Being made to work an extra 20 minutes unpaid a day

[GettingTiredNow]

I work in the admin base of the local NHS health authority, there are about 100 of us in our offices and nowhere near that number of car parking spaces. We double park which is ok but as more people have joined the organisation recently even that is not enough on some days. The powers that be have rented 10 additional spaces at the railway station down the road about a 10 minute walk away.

These 10 parking spaces have been allocated randomly to staff on a rota, each directorate is doing its own thing so you can end up with either a week there every 6 months or 3 months there as a one off. And I'm 1 of the lucky 10 who have been blessed with a pass

Us lucky 10 have been told that the time it takes us to travel back and forth to the car park needs to come out of our time and not the organisations. If we are late we need to email our boss with an expanation of how the time will be made back up.

I need to take my DC to school in the morning and the afternoon which fits within my working hours but a trip back and forth to the car park means I'm going to be early to school in the morning and late to pick up in the afternoon to ensure I'm at work for my contracted time.

AIBU to expect that as I am effectively helping the organisation out by walking down to the car park this shouldn't come out of my time?

Run to the car park. That'll shave 5 mins off it either side.

Job done.

You get free parking. Try being a patient or visitor at a Hospital.

Give up the space then!

I think it's the way your phrased it - you imply that if you hadn't got this space rhe alternative would have been no parking space at all whereas I thibk the reality was if you hadn't been selected for this space you'd have continued to park close by.

Think yourself lucky. I'm nhs too - currently have free parking right outside work - need my car as often have off site meetings. We're moving bases soon - I'll be £8.50 a day to park.

someday are you On glue? I hate it when people use 'childcare' reasons to try and get their own way.

Sorry OP but you'll have to suck it up.

This sense of entitlement was one of the reasons I gave up working in the public sector.

I can completely see why you're annoyed, but sadly you are being unreasonable.

Possible solutions:
Anyone you can car share/lift share with?
Could you suggest a general lift sharing drive to reduce the need for the number of spaces?
If it's only three months, can you arrange with a friend to collect your DC and you will pick up from their's, then return the favour next term?

If you move house and have to travel further to work will you expect extra pay then?

Get a folding bike, you can do it through the Cycle to Work scheme. Sorry but YABU.

YABVU

I see your frustration, but this happens, I'm afraid. DH works at an airport and the staff car park is 3 miles out (yes, miles). He has to wait 15 mins for the shuttle bus (more if he's on a night shift) which then takes 15 mins to get in. Or he can take the train - except our train company are cancelling loads of trains at the moment. Every time DH is late due to the trains, they round the time he has missed up (in their favour) and take it off his annual leave. Now that really does leave him between a rock and a hard place.

Lots of things about work are annoying; you really don't have it so bad.

For years I had a free parking space close to work, then it stopped, now when I go into the office its 5.50 a day to park. It's shit but Its life. I get the train on those days now, it's 5.80, no fuel.

Well the way I see it, you only have 2 options.
Give up your job and become a SAHM, or find a new job that fits in with your children's schooling.

I think you're getting a hard time OP and YANBU to be stressed by a change in your working patterns that are making your working hours difficult / impossible as presumably you took the job on the basis that you parked outside. Other people's parking issues are irrelevant. I agree with a PP to talk to your manager and see what they suggest.

Isn't it on a rota anyway OP? So everyone is being slightly inconvenienced some of the time, rather than you all of the time?

Bet the HR dept (or whoever it was) are wondering why on earth they bothered sourcing and negotiating additional parking if this is typical of the reaction.

Last week I worked about 60 hours and got paid for 37.5. This happens fairly regularly.

I work in consultancy. It's a different world.

So here, have one of these

I don't understand why you think you should be paid to walk to and from your car

Please do not talk to your manager about this. I am a line manager and if any of my team spoke to me about this I would tell them to get a grip and it would change my opinion of them. You can see from this thread what the general consensus is!

In a similar vein, my staff start at 9 but I expect them to be in before 9 so they are ready to start work at 9.

Now, think about this:

10 minute walk to station, stand like sardine for 15 minutes, get off walk 8 mins including escalator queues, get on tube letting three pass due to crowding, stand like sardine for six minutes, get off and jostle one's way to entrance, walk 10 minutes to public sector office. Possibly having spent 20 minutes first to drop baby at nursery, leave in tears and park back at home.

Think about how hard done you are.

someday are you On glue? I hate it when people use 'childcare' reasons to try and get their own way

Childcare or other caring responsibilities are a valid reason for which you can request adjustments and/or flexible working.

When my work introduced the offsite carpark I was literally unable to use it and be on-time to work. No other childcare possibilities in the morning...and I mean none, I won't bother listing them but I had exhausted all possibilities. I put a request in to either be excluded from the offsite carpark rota, or to have a flexible working arrangement so that I could be 15 minutes late to work and take a shorter lunch. For my employer, it was obviously easier just to give me a rota exception than go through the procedure of flexible working agreement and they readily excluded me.

No one gets points for being a martyr.

Other than the ridiculous notion that your employer should pay you to walk from your car, do you actually have a better parking solution you could propose to your employer, OP?

Our hospital charges patients, visitors and staff. If doing overtime you could get a ticket!

I do understand the juggling of childcare. I couldn't leave my kids until 8:45 am but needed to be at my job in another school at 9:15 and had to drop youngest at nursery. I had to pack the job in and I didn't get another for two years ( except supply) as it was almost impossible to do in the time. Have you a notice board couldn't you put a request on there? Someone might swap. Otherwise why can't you work through your lunch hour to make it up? I often work in my lunch hour but don't get paid for it. I go to meetings, mark after school and set up for the next day or tidy up all unpaid. Just the nature of the job.

It's not 20 minutes work is it?
I get you're pissed off but your employer doesn't have to provide parking.
Seriously,you need to just get on with it.