they grow up to be the next David Attenborough).

The priority list is mental. Grandparents with grandchildren under 7 getting priority over parents with children aged over 7? wtf? Btw as a parent with children both over 7 and under 7, this is unfair, everyone should be taking turns, children or not. I work in a shop where we literally only close Christmas Day. I accept this and just make the best of it. My colleague who has cats instead of kids is just as entitled to not want to work in the dead but hellish dump the shop is on Boxing Day, as I am, as a mother.

If you’re employed somewhere that’s open 365 days a year- as in, working all over the Christmas period is a very real possibility, don’t be surprised if you are rota-ed in for that. I’ve seen a few acquaintances be genuinely shocked and appalled that they have been expected to work Christmas Day when they literally work as ward nurses/in care homes, despite lamenting to anyone who will listen the fact they have children.

What would you do if you worked in an essential job with all mums. Who would work Xmas? The one with the youngest child? The lowest average age of their kids? The one with the cutest kid? The one who thought she was the best mum? Which poor child would have to suffer?

Who then deserves the day off?!

Yes, but for as long as we need them to pay tax then they are a necessity. This is fact. The alternative is pretty horrendous for society and we would see all sorts of things unravel quickly if people just stopped having children.

No, I think the jury is firmly IN if anyone cites there offspring as there own contribution to the future.

YANBU, I had to put up with this for years. I never had a xmas off (when my shifts fell on that day) because my collegue with kids was considered to have more entitlement because he had kids (which were teens, so not even small children!). I was told outright by management that people with kids get first dibs on leave over xmas.
Then management changed and so did who got to have xmas off. If our shifts fell on xmas and NY, we could only book one off, not both. But then you would have the parents refusing to cover if someone was off.

You stick all the kids in the shop with some nerf guns and let them battle it out. 😁

That’s probably why the priority list splits out the under 7s and over 7s - older kids might find the prospect of a nerf gun battle more appealing than eating sprouts with Uncle Knobhead

I think this is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard, but I don’t think you need to be a child free person by choice (as I am) in order to see that it’s ridiculous

There may be a generational element as well. My late father was classified as essential worker, so he didn’t automatically get Christmas off. It didn’t bother him. However, as he progressed in his career, the skeleton staff got more and more skeletal for want of a better word. It was ridiculous. It was as if they just sat there and hoped that nothing happened.

I will never forget a bunch of people losing electricity just before Christmas and the Company on television basically saying “ well we haven’t got staff so they’re not going to have electricity for a few days” I don’t understand why that’s acceptable. Essential services should have to organise proper cover.

I also think that summer holidays, Easter holidays etc have all become quite excessive and parents don’t seem to realise that people who aren’t parents or people who have adult children are also going to need time off.

I actually haven’t been in a situation where this has been too much of a problem, because historically I was always happy to cover Christmas. I’m very part-time now (freelance )so it’s not really an issue. But I would still do Christmas cover if somebody needed it and if I still drove…. I’ve had to stop driving for health reasons and there’s never any public transport on Christmas Day.

sorry, I’m just having a rant because it’s such a bonkers thing for them to say and there must be loads of people who are pissed off about it?

Something else that happens quite a lot…. Anything work related that happens outside of hours, usually evening events, again I’m always happy to cover. But I do remember another childfree member of staff coming to me and asking how I felt about it.

I said to him that if I’m doing an evening event, for example, I’m supposed to be at a dinner until 10 pm, I’m not starting work until 2. What negotiation can they use? They know damn fine that they’ve asked the childfree people to do it. If you’re supposed to finish work at 6 o’clock, then that’s four hours unpaid overtime. So I told him to stick to his guns and just tell them he was coming in at two or arrange for time off in lieu.

The problem sometimes comes up with people who will do the events as unpaid overtime because they will use any excuse for a fancy dinner 😂 but in that particular situation there were literally two of us in the department who could do it.

I think the age of people getting excited about fancy dinners is over anyway?

but I digress…. Yes, it is a ridiculous situation and I would say it constitutes unequal treatment. Isn’t the public sector supposed to guard against that kind of thing? Never worked it so I don’t actually know.

It's not about 'deserving' the day off. This kind of language is deliberately inflammatory but I think you know that. Do you think the person with the terminally ill parents 'deserves' the day off more than everyone else or that this is just the most compassionate thing to do? The same goes with kids. It is compassionate to understand that Christmas is very important to children and a key part of it is Christmas day itself. It has a significance which generally ebbs away as we get older.

