to feel discriminated against at work for not having children???

[chicdiana1980]

I was accidentally copied into an email at work yesterday and I am really thinking about going to some kind of tribunal about this. I was feeling p*ssed off already but this is the tip of the iceburg!

to give you a background, I work for a fairly small company, office based. Pretty much everyone else in the office has children, and they are mostly young children. I don't have any children, and I am happy with this, but I feel like I get the brunt of it at work.

It seems like noone ever questions people when they take extra time off if they just say it's because of their children. Mostly it's leaving early pretty much every day to pick up children from school. Others who don't do this have 'parents evenings' or school plays or things, or get in late after the 'school run,' always laughing about how it's so stressful and that's I'm lucky. Sick days when the children are sick - how is this fair? Sick days are for the employee, not for employee and any family.

There has to be cover for the whole day, so it is usually me who ends up having to stay until the end, or get in early, so that someone is there. I regularly have to stay late as the colleagues who fly off at 3:30 to school leaves work that needs to be done. They say that they make it up in the mornings or at other times, but it's really no help.

Anyway, this has been going on for years now and I got to the stage where I thought I would just have to accept it as one of those things. But I was copied into an email (accidentally) which was obviously a round robin which had been going around my colleagues and the last person sent it to the entire office, not just their 'select group' (the select group being pretty much everyone but me). They were talking about who was going to be leaving early - and essentially they all were, leaving someone to say 'so who's gonna cover until the end ;),' and the last person said 'guess who. it's not like she has anything else to do anyway!'

I am seriously furious about this. I don't work Wednesdays but I am seriously considering going straight to ACAS or someone (our office is so small there is no real HR department) to make a complaint about this. I have been in tears for most of the morning - but before I do anything, would it be unreasonable to do this?

The comments re. Childcare are shocking. Where do you people who leave at 4 everyday to arrange pick ups? I work in the city, and flexible working is available but as work from home, so although you can take a few hours off here or there you must make them up if you work full time. Bosses with young kids often work longer and very unsociable hours, set meetings at night, etc etc. Re: emergency leave- It is just for emergencies ie when schools close, kids are sick and nobody else can take care of them etc. If a parent was regularly using this for 'childcare problems' they would be investigated and possibly disciplined/moved to a part time contract.

Careforadrink- the trick would be not to apply for work that requires you to be physically present xmas day.

Fleur

That's great advice for those applying for work as single mothers - not for those where DH disappears in a puff of smoke AFTER the fact.

care - Honestly I don't know but I think it's the way it's approached is important. If you say to your team when holidays are being arranged that you have no way of getting childcare on these days because of whatever situation but you can work these days then I'm sure 99% of people - myself included will go out of their way to to try to help you out. If someone announces they deserve to have all of the Xmas holidays off because they have small kids and 'Xmas is for kids' with no further explanation people are going to be resentful.

For example my husband never asks for Xmas Eve off because his team has a lot of mothers and he knows they prefer having it off for the excitement of Santa. Years ago a new manager turned around and said only parents were allowed to ask for Xmas Eve as those without children didn't need it. My better half raised a massive fuss, got HR involved and got the idea quashed. Manager then went mad when he didn't ask for it but for him it was the principle of being told he had to do it.

'sorry for trying to raise the next generation

"Let's hope they aren't as fucking entitled as you are" would probably be my response.

But please enlighten me as to what a single parent with young children and no family/friends support is meant to do on Xmas day especially in a rural area when other paying options are closed?

This is where being a reponsible employee comes in. If you speak appropriately to your colleagues, explain the situation, then you will probably end up with the day off. Especially if you regularly step in when they want a particular day off for whatever reasons they may have, if you are prepared to put in the working hours that you are paid for, and you don't spend all of your days whinging about how hard life is as a parent. If you just say 'well tough, I'm taking it, and my situation is far more important than anyone else so go stuff yourselves', then you can't be surprised when colleagues get pissed off with you.

And whilst there may not be daycare open, you can still hire a babysitter, although you'll pay for it. I'm a teacher, and a single parent, and if I have after hours events at my school, I either take DS and set him up in my office with the ipad/colouring books whilst I'm meeting in the classroom, or if it is something that he can't sit in my office for, then I pay a babysitter to look after him. I don't just whinge that it's all too hard and woe is me and expect everyone else to pick up the slack.

I completely agree with playing.

Ideally what you'd want in the workplace is an environment where people genuinely work as a team and look out for each other. So in those situations where there must be cover on a day like Christmas or New Years, if someone really doesn't have any other childcare options they should be able to say this, be taken at their word and have another colleague step in. And that other colleague would know that if they are ever in a tricky situation and need time off then the rest of the team would have their back and cover for them if they possibly could.

