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.

Massive improvement to how it was 30 years ago when most women were forced to become sahm and the dads never saw their kids.

Productivity in this country has been declining for decades, despite technology advances.

This is the reason that the economy is in tatters and that we are paying higher taxes than ever. Our workers are shit. Utterly shit. I actively seek out recent immigrants from Eastern Europe as they've still got a work ethic but there aren't many of them around thanks to Brexit so it's back to the workshy British....

Nobody is going to mind if they do it in an emergency -- as long as they institute planning to avoid such an emergency in future to the best of their ability.

It's when people start to take the piss that there's a problem.

Yes, which suggests they're not doing it for the money but because they prefer to work, otherwise they could stop now.

Yeah this. And why should someone have to conduct a sensitive OH meeting about their health with their employer while they're in McDonalds? Are they saying she should've been too sick to go to McDonald's?!

@Anotherdayattheforum I just don’t see it in any workplace I have been. People on long term sick are managed out & new starters who aren’t performing have their probation extended or again pushed out.

I'm afraid this is what companies consent to when hiring parents. If this doesn't sit well, then change the hiring protocol and remove parents of young children from the hiring pool. That'd break all kinds of employment laws, but you can't have it both ways.

Yes, people are just ridiculous nowadays. No resilience. Since we have all been encouraged to talk about our mental health some people are just taking the piss. I lost my darling dog earlier this year on top of a ton of other shit. I still managed to turn up for work.

Ahem. Youre not allowed to ask if someone is a parent at interview, so when exactly does the employer "consent"?

Again, it wasn’t like this before Covid though.

Perhaps we’re seeing the two extremes 🤷🏻‍♀️

What is? Not bowing and scraping to your employer, not running yourself ragged, and putting your family and health before 'the company?'

Good for them is what I say. I'm sure you used to work 75 hours a week, walk 20 miles to work, and didn't have a day off in 50 years though. 🙄

The problem here is HR and management not doing THEIR job. These people should be taken through a capability or if appropriate misconduct process sooner rather than later. A few dismissals would be 1) deserved by the employees concerned, who will have failed to do their jobs despite warnings, 2) an example for other employees.

My eyes just nearly rolled out of my head.

No wonder productivity is so shit.

I work for an US company incorporated in a State where they can fire at will. I much prefer this situation to the alternative.

It’s not because workers are shit, it’s due to a huge lack of investment by both the government & business in infrastructure, staff etc.

Low wages & high cost of living don’t help hence why so many Eastern Europeans left as they have a better quality of life back home.

Boeing and scraping to your employer?

The person/company who gives you money in exchange for you doing the work detailed in your job description you mean?

I think a lot of people do it because they think they should and they believe they need to. Not because they necessarily prefer that option.

I think it's the other way around; advancing technology has made people more productive, but now there is a problem with burnout and people being made to feel like they have to live to work and that they must live and breathe what they do for a living. Then, with high taxes and not allowing people to keep more of the money they earn, the entire concept of work is called into question and you get more and more people realising that it's a trap.

Brexit has nothing to do with it. People come and go as they please, no political referendum changes that.

Well productivity was crap pre covid, again not new. No idea why people think it is.

OK, so how would making childcare more affordable change that?

I work from home, aside from 2/3 days a month that I schedule myself.

I do both school runs.

I also have access to my work emails on my phone, can answer a call while I’m doing said school run, and can action things when I’m logged back in.

After 3:30pm (I finish at 4:30), I take my admin time for the day, and finalise the things I need to with my team, and do other things that I can do from my laptop, in the office while our son is watching something on his iPad. So whilst I don’t do meetings in that hour, I am working.

There is no after school club for our son. He’s complex needs, and what his school does offer he can’t access.

My team may have an issue with me doing school runs etc, but frankly they’re not answering emails from our CEO at 9pm, or working over a weekend when there’s an operational problem, or any of the other additional things that I do that mean I do get access to “management perks.”

Always an excuse… my child’s school didn’t either so I organised it so it did!

I'm afraid this is what companies consent to when hiring parents

Again this doesn’t make sense as loads of young people aren’t even having dc & the ones that do are older.