I'm annoyed with work about this. AIBU?

[YoSaffBridge]

I work in an office, standard 9-5 hours, no overtime expected or paid for really. The past few months have been very busy because we've been at least one, if not two, people short-staffed, which is half the team that does my job. So it's been a busy and stressful summer, though of course the positive is I don't have to do anything at home (certainly don't get paid enough to work extra hours )

Anyway, today I had to take an unexpected day off as the toddler was excluded from nursery for a tummy bug. We have a big rush job on to be done by the end of the week so this seemed like a minor disaster. I said I would do a specific job from home in the morning that takes about an hour, as it's easy to do and would help out a lot. Then my line manager has to take the day off with an ill child too, which makes it a total disaster. So I've done a good 4 hours work at home today on this project (bit of juggling with the hour DH had before leaving work, toddler's nap, during dinner etc), which work are well aware of as it meant communicating constantly by email.

A little while ago I emailed my line manager to explain what I'd managed to do and asked, very politely and nicely I thought, what would happen about this day's leave. I had said yesterday I would take annual leave for today, but now I've done half a days work, so wondered whether it would then be half a day's leave. She said well, no, because you've not been in the office, so it's a whole day's leave.

I'm a bit annoyed with this as I could in theory not even logged on to my email today and known my line manager was off, so could have had a whole day. But I've helped out for several hours. As I said, this is a job where some staff members in our dept do work from home one day a week (so working from home is acceptable) but also where something like today's sort-of disaster is rare and we're not expected to put in more than our contracted hours during the week.

AIBU to think that they could at least consider changing it half a day's leave? Or is this just a suck-it-up-and-not-go-the-extra-mile-again situation? I'm so surprised they said this as they consider themselves a good and family friendly firm.

Hmm. Line manager has asked to have a quick chat about this leave. Am confused. If it was ok to take half a day, then why need a chat about it?

Now I don't know what to say in the meeting! She's very nice and up until now work have been very flexible, so it's a bit of surprise they seem to have a problem with this

I'd be really annoyed.

YANBU.

Perhaps they are just worried about setting a precedent for people working from home or 'working from home' when their kids are ill or for other reasons. She may just want to reiterate that as a one-off at a time when it was really needed, they are happy for you to have the half day back, but it's not going to be a regular occurrence. Don't worry - you haven't done anything wrong and they should have been more appreciative of your help.

Thanks DoJo, I hope so. It's frustrating as there is another member of the team who worked from home only the other week when she had a family life problem, so in some ways the precedent has already been set. And no one else but me and my line manager have children!

I think I'll be polite but just point out that I am disappointed that I tried to help (as I said, I'm not senior enough or get paid enough to normally do 'extra' work, which is what this would be if they don't give me time back) and it wasn't appreciated. Doesn't really encourage me to help again.

I think it would be reasonable to point out that you feel that way and that their response will inevitably affect how you respond to a similar situation in future. Good luck - remember, you did them a favour and you are asking them to recognise this, not asking them favour in return. If they have any sense they will realise that ensuring you feel your contribution is valued will be much better for them in the long-term.

Good luck you are def not being unreasonable!

I wonder if there has been history of people wanting to "work from home" while looking after sick DC to save the leave. Your circumstances are different - you were doing them a favour because the work needed to be done. They might want to avoid a situation where people are regularly WFH while looking after small children - it's not generally the done thing IMO because it's very hard to get a proper full day's work done.

See what she says, but depending on that I might go in with the angle that you would not normally expect to WFH while looking after a child, but in this particular case you knew work were in a hole and child was quiet, so you pushed yourself to work for the good of the company. Should you have refused to help with the work crisis despite being willing and able? But being expected to take a full day's leave when you've been working for a large chunk of the day is not on. Make it clear that you only did it out of professional conscientiousness, not just to get the hours in to save leave.

Your employers clearly don't value their staff!

Working for me, the day day would have been changed to a working at home day...not that it would have made much difference as the original day would have been paid emergency leave.

Well that was a bit weird.

So I went for a chat with my line manager who said she had spoken to our overall manager who had agreed that I should only take a half day's holiday. Which is great - it really surprised me that they might say no when they have been such a good employer up until now. They wanted to tell me in private because, as erin (you're good at this!) said, they didn't want other people to know as they'd had issues before and anyway, it normally isn't easy to do much work with your DC around.

So our overall manager has said she is grateful I did work from home to help and that she's happy for me to only take a half day. But then my line manager was funny about it and said that she'd never asked for a day back when she'd done extra work at home, and I got the impression she was expecting me to work for 'free' like she did and that I shouldn't have asked.

I resisted the urge to point out that it was her loss if she didn't explain she'd done work at home and ask for time back. But also she is at managerial level, which is a bit different from me. I'm just paid to do a 35 hour week, not anything else.

Anyway, thanks for the reassurances - turned out they weren't needed but I was at least ready to argue my case had I needed to!

Great, thanks for the update and I'm pleased that sanity has prevailed.

Ignore LM. There are always some like that. Perfectly reasonable for you to ask.

Totally agree with erin - YANBU at all! I do a job which often involves checking emails during non-working time and not infrequently more substantive work too. I'm fortunate that my workplace treat us like grown-ups and I can use my judgment as to whether it's appropriate to claim all or part of a day's leave back. I would absolutely expect a more junior member of staff who had done 4 hours work remotely to not have to take that time as holiday!

I wonder whether you line manager is resentful of the build-up of stuff she does at home (half an hour here, half an hour there) which I can see one wouldn't claim back? Even so, SIBU as (a) that's completely different to what you did the other day and (b) if you are more senior that's kind of par for the course usually and (c) if she has a problem with it she needs to raise that with her own manager and stop projecting!

I think that's it too, malcolm. She seemed a bit put out and resentful. But she's agreed to become a manager - I haven't, I like having a job I can walk away from at the end of the day, it suits me as DD is still very little. But that's her problem, not mine!

Glad it all worked out and I can understand why they don't want others to feel as though giving you your leave back is a green light to 'work from home' when they are actually caring for their children, but I agree with others that your line manager needs to sort out her own issues if she doesn't want to work from home, not take it out on you!