Unfortunately this kind of dynamic seems pretty rare in most workplaces as there's just not enough trust . And people can't behave like adults. So we end up with blanket rules which are pretty blunt instruments and don't really take into account individual circumstances, e.g. "parents have priority at Christmas".

What has happened here is the reason flexi time was stopped at a place I worked at, It a clothing factory, was great at first, we had core hours between 9 and 4. The factory opened at 8.00am closed at 5.00pm. Some workers banked extra hours to finish at 12.00 on Fridays, supervisors were in on it and fiddled time sheets for their friends, others did the same as described in the OP. I was single and childless at the time and also quite young (19) so I and others like me were the default cover who were inadvertently used to cover the blatant fiddling of the time sheets. It all went pear shaped when a huge order wasn't completed on time due to not enough staff being at their machines.The factory was like a ghost town on Friday afternoons. Just me a few others at work.

For example my husband never asks for Xmas Eve off because his team has a lot of mothers and he knows they prefer having it off for the excitement of Santa. Years ago a new manager turned around and said only parents were allowed to ask for Xmas Eve as those without children didn't need it. My better half raised a massive fuss, got HR involved and got the idea quashed. Manager then went mad when he didn't ask for it but for him it was the principle of being told he had to do it.

Well done him - too many people complain about policies like this without actually tackling them head-on. If I couldn't book Christmas Eve off I would struggle to spend Christmas with my family because of the travelling involved - no way would I give up Christmas Day with my family so someone could have Christmas Eve with their kids.

"Let's hope they aren't as fucking entitled as you are" would probably be my response.

Were I not on a crowded train, I would be giving you a round of applause for that brilliant response.

This absolutely is a management issue. Colleagues cannot be left to arrange amongst themselves who works until the end of the day, unless there are very clear principles about how many times each person has to do it.
To avoid people taking advantage of others, management needs to intervene.
Some types of work are more suited to flexi than others. Work that an individual does on their own and has not impact on others in terms of when it's done and when there is no need for workers to be present outside of the core flexi hours, works really well for flexi, because the problems of who covers the times no one wants to be there simply don't come up.
It might be possible that OPs work isn't suitable for flexi and management need to revoke it....or that they simply need to manage it rather than leaving it to be a free for all.....clear guidelines about how many lates/earliest each person needs to do, plus some kind of clear cut rotating system should be able to sort this. The vast majority of the time EACH (not just parents) colleague will be able to work the flexi hours to suit themselves, but will need to provide the early/late cover occasionally.....and factor that in with their other arrangements.....so knowing in advance is important.

Yes I totally agree it's how it's approached. The attitude you show towards others etc. It's all about give and take.

Unfortunately there are some careers that logistically aren't very compatible with being a single parent in certain situations. Especially if you have a child with complex special needs.

Personally it wasn't as easy as setting the kids up with colouring books in the office. There are no babysitters in my area that will cover night shift over Xmas who have experience of children with special needs.

It's sad but you have to do what you have to do. I gave up and I'm looking at retraining. Teaching possibly.

I can't imagine I'm the only one in this boat. All I'm saying is some parents in certain situations don't have much of a choice. Same goes for carers.

Unfortunately I don't think that there is much your colleagues can do in that situation and blanket rules aren't going to help either. I think the best thing you can do for yourself and your child is retrain and do something else.

Let's not move away from the real issue here. The OP is being bullied and intimidated by a group of odious women.

What's more they find their little operation amusing.

That's shocking OP. That kind of behaviour can really backfire on working parents (mums usually) if there is a perception that they will always be running off early or taking leave and expecting everyone else to pick up the slack.
I have been a working mum for 11 yrs now and I have never experienced any policy that allows parents first dibs on holidays or not to have to cover a late shift. I have also always taken annual leave when I've had sick kids and no other options and felt horribly guilty if it's impacted on colleagues. Not everywhere is like this and I agree their behaviour verges on bullying and you should try and look at other options.

I wouldn't pull sickies though, keep the moral high ground and new employers often ask for number of sick days.
The obvious solution in your office would be a rota. The people you work with are obviously so entrenched in their entitled parents view that they don't/won't see the unfairness; they are not going to have little kids for ever, will they be happy to do what they are asking you to do in a few years? Doubt it.
Say you want to draw up a rota so everyone gets the chance to leave early, say your preferred day is x. but I would make plans to leave

I agree, ops colleagues give all working parents a bad name.

