The working world has become ridiculous

[Rothschild]

Recently a manager at my company attended an online meeting in tears because of a minor issue regarding her child's school. She excused herself from the meeting and took a mental health day.

I can barely get hold of anyone at 3pm in my (large) organisation because everyone is doing school pick up. I don't believe they're getting much work done once they've picked up because they become hard to contact, don't respond to messages and won't attend meetings, despite it being their normal working hours.

It's ridiculous. When our children were small we paid for wrap around childcare or for someone to collect. We were available to work between 3 and 4pm and afterwards.

I'm not talking about anyone who has negotiated flexibility or finishes at 3pm, I'm talking about others who are, frankly, taking the piss.

And if I had taken a mental health day every time I'd had some difficulty in my life I'd have hardly worked.

Is this public or private sector?i have worked in local authority and about 30%-60% of staff did the work and carried the rest. (I worked for 2 councils and it was the same in both) I couldn't go back to it. I never saw this kind of thing in the private sector but I work in haulage so maybe thats why?

Increase your hours and start doing what your colleagues do then?

Many can’t ‘pop out’ because most don’t live anywhere near the office.
This is probably relevant for a lot of City workers
and many more. Can’t imagine pilots, divers, oil workers etc etc could manage it

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
please tell me you’re being sarcastic @GoodBrew

Oh, they have to be @Youdontseehow surely nobody actually thinks like that! It's a dog - D.O.G.

Can't agree more OP!

Work in HR.

Bereavement leave was requested recently for a pet rat dying.

It’s time to stop giving mental health so much power.

As things currently stand, “mental health” has become a buzz word, and a get-out for pretty much any behaviour.

We’ve got to the point in society where nobody is expected to take personal responsibility any more.

Someone shouts at someone in the street “must have mental health problems.”

Someone is abusive? “Must be their mental health.”

Don’t want to go to work? “Take a mental health day.”

A mother murders her children? “Must have been mentally ill,” although only women are justified in murdering their children in the name of mental health apparently.

Get on a train and stab a load of people? “Mental illness and services are lacking.” Never mind he’s since been charged with multiple other crimes, and is in jail not a psychiatric institution….

And it’s got to the point that nobody is expected to be pulled up on their behaviour because “what if you say something and it makes their mental health worse.”

Mental health has literally become a joke which very few people take seriously any more. And this in turn has an impact on the people who genuinely have diagnosed mental health conditions.

If you had loads of time off work because of a physical condition you would be expected to provide medical proof.

Mental health needs to become the same.

And any pisstake scenario such as taking time off for a dog should be unpaid.

Increase????

I think it's one thing or the other. Either employers seem incapable of managing their employees properly or they work them into the ground.

I also think both can be true - with different managers in the same organisation.

Managers need to be trained to manage - both people and deadlines/resources. Most aren't.

Somehow I get the feeling you are just the sort of person OP is talking about.

Yes increase but nip out to do the school run.

I used to do it one day a week but I only lived 2 mins walk from ds' school so I was home within 10 minutes max. And because I was home I didn't log off on the stroke of 5pm.

"the employee needs to be more resilient"
😂

@x12 the dog-walker was told to make other arrangements during his lunch break. The WFH with no childcare person was given a copy of the WFH policy and shown the bit about having childcare in place during core working hours. The castaway wannabe was pointed to the flexible working request procedure and their request was denied on grounds of business need.

This is an employer being ridiculous though- the law doesn't require anything like this, only for the employer to take reasonable care for its employees.

My workload is what I make of it, mostly.

I have a statutory responsibility to handle certain incidents at work. Paying for external handling of them would cost at least my salary on an ad hoc basis. So anything I do on top of that is largely a bonus.

As it is, I do some bloody good work on the legal compliance side, they've had awful advice for years, and I'm really getting things moving.

I don't fret too much about presenteeism or volume of work. I try to do a good quality job for my function.

they work 3 days a week and still mange to book all dental, GP and car MOT appointments on working days rather than the two weekdays they have off

This used to get me with one of my colleagues, especially when she was pregnant. But when I got pregnant I realised that all the midwife appointments locally were on Wednesdays so it didn't matter when her non-working day was.

Hospital appts are when you get them and the same is probably true for GP appointments these days. But I always book routine appointments for my non-working time as well. I guess some people might not have childcare on their days off.

I'm absolutely dying to know what companies these are, I work for a big multi national and I'm beyond stressed, all the time. There's no chance of slacking off for me!

Why should the goal just be 'work work work' why is that what you want? As long as the work is getting done I don't see why the workplace can't adapt to output vs hours being the goal. We live in a first world country, I can't believe our goal should still be to just devote ourselves to some capitalist corporation. Whenever I see a post like this I just think how sad.

Er no. I work for myself and I wouldn’t employ someone who only did 2 to 3 hours a day.

"It’s time to stop giving mental health so much power"
😂
Some of these posts are priceless 😁

No you wouldn't. Either the owners get less money or they see it isn't a viable business and get a job for someone who can offer decent working conditions to salaried workers.

Horrible thread.

Why do you need to hold meetings past 3pm? Genuine question. It's quite late in the day really. My colleagues and direct reports know I don't do meetings at that time unless it's absolutely necessary (it rarely is). Mornings are for meetings, focus tasks etc. My afternoons - when most people are less productive - are set aside for less intensive work.

I manage a team and have no issue with people leaving to pick up DC, exercise or whatever at 3pm if they make up the time some other way. Or if it's not busy and they just finish work early, that's fine too.

Hear! Hear!

Whilst I am much in agreement with the OP about people taking time off excessively and for the slightest thing, I agree with you about meeting times.

Even easier to avoid meetings after 3pm if you manage meetings well, so there is not a one hour meeting when half will meet the need. Above all, start on time, don't do the nonsense of 'give it a couple of minutes'. I chair one meeting that starts on time, and as everyone knows it will, they arrive on time 99% or more of the time.

We often hold planning meetings, brainstorming, working sessions etc. past 3pm. The workday is 8:30-530, not 10am-2pm as some seem to think.