To think that SOME (not all) working Mums take the P@ss

[Islandlady]

Long story short, my mate works in an office with 2 WMs neither seem to work a full week or full hours but my mate fully understands the pressures and responsibilities of a WM so hasnt really complained even though she has been in the office until 8 sometimes to get the work done when she has been on her own due to both WMs being off especially during the school hols when there has been child care problems.

But now she is hopping mad, she booked a holiday to come and stay with me and DH on the island way back in February - she would have liked to have come during Cowes week but thats during August so decided to come for Bestival which starts end of this week, she has booked and paid for her Ferry tickets plus booked and paid for her animals to go into kennels, her holiday has been on the office planner and the office diary since Feb I have booked the same time off work and my DH has cleared his freelance work so we can all spend time together we will do Bestival and then she will stay at ours and we will go out for days (if it stops raining)

Last week one of the Mums blithly tells her that she is taking her DS to Disney World next week as its cheaper and if she doesnt go he wont have had a proper holiday and expected my Mate to fall in with her plans IE cancel her own Holiday.

The Boss is being a wimp, he says they cant both go together, first he says if they argue neither can take the time off, then after my Mate complained to the MD has agreed that she can go and the Mum cant.

Now my mate is a pariah in the office the Mum spent all Monday weeping in the toilet and took Tuesday off with 'stress' Mate has had to endure comments like 'I hope you are proud of yourself' from the other Mum in her office and another Mum called her (my Mate) selfish and nasty.

aibu to think thats its Working Mums like that who give other WMs a bad name and even stop some employers taking them on, or would the WMs here
think my Mate is the unreasonable one

sorry for long post

'could they say "well I have to take it at that time, there is no choice, so you will have to just work around it"? It is unlikely they would get away with that type of attitude

We have exactly that, DH and I spend all year preparing for the carnivals and then perform for a block of a few weeks in November

We have to make sure we book it early is all.

Once, someone else booked it earlier and we had to suck it up (actually meant DH did 4 days without sleep as he's the only sparky in the team ao without him nobody could perform)

Just how it is

OTOH if thee is no childcare- and for us that's a fact of having SN kids- then a no is a no. I'm lucky to hve DH around but there have been tiomes this has happened still- my sis still refers to me as the lazy cow who cancelled the only job interview she got in a decade; yes but becuase DH was in a crucial exam and elaving ASD kids alone is not encouraged.

Sometimes things are black and white, no childcare is no childcare. OTOH these years for the vast majority pass very quickly so a little bit of tolerance can earn you masive karma and a favour baklog in future eyars.

Quite often if youa re a younger colleague, about the time you need the favour for the same reason!

Could you answer Siamo's question Loudass? And also the point that you would have a year to arrange alternative Childcare?

NO need to see mother

OP, I have just read the thread. It stikes me that your mate's employer is a dysfunctional mess.

Btw the employee was presumably planning on taking her child out of school in term-time. I very much doubt she would have been granted authorised absence anyway.

Your mate really ought to learn to tell her colleagues to stop whining and get on with their work, or at least ask their supervisor to do it.

This is about dysfunction in the workplace, not working mothers.

Having been an office manager for a number of years there's no doubt about it - the mums are more frequently late and take more time off work than anyone else! And given half a chance they'll try to gazump all the good holiday dates - and it needs to be really carefully managed otherwise you'll end up with a "them vs us" culture within the office with everyone feeling hard done by.

E.g. our rule was always that you could either have before Xmas or before New Year off, but not both. And lateness was treated the same, no matter if the reason was being hungover or just didn't manage to get the kids out of bed on time. If overtime was needed then you had to make alternative arrangements - and if you didn't, then you'd be moved onto accounts where it wasn't necessary (and you'd have a very boring life and be passed over time and again for promotion since you didn't have relevant experience).

It may sound harsh, but if you aren't prepared to do the job as it is required, then you should find something which does fit in with your lifestyle. And I know plenty of mums who did manage to do a fantastic job, turn up on time, work overtime when needed and progress in their careers - so it's not impossible!