Yes I need to take time off if my child is sick, yes I have to take my annual leave in the school holidays. But I will always make my time up and if it ever impacts on anyone else in a negative way I would do my best to make it up to them and would cover anyone else's genuine emergency.

These people are complete piss takers. They take the piss with you and the employer.

OP, you are being bullied and treated differently to other people in your organisation around the flexible working arrangements despite you all being on the same contracted terms. For your own benefit, you need to not focus on the kids/no kids angle but just stick to the facts of there being an unfair burden on yourself to do all the late finishes. I know it is hard, but you have to leave the kids factor out of it and focus on the different treatment you are subjected to and malicious bullying. This is the legal backbone of your case.

I think you should raise a grievance with whoever is more senior to your boss and not involved in the discussion. Is there any official policy available for time off for dependents (which isn't exclusively related to children, therefore not discriminatory) , if so reference it and take it along to your meeting. It seems your colleagues are exploiting this at your expense, regardless of their working and pay arrangements.

Thinkingblonde something similar happened at our workplace; some people in another department were using flextime to give themselves a four day work week. We used to be able to book off an entire day (yes, I do know that we were very, very fortunate in this). Now we can only flex outside of core hours. It was frustrating because, as with many workplace problems, upper management were unwilling to deal only with the people who were actual problem. Hint: not just the fourdayflexers, but the supervisors who approved this.

I agree with GenerationEx.

I read the first 8 pages and have skim read from there. YANBU to be angry and complain. My manager (and friend) is childless, and often gets irritated that I will use my children to get out attending rearranged meetings. As the union rep (or nearest we have), I often remind her that she is not obliged to attend them herself but she should make up commitments if she doesn't wish to have the confrontation or just say no (My response is always "I'm sorry, I can't attend that meeting, I didn't have enough notice", they assume it's a childcare issue). The amount of times I have nagged her for giving up her sport so she had more time to work is untrue! She is to blame though for allowing them to take advantage. Another childless colleague is very open about how she: does Zumba on a Tuesday, another fitness class on a Thursday and on a Friday she meets up with friends. She won't give up these things, as she shouldn't. Lesson for OP: Make up commitments and arrangements, stick to it. They don't even have to know what they are. "Something has come up, I have to leave at 4pm on Monday's now for the next few months".

Secondly, taken from the gov.uk:
As an employee you’re allowed time off to deal with an emergency involving a dependant. A dependant could be a spouse, partner, child, grandchild, parent, or someone who depends on you for care.

YABU regarding the comment about sick leave for children, it isn't sick leave. I live 250 miles away from my parents and even further away from my PIL, my local friends are either work colleagues (so at work when I am) or have children and jobs of their own. In the case of a child sickness it is not possible to make alternative arrangements. No childcare provider will take a sick child and you cannot leave them at home alone. I have two children, the oldest is 5 years old. In all this time I have taken 1 full day off and left early 3 times (twice only 1.5 hours (the half being my lunch break) and the third 3 hours). On the grand scheme of things, this isn't much. My manager (the childless one) has taken two days in this time to take her (accident prone) husband to the hospital after injuring himself. Same legislation covers both. I can do nothing about it when I need to look after my children, I can only ensure that this responsibility is split evenly between me and my DH, we are very good at that.

FWIW though, make sure you watch carefully before saying something. A few weeks ago we had an evening event coming up at work, it was due to start 3 hours after the end of the work day. As I am still BF my (then 7mo) son, I knew I couldn't hang around and prep for that evening during those 3 hours. So I spent 2 lunch breaks organising things and 1 hour of my own time earlier in the week, so the actual organisation for that evening would take about 15 minutes. I left 1 job for my manager and colleagues that would take about 10 - 20 minutes. I told my manager (same one as before) that I was meeting my husband and kids for dinner at a pub nearby (we picked it so I was close to work) and she made a snide remark about how I didn't deserve the pay rise I was applying for! I was furious and couldn't speak to her for a week. My point being, you may end up looking the bitchy idiot (like my boss did) if you make a comment and it turns out that they are making up the time.

I'm a bit puzzled by the last post
" I will use my children to get out attending rearranged meetings."
Really?

Also where flexitime is allowed you generally can't say "I am leaving at 4". Flexitime is granted assuming the needs of the business can cope with it.
In this case the ops colleagues need reminding if that and she doesn't but flexitime does not allow individuals to refuse to stay later than 4pm for example

After all you chose to not have children, if you had them you would get these 'perks' also.

That isn't a choice for everybody.