To answer your question though, I would expect the team to use their judgement to decide who needed the day off more firstly. A single parent with no alternative childcare is a more obvious candidate than someone with a partner. I do think children's age comes into it. My kids are ageing out of Father Christmas etc so could stand to wait to celebrate Christmas in a way that they really would have struggled with a few years ago.

Well I don’t think being front of the queue of beggars qualifies as much of a privilege. Much better to not be in said queue….

Culturally, I think we are in a really bad place where people just find any excuse not to do their jobs properly, they know that parenting young kids covers a lot of things, and they don’t really think about fairness in the Christmas schedule.

But that might be me thinking that there’s a crossover, because I am generally really pissed off with current workplace attitudes. I’ve never been the person who’s going to bust a gut for a company who doesn’t care about anyone, but I have always been conscientious enough to do my job properly. That doesn’t seem to exist either.

Sorry if that was a total tangent.

I think prioritising those with primary aged children when the magic is very much still alive is a nice thing to do, say xmas eve and xmas morning so they can spend it with their children when they would be doing the tradtions and presents xmas morning is fair enough. A 33 year old without children isn't going to be getting up at 6am to unwrap presents with their parents, a 33 year old with primary aged children on the other hand will. I really wasn't fussed about xmas morning in my 20's pre-children, we usually stayed in bed until 10 or 11, there was nothing pressing about the day. Once I had children our day is jam packed and full of magic and traditions. It really is completely different once children come along.

My mum was a nurse, we used to have to get up at 5am on christmas morning to do presents, she left for work 7.30am and then would be home for 2.30pm in time for christmas dinner (shifts were shortened to 6 hours rather than the usual 12 over xmas and new year). In return for what my mum considered the best xmas day shift, she volunteered to work the late new year's eve and early new year's day as she wasnt bothered about that. It is rubbish though when your mum has to leave you to go to work xmas day, I think she had 1 christmas day off ever during all my childhood.

I don't agree with prioritising grandparents, we don't see my in-laws xmas day, we see them the week before xmas, lots of grandparents don't even live close to grandchildren so I don't see why it would be a general rule to prioritise them.

Yes it’s a very unfair system it should be taken in turns each year Xmas or new year off. Staff can swap if they like.

I did work somewhere where everyone wanted the day off on Xmas day and our shifts were usually 12 hours, so we broke up the shift into four hour shifts so everyone got some time at home. The people that didn’t drink went on the later shifts, it seemed to work really well for everyone.

I think the policy is bonkers, what kind of job actually needs multiple people in on Christmas Eve? If you don't want to drive at 6am on Christmas Day, why don't you drive after work up after work on Christmas Eve? I used to regularly drive 4+ hours from Berkshire, which was home & work, to the North Yorkshire border after work on a Friday night on my own. I'd spend the weekend with my parents and friends and then drive back down again on Sunday afternoon/evening, never once regretted the journey. You'd have 3 full days and part of Monday with them if you went up Thursday night.

Hmm. Perhaps hanging out on Mumsnet isn’t the best place for her then? 🤔

Well, look at the vote. Most people agree with her, currently 90%.

Having children doesn’t mean you lose your ability to analyse what is or isn’t sensible workplace policy! If it did then my parent colleagues would be driving me nuts on a regular basis.

I havent read the whole thread, but one of the issues is availabily of childcare. If you really have no family nearby finding someone prepared to take your small child can be very difficult.

This is bonkers! Why would they prioritise grandparents over parents?!

Luckily where I’ve worked most people are happy to let those with younger children have the time off but that’s a kindness they show, not something they should have to do.

This specific policy is pretty crazy though and the poll reflects that. Has any poster agreed with the grandparents rule? I've not seen one post agreeing with that

Surely you could apply this logic to choosing to live far from family too (I’m saying this as someone who lives a similar distance away from my extended family) We usually set off late on Christmas Eve so we get the full day there. When my husband worked nights we often set off at 3am when he finished.

Not that I’m saying that system is fair. We all get together at a team meeting, put forward the leave we want and then negotiate it between us. Any leave at Christmas that’s requested before that’s done is instantly rejected. If someone gets the short straw it’s usual because they got what they’d hoped for last year and/or next year they get first dibs. Pre kids I liked working Christmas week. It’s usually quiet, people are in good spirits, you get brownie points for doing it and your choice of when to take your leave.

Childcare is also hard to come by at Christmas

Yep, I never saw my grandparents on xmas day. One half of them never even celebrated xmas (JW).