So if it happened where you worked it must happen everywhere
I find it darn insulting, I am never late, more often than not im half hour early and cant recall a time I left work when I finish getting paid. This goes for breaktimes etc. I wanted to book the half term in May off, but there was no more space left, so didn't. It is first come first serve and thats that, no problem with me. I did however take 3 weeks off in half term BECAUSE THERE WAS SPACE! It really annoys me when people imply the majority of working mums cant get up on time/sort the kids out etc, many of us actually plan ahead and avoid such things!
Grr!!

In various departments where I work mums get special treatment - starting 15 mins to half an hour after everyone else, for school runs etc - it amuses me that none of the dads I work with do this, or ask to.

I still do not see why colleagues have to pick up the slack for fathers who refuse to look after their own children or the failing of the CSA (do nto know why I said CPS). Every other christmas is their responsibility, and if they will not do it it is certainly not the colleagues responsibility. I really do not get this culture of if a man chooses not to look after his children then he gets awya with it.
And it is unfair, and not allowed in many places, to book up xmas, NY and easter right at the beginning of the yera. If anyone did that anywhere I have worked, they would be told that they are working them the next year as colleagues had to work this year.
But can I just say a lot fo this stems from men being allowed to behave as if children are not their problem. It is not like this in all countries, and if other countries manage this why not Britain.

One of the things I find surprising is the lack of friend and family support some people have. I don't have kids but the majority of my friends do. I'm freelance so am often asked to babysit / help out over holidays etc. Between me and I'd say my 3 closest friends, we are forever picking / feeding / dropping off kids that aren't ours. I've often had 5 kids belonging to 3 of my friends round mine! Or me round one of theirs. Is a sad fact that the economy would stagger to a halt if all the free Childcare was removed!

If your friends / family won't help out, cultivate some new ones!

'"Having children (SN or not) does not give you priority for time off."

'
kinda has to

autism clinic runs on a monday for 4 hours, you don;t go you don't get seen. Essential provision reviews take palce whether you are there or not, and if you;re not nobody else advocates for your child, the King Of Funding wins every time (and that always equates to a loss).

Now I can be at home doing all this as I have been for the past few years (and studying) - well no sorry I can't becuase if once the cuts come in I don;t work I won't have a home, we're going to lose a minimum of £50 - £100 a week in disability funding changes.

So for the most basic thing of a roof I will have to work. there ain;t no priority housing for people with a disability in teh family, it's the same 30000 people plus waiting list as everyone else gets. Even though we have three disabled children, we'll get a few points but the emergency will win out every time, even on the once a decade chance a house labelled suitable (by social services, not us) comes up.

But DH's field involes travel as a necessity- you can't install specialist electronics via the internet no matter how smart your phone- and we have nobody else. At all. Not in the country anyway.

Now it no doubt sounds like I am all take: it's not. I know I ight be a PITA for review season but i'm more than happy to balance that out in swapped shifts when DH is around, and I'd never take a job where you had to work Christmas (DHs busiest season) or summer hols (no childcare again). But if we have created a society that demands someone who wants a roof over their head must work regardless fo carer status (that is what we have become, or will in 2013) then somehow the reverse side has to be accepted too: that many who ahd to elave thw orkforce will be forced back into it without having been able to leave the situations they had. heck, I will still have care worries when I am 59, just adult ones not child ones. But there won't be tax credits (they end with childhood) to help with that even if someone would agree to do it so still won't be happening.

What is it you find hard to understand kelly2000?

Due to a myriad of societal crap, women who are left with the lion's share of childcare worries - due to either ineffectual partners, or absent/uninterested fathers - are fucked if they do, and fucked if they don't.

So if a man pisses off and pays 1.46 maintenance a week, leaving the woman to deal with that, that is the reality of it. And to say that others in society shouldn't "pick up the slack" is, quite frankly laughable.

The fact that the slack exists - due to the continued, consistent ignoring by governments of the effect of absent FATHERS (and I'm not talking about placing the blame for that on the mothers who have been left, because I think that's been covered ad nauseum) means that the women who have to work (or they're benefit scroungers and "get back to bloody work anyway, your child is 7 years old") STILL get shafted. Shafted by having to pay huge childcare costs and shafted by non parents whining because they want to book time off from work while their kids are on school holidays. HA!

Ifancy who do I ask to babysit whilst I cultivate nw ones?

Seriosuly it's different for us, not everyone can cope with a Sn child, but when IDS stands up and tells everyone to look further afield for work is it really a surprise that those who do have no local support network>

Me i'll look after anyone's child, but the downside of sn provision is you never meet the parents.

