or is my work? really need some sensible advice here

[commutingnightmares]

Have name changed for this as its sensitive.

Feel free to tell me if I'm being entitled but its really starting to stress me out and make me depressed and I need some advice about whether I have any rights or whether I just need a good talking to.

I'm a few months into a new job. Generally OK, colleagues are nice, work is interesting though the pay is worse than I was on before (long story). By and large everything is OK apart from one thing.

As part of my work I'm required to do a job from home very early in the morning (from just after 5am) which takes anything from an hour 15 mins to nearly 2 hours. I took this on readily and the quid pro quo is that I get to start an hour later than my colleagues, which suits me as it helps with my childcare drop off.

After I finish this shift I then have to get my daughter up, get her ready, get myself ready and get a bus and a train to drop her off at childcare before getting to my desk. I made clear before starting that the drop-off was non-negotiable -- my DH can't do the morning drop-off. This was accepted when I took the job.

Due to transport problems I sometimes get in a few minutes after my official start time. This varies but it works out on average that I'm about 5 minutes late most days, sometimes on time, sometimes more, but never very late.

My boss is now saying that I need to get in earlier and that I have to be in by the start time or else, ideally even earlier. I've pointed out to him that due to the fact that the lateness is always accounted for by transport problems, I can't do anything about this (my train network is really rubbish and services rarely run to time). I can't get an earlier train and still get the job done in good time and then attend to all the things I need to do to get my daughter ready, its simply not possible (I've tried).

The morning job is really really stressful for me, my daughter always wakes up in the middle of it and usually gets distressed and upset that I'm working.

I've offered to drop the morning job in order to get in earlier. Boss still isn't happy. Basically the key bone of contention seems to be that I have to be in exactly at the start time on the dot or else. If I'm even a couple of minutes late this seems to be a major problem for them, even though there are other people around and its not clear to me that it makes a massive difference, its usually pretty quiet at that time of day.

I could potentially move my daughter to another childcare provider closer to my home but this would only make a marginal difference to the commute and would be quite a wrench for her as she is settled where she is so I don't want to do this unless I really have to.

To my knowledge there aren't any other issues with my work, or at least none that I've been made aware of.

This is massively impacting my quality of life upsetting my DH and my daughter and constantly in trouble at work, I feel I can't win. I'm busting a gut every morning to get everything done on time and still seem incapable of pleasing anyone. A couple of friends one of whom is a lawyer -- have said they think the boss may be on shaky ground in terms of equal ops and should watch it. I don't want to get into anything ugly, but I can't help feeling that I'm being put under pressure that's verging on being unreasonable.

Can anyone give any advice?

If the woman who used to do the job was starting at 7.30 when the usual start time is 9, this would suggest that it was taking her on average an hour and a half. Have you talked to her about how long it generally took her.

You have two issues. Your boss clearly thinks that you are taking too long to do a particular job and he is also concerned about your time keeping. However much I agree that meeting KPI's/targets etc are more important (and less jobsworthy) than working to rule, I would be be unhappy if I had these dual concerns about a member of my team. You need to fix it.

Taking lunch is unpaid time,you're not expected to work through it
If you're not accommodating that break in your day,yes that's poor time management
You say you never take lunch,not this job,not any other job, why Is this habitual?

As far as sensible advice goes I agree that you should speak to the person who used to do it. Remember to take into account if anything has changed about the task since she used to do it. If it took her longer than 45 minutes then you have your evidence to take to the boss that his expectations are unrealistic.

What? I don't "take lunch" because I am too busy to sit down for an hour and I prefer to be on top of my job, available etc. Clocking in and out with "breaks" is often for fairly rigid jobs with shift patterns, certainly not mine (teacher) and clearly not for the OP either. Remember those ambulance men who were "on a tea break" as someone died (Scotland) and think about what you have just said.

Employers habitually overload their staff with work. working unpaid overtime and through lunch is hardly an unheard of phenomenon. Also getting rid of staff in the name of efficiencies, even though there is just as much work to be done, means the staff left are doing more than one job. No amount of time management can cancel out too much work.

