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.

Just came back to make everyone aware that my whole team is finishing at 3pm today, because I am.

Please, nobody develop a productivity aneurysm.

Ahh this explains it - this comes from a place of not wanting others to have good things - like work flexibility - because you unfortunately don't.

We own our own medium size business
As a mother myself I am reluctant to employ mums as I cannot pay people who have to go to pick Johnny up when he had ad a fall or is miserable and needs a day off work
Or they are off due to anxiety

It is simply not my problem
One of my employees has had cancer twice and has tio press a button in his throat to be able to talk
Cannot lie on his side to sleep
Never ever heard him say he is depressed or anxious - he says he feels very lucky to be alive
My great grandfathers were in WW2 from day one
They did not ever say they had anxiety or stress they just got on with it
Most of our staff are 40 plus as this demographic just has a far better work ethic and understands that business do not exist to give them money
There has been a lot of coverage recently about how difficult it is for young people to get jobs - this is a major factor

I guess you have never owned a business and never will
People like you ate why employers are moving to AI asap
Business do not exist for the fun of giving someone a job
They exist to make a profit
In this job market if one person is not performing there are plenty of others who would like that opportunity

they can work, but it needs to be a role they can manage with reasonable adjustments.

Not something where they need intense levels of micro managing that end up pushing other people out of work or on long term stress leave

Well maybe they should. Why would you do more than your job for them?

A owns the company.
B and C works for the company.
B does their job while C slacks. Why would B pick up the slack for C? Why wouldn't A sort it out?

and no company seems to want to pay for training to upskill their staff. how can you learn when the person your learning from also doesn't know.

bloody useless

Some here sound like horrendous “people managers.”

My only assumption is that they employ similar people to themselves, or they have a humongous retention problem.

My old manager once told us we were all replaceable. So we all left. And then the office closed about 6 months later - not so replaceable after all.

For my company, it’s the former - profits are through the roof. We used to get an annual profit share but management decided it would just stay within management.

Because I'm talking about big organisations and skilled jobs, there are a lot of jobs out there that not just anybody can step in and deal with. There's no such thing as a CEO doing the jobs of hundreds of staff when they all go off radar at 3pm! In my case I was dealing with the workload of a colleague who played the off with stress game for 4 years! He'd come back on a phased return every 6 months when his sick pay was due to drop by 50% and then sod off again after a couple of weeks, he'd take on loads of client work when he came back and then drop it! Of course it falls team mates because they're the only people skilled and qualified to do it.

Lack of understanding isn't why I used it. It's ironic you didn't understand that.

Good for you, but I won't be forcing myself to work when I lose my pet, if I don't feel like it. Dragging yourself to work when you don't feel like it only punishes you. You are SO replaceable at work.

There's only no such thing because the worker ants decide it is their job to correct the issue. It isn't your company. Do YOUR job and go home.

Actually I find work a distraction from personal woes. Far better to focus on something else than wallow.

That's true to a point, but actually finding focus an impossibility is a key symptom of grief. I kept going after DH died, thinking I needed to keep busy, and ended up retiring early because I couldn't cope with work at all. It's somehow changed the entire way my brain works.

I'm sorry for your loss and I do acknowledge that we all have different ways of coping ❤

It doesn't work like that! I was dealing with project work that had the potential to endanger the railways! Deadlines for the client, works that clients signed agreements and were paying for, works that you don't want them to just go ahead and do and up at worst, causing a passenger train crash. Nobody lets you just not do it, you can't refuse to pick up tie extra work unless you want to look bad and leave other members of the team floundering.

I wouldn't care about looking bad. I'd suggest its the people at the very top who look bad. It's their fault that they cant fulfil the terms of the contract they signed. You've made this your problem while working for less money than they probably pay their domestic help per year.

Good for you 😂

Don't get me started. I see some mothers at work working very hard and stressing themselves out, where I often think 'don't do that. you could easily slow down a bit' and then unfortunately other mothers or mothers to be are completely piss taking. Absent for large chunks of the day and lots of sick leave. Then the endless collections for the new baby, wedding and what not. I really resent it and now only contribute if I value the person as a coworker. Some of them walk into the office like celebrities and announce 'it's my first day in three weeks hahahahaha' whilst hugging people. it is utterly ridiculous and I don't think they have any awareness how laughable it is.

We have one person who's almost never attending the office despite a 3 day policy and the company is now looking to manage this person out. There are other performance issues with this person which have festered because they are not attending. I believe they have NO IDEA how others work and what is expected at a workplace. Just talking to them is of no help, they need to witness it and get accustomed to it.

Especially for younger people some office attendance is important. It has to do with learning some discipline which many are lacking. They need to realise that they need to be around during work hours and use work hours for work. WFH or very hybrid working works for well established staff. It does not work for young people who still need to learn how to operate in a workplace.

Expressing irony through the written word is a hard task and your lack of skill was evident. You did manage to convey patronising strongly though, so it wasn’t a complete failure.

"As a mother myself I am reluctant to employ mums as I cannot pay people who have to go to pick Johnny up when he had ad a fall or is miserable and needs a day off work
Or they are off due to anxiety"

Do you judge fathers as harshly??

It wasn't a big deal to YOU

Some places are really lapse, some aren’t! I had to take my 15 month old to A&E earlier in the year (as directed by the GP) and my manager came down really hard on me and told me I was an over dramatic first time mum. I work more than my hours, can always be contacted and pay for full time childcare. But any time I’ve asked to take annual leave to look after my sick child it’s a big drama.

Reasonable adjustments are fine. OP’s point is that it’s unfair on other colleagues who abide by the rules, do not have young kids and work the full 8 hours. It’s very frustrating.