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.

This is true… but, talking to colleagues at the office can be beneficial. Sharing information, helping with a task, letting them know things, sharing news and events, even leading to potential collaborations . A bit of chat about the weekend,sure.

Is it really the same as going for a 4 hour cycle ride when working from home?

(This is an extreme example but DPs business partner does this!)

@BackToLurk I don’t disagree by the way and we work for ourselves for this reason - however if that’s the case, don’t expect to be salaried and paid full time salaries for 4 hours a day and find something more flexible - unless your job is fully about being paid on results and doesn’t care if you do 4 hours a day so long as the work is done -

The OP's point has been made! You answered a question no one asked.

No one needs mental flexibilty to understand that in certain industries a meeting to see if they can meet an emergency order (say) and ascertain whether they have work force available to do that, is ok. I am not a fan of internal meetings at all, but sometimes a fast "oh shit, they need this, we need the order, can we do this" is needed. And that is a management issue, not a "team" issue.

Sad that you do not have mental flexibilty to understand that.

On the plus side, so many staff being out of the door by 3pm means this is good news for people —oddballs— like me who like doing a later day.
(We exist!)
I have recently got a new job and when I negotiated hours I asked to work 9:45pm to 5:45pm.
They nearly bit my finger off as every other person likes to have left for the day by 3:30pm.

When a manager behaves in this way and doesn’t lead from the front and display managerial behaviours…his direct reports will inevitably think why should we. Where the hell is his line manager who allows this to happen?
I have no idea which industry you work in but this would have never been tolerated in corporate banking.

Exactly this!

I am ancient and believe me I would not like to be working now. Wfh is a joke, all because people don't want to travel. The employers need to be harder lots of people looking for work so the workshy will have to watch it. No work isn't the b all and end all but it pays your wages so you can eat. Unless your on benefits. Bad all round you have my sympathies

You couldn't make it up the replies to a very sensible question. Did you tell the boss at the interview your not working your tail end off for him, talk about being a fly on the wall. Entitled

Hi @Rothschild ,

I would be interested to understand your experience as a working parent so I can understand your frustrations.

How old are your children now? Are neurodiversities in the family? Pay range at the time you were paying for wraparound care, cost of wraparound care, what family support you had? Partner's availability to help? Were you office or home based? Do you have a cleaner?

Also are the people that you are frustrated with working later in the evening? Are the messages that you are sending needing an immediate reply? I have lots of friends with succesful carreers who are unavailable from 3-8 but are working 8-10 to make up for it (especially helpful for US or Indian based offices).

I think flexibility in the workplace is an essential to accommodate working parents as the thought of it could deter many, resulting in them not going back to work at all which has a bigger economic impact on, well those of us who work 🤷🏻‍♀️
I work flexible hours, I don’t work between 3-4 (unless there’s a specific business need), but I also don’t have a time where I “finish” which means I am much more productive for my employer with much better outputs.

You rest your case or the majority just disagree with you?
I care more about my family. I put them above my job. If you don’t, that’s on you. But most others, given the chance (and it seems that your employer is happy to facilitate mental health days and people collecting their kids from school- great!) will absolutely take what’s on offer when it comes to prioritising their children.

I care more about my family too, hence needing to earn money to house and clothe them, hence not taking the piss at work so I can continue to do so.

It still doesn’t mean you should expect to be pussy footed around when someone is telling you that you fucked something up at work. I also believe it’s in dispute as to whether it is an actual disorder or not, albeit it’s currently very in vogue.

But then that’s on the company having that kind of sickness policy for unproven people just in the door. Why on earth would you give 6 months paid leave to someone who hasn’t even passed probation? Also why aren’t you managing her properly now? Get OH and get her out. If she’s only gone sick in response to the probation review, it’s not likely that in itself is a disability

This is one of the things that has suffered most from working from home. I’ve had some very valuable “water cooler” conversations. It’s also very difficult to mentor younger employees remotely.

It is different. The conversations and "time wasting" was being done creating relationships which forged bonds which increased loyalty, team work and reduced staff turnover. Excessive leadswinging could be physically seen and stopped, problems between staff could be spotted and headed off.

There are (at least) two huge things missing in WFH. The first is the guidance that new,, particularly young, staff get from working in an office. The second, and ime there is evidence of this all over the place now, is that in an office environment people see or hear others beginning to make a mistake and can correct them before that mistake becomes a problem. That fortuitous overhearing doesn't happen with WFH. I think that's why the financial institutions were the first to demand people go back to their desks.

Well I know several people who get very anxious and think that people are ignoring them, what else would you call it?

Normal for a large proportion of the population, including me. Just part of life you have to learn how to live with.

Your missing my point Garlic
Not all jobs can work like that

This isn’t a case on say an emergency worker. They work on an individual situation one at a time and deal with each situation in a day or two
In the building industry we have specialists coordinating across several disciplines for 5 years at a time on one project
We can’t have two or three project architects jumping in and out. It’s one project architect who will know the ins and outs of everything then under them specialists in individual areas
Say a roofing or cladding expert. They will design and coordinate with others. If someone stops at 3 and another starts on a pp design the process would be impossible to coordinate with neither knowing why something has been designed in a certain way
One person may check mech drgs and coordinate into the structural drawings dictating the design. The second picking up where the other left off would have to also check the mech and structural drawings aswell

We would have to pay two people to do the same job twice

Think Grenfell tower. Too many people in and out of the job and no one coordinating across the board. In Grenfell One person chooses a cladding system for a reason. Another two do the drawings but at different times in the project. Another goes to a meeting and is told to value engineer ( posh term for cut costs). Another picks that up and turns the cladding the wrong way round to save on number of panels because he wasn't around when all the others chose it and didn’t know by turning the cladding around it wouldn’t have the correct fire integrity. It’s ok though because someone else before him checked the system and it conformed. So he changes it, the design no longer works = Fire.

You see we don’t all work in jobs that have quick turnovers and we don’t have multiple people specialising in every aspect of a job. Even in very large offices only a couple of people will specialise in one area and they need to be there to ensure, in our case, buildings don’t fall down.
We need long term coordination and bums on seats during the working day.

It's a work ethic thing really. In my work its really flexible. We have to be in office x days a week, but people come in and leave at various times in the office day rather. In contrast, people work much longer than they should when at home. Some people use their lunchhour to pick up kids. But everyone gets their work done above and beyond what you'd expect. There's an expectation now that work and commutes shouldn't ruin your life and I think that's good thing! I remember seeing grey skinned, exhaustes men standing at the train station at 6am for the London commute, knowing they wouldn't get home till 7pm, and that's no way to live.

Which translates as "mask", which is very bad for mental health. God forbid anyone take anyone else's needs into account.

I agree about flexibility. Where I agree with the OP is those people who use it as a skive. Not about whether they do the job at a given time, but if it is done at all. Though in the days when wfh was a rarity, there were skivers whose inaction was not tackled.

The coddled generations are now coming of age, so it's only going to get worse.

Almost everyone masks to some extent or another, especially at work.

I'm ND and so is my husband, but I'm getting pretty sick of ND people with minor problems thinking all NT people are having a great time!

Almost everyone masks to some extent or another, especially at work.

Everyone has different personas, depend on the situation, don't they? Your language, dress and behaviour in a customer facing role would be different from what it would be on a night out with friends. And might be different again with family.