I don't take lunch - I eat a sandwich at my desk - so I can leave half an hour earlier

Utter rot.if you cannot accomodate taking lunch you're not managing time
It's not about clocking out.its about taking break when safe,appropriate to do so
Why can't a teacher take a break?entire school has a designated lunch break?

You said you told your boss you had to drop your daughter at school before work. Did you also say you would often be late? Arriving at work even dead on time means people tend to start work late with tea making, morning chat etc. I don't think your boss is being unreasonable.

A teacher CAN take a break, but I don't because it enables me to do my job better and be more available to pupils. I take rehearsals, offer extra help, open the library for pupils to study or socialise, get things sorted, do marking etc. I take it from your name you are in Scotland Scottishmummy. Well, I could be teaching your children and I will, in order to fit in with your idea. (Factory floor union?) way of working. I will refuse extra help with essays, computer access, more time to learn lines, exam revision. These things happen at lunchtime (and after school, and in the half a hour before school officially starts), oh, and at weekends.

The staff who follow your unionised ideas of taking a break when "entitled" are the ones being complained about at parents' evening, the ones with poor exam results and no rapport with pupils.

As you were. Sorry OP. But when you care about doing a good job, you do more, not less, and clocking in and out is for people who do NOT care, or are doing a job, rather than having a career or a vocation.

Jane if you have arrangement that you don't take unpaid break,that's you and your work overlooking legal requirement for break
But legally you must have a designated break from work.your employer should insist upon it
Re:essential services if a call comes in,you don't ignore as on lunch.you respond

hamlet,a professional competent worker is flexible and can meet demands
Do you have factory experience?you seem to use it as examples.
I'm in a professional job I have no factory experience to infer from

If you are starting work at 5 a.m. in the morning, then managing this horrible commute (did you say you leave the house at 7.20 and don't get into work until 10 a.m.?), then working a full day and going home to pick up your daughter then you do need a lunch break. All the people who are getting sneery about how they are too busy and important to take a lunch break seem to be missing the fact that you cannot work effectively for that many hours without taking some kind of break. Ultimately your work (and possibly your eyesight/health) suffer from not taking necessary breaks.

If you don't ever take a lunch break then either you are too dedicated and need forcing to take one or poor time management. Eating at your desk or taking half a lunch break are better than skipping a meal.

You are legally allowed. Its sometimes counterproductive to miss a meal. More tired, irritable, and productivity goes down.

I think the crux of the matter is that the previous member of the team who did this job came in at 7.30 and still stayed till 5. So it seems that the job that OP does (unlike all her colleagues) is not a standard 9-5 - there is the expectation of this extra work being done as part of the role.
OP is now not getting in till after 10 (so 2.5 hours after previous person) and this is no way balanced out by the fact that she is doing some work at home.

I'd suggest speaking to the other person - sounds like they have found a more effiecient way to complete the task, or maybe they are simply doing it "less well" than the OP - i.e. the OP is putting more into than she needs to.

I had a member of staff who insisted that she never took a lunchbreak, but what she meant was that she didn't record a lunchbreak. That didn't stop her nipping out to the shop and buying a sandwich every day, or eating it at her desk on our time, and then skipping off early at the end of the day because, you know, she hadn't taken lunchbreak.

Funnily enough, it was the same member of staff who I had to discipline for persistent lateness! I am not usually uptight about this kind of thing at all, but sadly, some people just take the piss!

We now insist that all staff record a minimum 20 minute lunchbreak, and encourage them to take it. If they want to take more, that's up to them!

Unpaid break isn't a negotiable,it's a legal obligation.employer requires you take break
If someone habitually doesn't take break,then yes that's poor time management
An employer cannot compel you work without break,nor should they

Acas a 20-minute rest break if the working day is longer than six hours

acas guidance

scottishmummy I think you're looking at it from the perspective of paid-by-the-hour type jobs. I haven't done a job like that for years, I've spend most of my career in salaried work where you're paid by the year, have a notional amount of hours per week but in reality it doesn't bear much resemblance to the actual hours you do.

