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.

It's no good posting on MN. The answer lies with you. Either take it up with management or you just accept what's happening. Nothing anyone here can do about it.

I agree - and also feel employers would be wise to institute planned, shorter hours. One way of doing it (there are many) would be to have a five or six hour working day, starting at different times, each time slot filled by someone whose home life fits the hours.

There would be about four hours when the entire workforce was on 'shift' so that's a good time to have your big meetings, deal with multifactorial processes, etc. If someone finds they can no longer fit the shift they signed up for, they need to apply for a different one.

Yep I was in a job I liked a lot ( internal recruitment /HR role) when I had my son 27 years ago ( big corporate) and they relocated to somewhere that would have made it quite impossible for me to get to by 9.15am with a baby ( no long maternity leaves then - 13weeks) so I just didn’t go back and found something else more suitable location wise - this was a London job and I lived in north London and they had relocated to Woking. No home working then at all - I’m not actually sure if there had been whether I would have kept the job because one aspect I really liked was the face to face teamwork and conviviality .

I'm never attending a meeting after 3pm. That's what the mornings for.

Love it on MN when this always comes up, expecting people to befriend random people in the hope one day they’ll agree to do your childcare for you 😂

Ive worked from home since covid but I am quite literally under a microscope. My productivity is constantly monitored and any point of the day where my output has dropped (usually because I’m on the phone sorting out an issue) I have to report to my line manager. I find working from home a lot more full on but it cuts a 3 hour round commute from my day so I do it.

I do have friends that go to appointments etc but they work for companies that don't care as long as the job is done. My friend can log off at 3, do the school run, make dinner and put the kids to bed but she logs back on at 7.30 and works until everything is finished and her husband employee is happy with that arrangement.

Thinks he’s a doctor thanks to Chat GPT 🙄

Ah, yes. Perfectly reasonable. Why not get rid of an experienced, long-standing employee because they now can't magic up childcare on Christmas day. Hire someone new, with all that expense that entails, and repeat when they have children or an adverse life event. You're a guru.

What a truly odd thing to say.

Not “befriend.” Seek out people willing to do paid occasional childcare.

I did that when I adopted a dog; made sure I had several options. Surely it’s basic parenting to do the same when one chooses to have children.

Why not get rid of an experienced, long-standing employee because they now can't magic up childcare on Christmas day.

So who do you suggest does the job on Christmas Day when the person who is employed and whose job it actually is can't do it?

Yes because we all need another meeting to talk about the work we should be doing but can’t because we’re in another meeting. If the work is getting done, albeit flexibly, why are you complaining when you are also getting your work done, just in 9-5 hours? A happy workforce is a productive workforce. If you aren’t feeling happy that’s a conversation you need to have with your manager, but don’t blame your peers.

You can’t tell people to mind their own business on a public forum.

I don’t fancy working from home actually, it’s not my scene . The odd day would be nice but I would find it isolating.

Loads of people who work from home work really hard , fair enough. The problem is people taking the piss and we all know someone who does it.

I actually get looked at quite strangely when friends I haven’t seen for a while ask me ‘when are your work from home days, we could have a really long lunch?’

Erm I don’t have any mate 🤣
It’s quite hard to comprehend for many.. but was working from home always meant to become the norm, long term? I’m not sure working from home is a good thing for mental health in the long run either.

That doesn’t work at all with time sensitive jobs

In my Industry We have site visits in the mornings and client/ consultant meetings start at or after lunch.
One would go on till 6ish

We can’t change this as all the consultants from other practices also have site visits and site meetings in the morning.

No one rule fits everyone

I don’t think that many people are doing this - certainly not in any org I’ve worked. I sort after school care for my own.

However I interviewed a chap recently who asked how flexible we were so he could pick his kids up everyday. Every now and then? Sure! Everyday?!

People keep going on about meetings, but nine times out of ten, they are not needed! Obviously this isnt client meetings or project management planning etc.

My ex's biggest bug bear was the old classic of "internal meeting that could have been an email". He was/is absolutely convinced that they are often used a time waster and a way for a manager to justify their job/salary when in reality their job could be done in half the time or isnt in fact needed at all.

No I know there's no one rule, I can only speak for myself which it what I was doing

Ain’t that the truth!

We do hybrid home/office since covid. Was always full time in the office pre-covid. I can assure you that plenty of people took the piss then too. Long coffee breaks, long conversations at desks etc. It's no different.

I rest my case!

What nonsense! People have always realised that work is not the be all and end all. Most of my employers have actually worked a lot harder than I have, and also had far more responsibility. However, 'people yesterday' were more inclined to feel that the fact they were getting paid meant they should actually do the work they were being paid to do, and understood that they weren't 'special' and so could only do the work they wanted to do, or take 'mental health' days off because - shock, horror - they might be asked to do something they didn't want to do. I know very few employees who even came close to 'working themselves into an early grave'.

Blimey. If this indicates your level of mental flexibility, it's not hard to see why you find problems so easily. If you need 24/7 cover for, say, emergency services, you arrange your workers' shifts accordingly - which is why the emergency services already work in shifts.

I'm saying it's up to an employer to develop a system whereby the business needs are covered, accounting for employees' varying needs. A reduced-hours shift system along the lines I proposed would work for most. They establish the hours that need bums on seats, look at the day segments some workers find hard to fulfil, and create a moveable system that meets the needs.

You'd get less pay for working 6 hours a day than 8, but you'd benefit from having a job that frees you up at the times you have other stuff to take care of. And you could more easily be sacked for not doing your contracted hours.

We've had requests from staff to pay for their pet care if we want them to attend an in person meeting. Their place of work is the office - being able to work mostly from home is optional and a perk. But they don't want to come into the office ever. Yet will complain about feeling disconnected and how it isn't "like it used to be" when all the staff knew each other well. The only thing stopping that is their own choices!

The 'water cooler' element of work has always been recognised as important for communication, staff relationships, team building, loyalty and even career development. I don't really know how this goes with majority WFH - do personal conversations happen, how is mentoring & skill-sharing managed, and so on?