to think that so many public organisations forget people work?

[cricketballs]

Just to set the scene as to our lives; both DH and I work FT. I teach, DH skilled worker (often has to work away) and we have DS2, 15, who has MLD & ASD.

so, in the space of 5 working days we have had 3 day notice of an interview af SEN college that parents have to attend (which I did, but was left outside as they wanted to talk to DS2 on his own!
A shitty toned letter from Chamhs about the fact we have not taken up a parent course that takes place 1 day a week over 6 weeks (middle of the day) and then finally came home to a letter from DWP that as I completed a form sent to us stating that as DS2 is not capable, when he is 16 I will continue to act on his behalf they need to do a home visit in 3 days time - this home visit will take place between 9am - 5pm! For some reason they couldn't work out that he will be at school therefore he nor I will be waiting in all day. Had to leave a message on their voice mail to say I would not be keeping him off school and they need to arrange for school holidays.

We work, DS2 goes to school - why is that so difficult to comprehend? rant over

If people want non standard hours in public bodies then the crux of the matter is that it often costs more which means higher taxes and council tax.
Otoh getting 2 or 3 days notice or huge windows in which a visit may take place is annoying. Very few working parents have enough flexibility to cope with it.

Yanbu - ds could have gone on a 6 week speech therapy course all midweek in the middle of the day and 20 miles away - I did ask whether they would do a Saturday course but apparently the midweek ones are poorly attended so they wouldn't consider it - employers don't take kindly to their staff leaving work for 3 hours ( would have been an hour to pick ds up, take him to the class, hour long class and hour to get ds back and me back to work.

nd many many other jobs require their employees to work shift patterns and Saturdays - the government want us all to be in work - both parents - there is no reason that the people in these services can't have shifts that accommodate the working population - a majority of which are not teachers and have limited holiday and limited flexibility with employers especially when you consider the other times flexibility is required such as dc sickness which can"t be planned etc

and a Saturday morning shift or a 10 - 6 shift would not attract unsociable hours payments.

My doctors don't get this either phone at 12:30 to get an appointment, hello I'm working then and can't always use my phone with out permission.

I had this with the DWP when ds turned 16.

After many phone calls, I managed to arrange a meeting with a woman who asked loads of questions. I had had to explain to them about 5 times that ds would not be attending as he was in a residential school 15 miles away and they were welcome to arrange to meet him there.

And don't get me started about ds's ESA claim that took 4 months to sort out due to job centre plus being utterly incompetent.

maddening that's true to a certain extent but if you stretch the cover using existing resources then your cover becomes more vulnerable. So if I do the late turn of say 11-7 and my colleague does the early turn of 7-3pm we can cover each other's lunch and handover. If either person is ill then ordinary business hours aren't covered whereas two 9-5 have more resilience. Take on a third person and your costs increase. For something like a council there isn't an increase in income by longer hours so taxes go up.

There are two sides to this. I do see where you're coming from, OP, but at the same time it just would not be feasible to have appointments available all day every day.

At work, we have an appointments system that runs Mon-Fri, 8-6. We routinely have people kicking off that it's not good enough. But then, for our organisation, it just would not be practical or cost effective to open weekends or evenings (and I wouldn't want to be the one working those hours to cover it).

Thinking of parents' evenings, the school I teach at runs them from 2.00. to 7.00., which seems to work fine.

Shift work is not feasible for a lot of these organisations either, as they are team based they need to have case conferences, training, lunch time meetings etc. If say a third of the staff are on the evening they are not at the meeting or the supervision or they're absent because they were working last night. It dilutes the service provided and means that the few left on day time work are run ragged because the majority of calls are during the day.

Offering alternatives are often more expensive because they have to pay unsociable hours, pay the caretakers to lock up, cleaners to come at different times, even security might be needed!!

It would be easier but unless it's funded properly it's just not possible. And believe it or not people prefer working in teams with support rather than on their own!!

When do you think these appointments are going to happen if not during working hours? All these other people should just start working from 5-midnight to fit in with your busy schedule?

ummm, how about the evening? Yes, tube workers and bus drivers work in the evenings because that's when the services are needed, as do shopkeepers.

As a public sector manager I often work in the evenings to meet with working people who are doing me a favour talking to me about how to improve services. I then work a shifted day starting later to accommodate the later finish. Harder with a toddler but could schedule 6.30pm appointments and DH could do bedtime. However there's is a general 9-5 culture at my work and asking others to do the same is pulling teeth. So OP where there's a will there's a way so YANBU to want some accommodation of your circumstances. The public sector might do well to recruit people who are more willing to work outside core hours thus improving the reputation of a whole sector.