In most of those jobs I've had to be out of the office for long periods of time anyway (often taking people out to lunch) so the idea of a lunch break is a bit arbitrary anyway. When you are in the office of course you can wander away to buy a sandwich and take a bit of time and then maybe read the papers when you get back but no-one ever says "lunch break over" and goes back to work. More often than not you are eating a sandwich while you work anyway. You may call it poor time management but it doesn't sound like you really have any idea of what these sorts of jobs are like.

I was a journalist for years and would quite often pull 14-15 hour shifts. No-one in their right mind would stop working close to deadline in a busy newsroom on press day and say "must take my lunchbreak". You get on with the job until its finished and if you don't you get a bollocking or are fired. Try telling the average news editor you're on your lunchbreak. Just doesn't work like that.

So while I do understand how you're coming at it, I think you don't really understand the culture of the sorts of jobs I'm doing so I think you've missed the point a bit.

No,I'm looking at the legal requirement you take break.I'm not employed by hour?you're v rigid in your thinking if you cannot see the pertinent issues here inc your time management

As I see it,issues are
Task takes you up to 2hr.managemnr think it's a 45 min task. You both need to meet and discuss task and what's realistic completion

Poor time management you don't take break.meet your manager,is this over capacity or are you not managing time

You or you employer can't opt of of unpaid break,it's legal requirement

Scottishmummy you are correct that employees must be given a 20 minute break after 6 hours.

Re poor time management if they don't take it, I regularly will have no break , regularly will be working through from 10 am to 8 or 9 pm and sometimes later with no break. It has nothing to do with poor time management. I don't have time to take a break unless I want to leave even later than I already do.

scottishmummy its over-capacity. It is always over-capacity. I've always worked really really hard and I don't mind that. I've never had a clock-watching "must-do-my-hours" mentality. For most of my previous employers I could have been on the moon and they wouldn't have cared if I'd got the job done.

But now I am in a job where I am getting the job done and to the best of my knowledge its being done to a standard that meets their needs. I am also working longer hours than I am contracted to do which, again, I don't really give a toss about but I am falling down in that I am being marginally late in the morning into an office where its not critical that I be there on the dot, mainly because a job I am doing for them is making me late. And that's the main thing that appears to concern them.

I just think they have it arse about face, personally, and their values are a bit warped. But I also appreciate that everyone needs to be seen to stick to the rules or it creates resentment. So I will try to stick to them.

The problem is this is the one part of my life where there isn't any slack. So I think I am going to propose a later start and finish time and see if boss will wear that. If not, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Can you honestly not see that as poor time management Caitlin?if the tasks are too onerous it's institutionally poor time management
And for as long as you work those long hours with no break,nowt will change
It's wholly unacceptable any employee work your hours with no break

So you need to present that back in a formal meeting,And you start taking your breaks
If the morning task is too onerous you discuss that too.
Why is There a discrepancy in management think task can be done in 45min and it takes you 2hr to complete

You've been there few months and it's turbulent,you need to address
The over onerous workload
The morning task
Your habitually lateness

I agree with OP. I'm paid a salary, admittedly a very good one. In theory I have hours of employment. The reality is I will be exceeding those hours by around 10-20 hours per week. I'd be very annoyed indeed if anyone had ever called me out on being a bit late in the morning or once in a blue moon having a longer lunch break.

Scottish mummy you really don't understand the reality. Do you work in the public sector?

Scottishmummy but all stressful jobs involve some poor time management. This is what you don't seem to realise. Maybe you work in an office where everything runs to a timetable but in most high pressure jobs it doesn't. If you're working for an investment bank on a big M&A deal or writing a story for deadline you don't get to suddenly stop and go home or take a break because you've hit your hours....

People work through lunch, they come in early, stay late etc etc. You do what you have to do to get the job done. I've worked thousand of hours of unpaid overtime in my life and would happily do this again. All stressful jobs have their moments like this.

This is partly why people in these jobs tend to take home higher salaries than, say, people working in care homes or factories.

But it seems to me that if you're doing a job like this the quid pro quo should be not to enforce a factory-like clocking in and clocking out approach when people are gladly working more hours than they technically should be anyway. But again, I've come from a very different type of work culture from a lot of the posters on here, many of whom seem to feel that being in on time and taking your breaks at the prescribed moments are the key requirement for holding down a job.