To insist I want a meal break

[RedRoosterLondon]

In brief, this is how it is.

My colleague has been employing someone to pick her son from work and take him home. Last week she was informed by her helper that she didn't want to do this any more.

My colleague asked the rest of us to work through our meal break so that we could all finish early. We did this as a one off to help her, as it was an emergency. However, the next day when she asked again I said no. Once I had done that the rest of the staff agreed with me.

She called me a selfish bitch amongst other things, then went to our boss. He says we all finish when the work is done, and anyone who wants to go early on a regular basis will have money deducted. But if we want to work through our break to go early together, that's fine as long as we are all doing the same thing.

I can't stand the daily battle and nor can my other colleagues. We start at seven and work a long day, we need our break and something to eat. What is it with some women that they think the workplace revolves around them and their childcare problems?

By the way I do have kids myself, but I have my life sorted. There is no way I would behave like this at work.

Not only that most of us have been up since 5.30 or even 5am! Which is why our lovely head chef lets us all take 20 minutes at around 10.00am as well. Then we work round until 14.00hrs. So we don't go from 7am until after service without eating so let's put that idea to bed.

Nice, reasonable bosses like him who are also fair are hard to find, which is why I hate people who try and take advantage.

Good to see that someone at HQ agrees with me that Lexi was trolling and has deleted abusive her post to me!

Have a good day all.

FWIW I'm not a single parent hater. There's two others at work who have things sorted and do a fantastic job. They've never imposed on the rest of us, they've got more pride. It's people like my other colleague who give working parents a bad name.

I have children and I work and I think YANBU. This isn't a case of her losing her job over this, it's a case of her not wanting a few quid knocked off her pay package. And considering she will no longer be employing someone to pick up her son, that means she won't be out of pocket at all.

She's being very unfair on her colleagues, when you factor in the spending on childcare, she is actually expecting her colleagues to reorganise purely for her financial benefit; not to prevent a loss to her.

She needs to suck it up until she finds a new childcare provider, the difference can't be significant enough to push her over the edge.

Typical mners, falling over themselves to be understanding and supportive....and to the wrong person.
In the real world, you have to do your actual job and hours, and its not your colleagues responsibility to accommodate your needs to their own detriment. You don't half talk a lot of Shite, some of you!

I agree Constance.

Some of the responses here have been absolutely unbelievable. In fact some posters seem to be bending over backwards to find a way of criticising the OP. She did not reduce her colleague to tears; her colleague's unacceptable attitude and a rightful dressing down by managers and union officials resulted in her tears.

And whinging that because she's a single mother she has some kind of entitlement to seriously inconvenience her colleagues on a regular basis and become verbally abusive to those who refuse to go along with this is unbelievable self entitled, and unfair to all the single mothers who wouldn't dream of behaving like this. So I don't blame the OP for using the 'yabber yabber' comment.

Some people are so bloody anxious to look compassionate and understanding that they just end up vilifying perfectly innocent people who don't happen to fall into a certain group that allows posters to demonstrate their PC credentials.

YANBU at all OP and I'm glad you have the result you wanted. Ms Wanna-Gohome-Early was being thoroughly unreasonable.

YANBU OP,in the slightest. Having children doesn't entitle you to special treatment, though a lot of people seem to think that it does. If her "helper" is unable to pick up her child from school then she'll have to do as most other working parents do and use an after schools club or a childminder.

And there's no way I'd show any sort of compassion or try and help out someone who called me a "selfish bitch" for refusing to bow down to their emotional black mail.

"My colleague has been employing someone to pick her son from work and take him home. Last week she was informed by her helper that she didn't want to do this any more."

Am I the only one wondering if this came about because OP's colleague called her helper a selfish bitch, or similar behaviour?