I don't think I should get every Christmas off - but I still have to HAVE every Christmas off, whether paid or unpaid. If shandy got a holiday rewuest in first, then I would be taking that time off as unpaid, unlike shandy who would be taking it as paid leave. I am no more 'entitled' to take those days off as paid leave than shandy is - but I still would be unable to work them.

I am going to have to leave the thread now - I need to go and pick my ds's up from primary - I won't be able to from next week, so am going to enjoy it while I can.

Actually we haven't created a society that demands anyone who wants a roof over their heads works. In fact we have a welfare system that provides housing for those that can't work, can't find work, and even those folks who just don't goshdarn feel like working. Look around you, thats pretty clear.

kellt I do agree with you wrt fathers.

If things go to paln Dh and i will work around each other, although of course it's hard to be picky enogh to set that up in the current market; the idea he could just walk away and elave me with the boys and all the bills and no support if he wanted and be allowed to do that is beyond odd.

Where I used to work everyone had flexible hours i.e you had to do a full days work,but the only hors you had to be there were between nine and three. Parents I knew shared the burden so one parents would take the children to school, and start work at nine, the other would start work at seven, but leave at three to pick them up. Everyone had the same hours, so if you had an elderly relative, were an early bird wanted to go to the gym etc you had flexibility. If for some reason children could not get childcare no-one had a problem with people bring children in for a day or two. So you would se plenty of men having meetings with a child sat next to the colouring in (or "taking notes"), or women with a child sat at their desk colouring in. We even had a little play area with toys and a computer. As long as the child was well behaved there was no problem. There was not this culture of the mother rushing around trying to do all the childcare etc whilst the father just got on with whatever he was doing. I know this does not work in all work environments, but surely more should be like this and surely fathers should take more responsibility.

Siano that's not clear when tehe are 30000 people locally looking for a house: if I need a social welfare house I have to go into a hostel, and if I go into a hostel the disabled boys are taken away from me because a hostel cannot cope with their needs and I cannot keep them safe in one.

And now I am crying at the thought so have to go, sorry, it's a huge fear of mine and not unlikely to happen. you were not to know that of coure.

Yes, OK siamo. I've been on benefits when I really needed to be, believe me, it's not some great big all day long party.

And it might serve you well to read some of the threads where lone parents can't even afford to scrape the money together to get to the job centre to sign on, you know, before you start rattling THAT particular cage again.

keepthechange,
I think it is fairly hard to understand a society where men can leave their families and get off scott free, and that they can place their responsibilities on co-workers of the other parent. I would not work every christmas because some man I have never met refuses to look after his own child at christmas. I shpuld nto have to pick up the slack for him.

And Loudlass, You do sound entitled. You have said you are a parent and are therefore going to take christmas off either paid or unpaid regardless of other co-workers.

Peachy makes a good point about children's hospital clinics. My DD's clinics are always during the working day, always running late, overcrowded and understaffed, and a 9am appointment invariably means being there all morning.

So, the child misses school and the parent (often working mum; possibly like me single working mum) has to take a whole half fucking day off work. I make up the time, because I'm flexible, but god knows what other women are meant to do. They can't not take their children to clinics, can they? And the clinics do seem to expect to see a parent, not a stand-in.

I find it ridiculous that access to all the important things in life ie - docs, dentist, bank etc etc is only available during 9-5 hours. Is it beyond them to run late a few times a week, or open on a sunday, or something to help us all out a bit?

Loudlass what I dont get is WHY you would choose to work in a job that requires people to work christmas/boxing day etc if you know you cannot do it?

Yes, Kelly, that is the society we live in. Look around! And someone missing out on a holiday - because they didn't book the time off before someone else did - doesn't mean that they are "picking up the slack" for the mother.

The fact that Loudlass laid down the conditions of work before she started (that she physically cannot work over the Xmas period) doesn't make her entitiled. It makes her a good negotiator as far as I can see.

I wonder why that burns?

What cage? I gave no opinion, just stated a fact. I know plenty about being a lone parent with no money, you don't need to teach me. But luckily for us all, those with no jobs almost all have a place to live, what with out civilised society with its safety net. You can't arge with that, its a fact, not an opinion.