to be peeved about bosses remark

[Chamonix1]

Work has been severely understaffed the past few months and I along with a few others who work full time have been picking up a lot of overtime, on top of full time work. Today our boss was looking for someone to come into work at 11pm to get a taxi to pick up a resident from a party and escort them back. Basically asked for 1 hour of our time in the middle of the night!When asked everyone who wasn't already working told the manager we weren't able to because of other commitments to which the manager replied "oh what a surprise nobody is about to help" whilst rolling her eyes.
I simply said, if I could I honestly would but we are away all weekend and that I have tried to help with overtime, to which she responded
"Well so have I, it's part of the job to be flexible, don't complain".
Maybe she's just having a stressful day but it made me and others feel totally unappreciated.
There's been a LOT of chat about how we need to be "more flexible" and work our lives around work and I can't help but think those sort of comments to staff isn't going to encourage us to work any more hours than contracted. At almost minimum wage I can't see any incentive anymore, clearly all efforts to help go unnoticed.

YANBU but I can empathise with your boss. If it's the care sector, I've been that person who has done their full-time day job and picked up the slack if we were under-staffed or people have pulled out last minute. It can be so frustrating and I had pretty much no work-life balance as if I couldn't find cover it fell to me. It's tiring and it's demoralising.

No, though, in that position you shouldn't be sarcastic or snappy. Of course, you should remain professional. But having been in their shoes I find it difficult to condemn them totally for their reaction.

That being said they should probably look at their recruitment and up that if you're so often understaffed as it doesn't seem a positive working environment for anyone involved.

I would have responded to the rolling of the eyes by saying that her being PA doesn't make a good working environment.

I worked in Care and my DD is a Manager. It's great and right that Care Users can dictate their social life, but managing the staff and the budgets for this, can be stressful and at times, near impossible.

The companies are making the money to do this, but they won't spend it on wages.

Can't the taxi just be booked for 11pm? Maybe the driver can escort them back in?

YANBU. A good manager makes their staff feel valued and motivated.

Perhaps if they paid overtime and the very difficult to fill slots at an attractive wage they'd have no bother

Since care companies get paid £18 per hour for daytime work and £24 for unsocial hours after 8pm I'm sure they could bloody find someone if they paid properly

I'd be pointing that out loudly in the office - it's an utter disgrace that companies (who exist to make money and aren't a fucking charity) try to emotionally blackmail people into doing care work 'out of the goodness of their heart'

I understand that they need flexibility but surely their request is a bit last minute. Surely they must realise that people need a bit of notice because they do actually have lives.

I have recently left front-line care for this very reason - I was sick of being asked to cover all the time, and then being penalised when I put my family first and said no, despite others never picking up.