I am a teacher, so is DH. It often feels to me like everyone wants it all ways.
I have seen threads on here recently about:
poster upset that her employer was not prepared to pay her anymore for absence to look after her children because she has had so much time off due to children caching bugs at nursery
a poster complaining that her child had a hospital appt and a childless woman would not swop shifts with her
a pregnant poster saying she could not understand why a co- worker could not accomodate her request to change shifts for a later start because of tiredness when it made no difference to that co-worker because she was childless and it was only for a few weeks
poster annoyed about nursery closing on the dot at 6pm

I agree totally about how hard it is to get appointments outside of work time. We both work in schools nowhere near banks and our nearest bank open at weekends is in Newcastle 20 miles away. Our dentist does appts on a Thursday until 6.30pm but you can't get one for months. Dr is better- last appt 5.45pm and surgery on Saturday morning but only with a lcum, our GPs won't work outside of hours. Infact they are all women, all work part- time and have been two GPs down for three years because they can't get full-time permanent GPs. At work we have parent meetings and evenings at times to suit parents but lots never bother. to come - averae attendance 40 ish percent. We are not paid extra for working until 9pm and can't take the time back. Lots of our teachers are parents but they are at work late at night to suit other parents- meanwhile leaving their own family. We have a married couple on our staff who feel they should not both have to attend things like. parent evenings because they have two small children.

But as women we can't complain about all of these things and then complan if we are asked to work unsociable hours- someone has to be prepared to do the work and it can't always be men or childless women; why should it be?

Just saying. Don't know what the solution is. I am on maternity leave at the moment with DS1 who is 8 weeks. We want another baby in the next 3 yrs. Two maternity leaves will set my career back 5 yrs, if it ever recovers. I was at the point where I could apply for Deputy Head posts. I can put that aside for the next 5+yrs. If I wanted to work part time, it would never happen. I do not know a single Deputy Head or Assistant Head who is part- time, in a Secondary School. But from the school's point of view, I totally get it. They want SLT there all the time. The contrat for SLT is not hours limited like a teacher contract.

maddening
"and a Saturday morning shift or a 10 - 6 shift would not attract unsociable hours payments."

But the workers would still have to be paid.

DancingHat
"The public sector might do well to recruit people who are more willing to work outside core hours thus improving the reputation of a whole sector."

Not all sectors would be able to work outside of core hours, and generally any shift work would involve a shift pay rate

It's not just public organisations, the same with any deliveries.

I think it's understandable that a lot of these things have to be within standard working hours, it's the assumption that people can fit these in with 48 hours notice, or can confirm attendance without having to check with anyone first.

The surgery I attend has this crazy system for blood tests. You ring up and request an appointment, you get logged on a system somewhere and then get a letter telling you when to attend (no options ahead of time to say, I definitely can't do x day), which you then have to ring up and rearrange

What we need is employers who allow flexibility for this type of situation. I had to attend numerous appointments to do with my mum's illness. I was allowed time off but made up the time at work on other days.

You can't make time up in some jobs. In a school, we employ staff to work with children yet they will ask for time off (days and half days to look after childre, go to medical appts with children) and offer to make the time up if they are told it will be unpaid. But they can't make the time up doing the job we pay them for- because they would work extra hours after 5 pm when the children are long gone. We don't want the time back.

YANBU at all.

All of the replies along the lines of "do you expect me to work in the evenings..." just confirm that services appear to be arranged more for the benefit of the employees and not the end users.

This does not happen outside of public service as the companies need to make a profit and so offer customers what they want.

Yup, most ironic one was when I was trying to get an apt at the HMRC enquiry centre with the team who deal with PAYE queries, but they are only open 10-4 mon - fri. Ironic, eh?

Boney - if they are doing the same amount hours in those shifts they would be paid the same just like workers elsewhere. And higher pay shift work only kicks in to higher rates for shifts starting after a particular time so a 10-6 shift with one half day in the week and a Saturday morning shift would not attract a higher rate of pay as "unsociable hours" shift pay does.

Ahhhh the irony of people wanting everyone else to work shift work so that they don't have to have any impact on their own 9-5 job.

To the person complaining about hours to get help with a pip form - most of these places that help you for free are charities and staffed by volunteers. I should know, as this is what I do on my only day off from my business. Resources and people are limited - we do what we can with what we have.

I took time off from work last week (not easy, as am a teacher) to take dd to a paed consultant appointment, only to discover on arrival that the clinic was cancelled. They said they'd called the home phone, despite my having given them my mobile number as first preference, to leave a message on the answerphone. Well, that's all fine and dandy, if only I'd been at home (and not AT WORK) and able to pick up the message!

I think you're also forgetting that its their work. That they need to do during their working hours, which are the same as yours. It's called Life, I'm pretty sure.