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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Arsehole bosses

75 replies

owltrousers · 28/11/2017 12:00

I am due to start maternity leave on Friday this week, so literally 2 whole days left at work now. 34 weeks pregnant.

I have posted about my bosses here before. I work in a small therapy clinic, 2 bosses and me - their secretary. I am their sole employee.

Today I received a long email from them (they work away on Mon & Tues) detailing how my work is 'slipping' and a list of things I have done wrong lately, including being 5 mins late for work yesterday:

"when I rang the clinic on Monday needing you to know asap I was ill and clients that day had to be cancelled, you said you hadn't answered my call until I rang again at 9:11 because you were getting my room ready. Was that right? Can you clarify. We've told you many times to have the phone with you so that all calls can be answered from 9am. This is basic."

I have been 45 mins early for work every single day for 1.5 years due to my liftshare being early and always start as soon as I get in because it makes my day run smoother. This last week I've had to catch the bus as my liftshare has gone travelling and sometimes it means I get there at 9 on the dot, which is my start time. Yesterday I was taking my coat off and opening the shutters at 9 on the dot when the phone rang, I ran to it but it went to answerphone. I then called the number back at 9.05 and it was my boss.

AIBU to be extremely pissed off. Its my last two days, would you really start airing grievances now? I feel like they're trying to push me out or like they may try and not pay me my maternity pay.

OP posts:

RhiannonOHara · 28/11/2017 13:09

I get very frustrated when businesses state their operating hours are from 9am and I call and nobody answers.

That must be bad for your blood pressure. I shrug and email or leave a message, or phone back a few minutes later.

Yokohamajojo · 28/11/2017 13:16

I am very often on my own in the office and expected to answer telephone calls from around 3 numbers. If I am on the phone though, the other ones will ring! I can't physically answer two phones at the same time. So if OP had been on the phone of the first phone call at 9 it would have been the same thing surely

FlowerPot1234 · 28/11/2017 13:17

RhiannonOHara
I shrug and email or leave a message, or phone back a few minutes later.

That's nice for you.

RhiannonOHara · 28/11/2017 13:22

Point being, unless it IS the emergency services, it's not the end of the world and not worth getting 'frustrated' over really.

Original poster

owltrousers · 28/11/2017 13:24

Wrongly or rightly, I was running 5 mins late on one occasion in my last week. Not exactly warranting a telling off email is it.

OP posts:

FlowerPot1234 · 28/11/2017 13:31

RhiannonOHara

Point being, unless it IS the emergency services, it's not the end of the world and not worth getting 'frustrated' over really.

Thank you so much for your judgement calls on what you think others should, or shouldn't get frustrated by. Always good to know.

I am a busy woman. Businesses state their hours of operation are from 9am. A customer should be able to call them at 9am and that business to be open. Sometimes 9am is the only opportunity I might have to call that day. I might be delaying entering a building sitting in my car wishing to get this call out the way. I have no idea if I hang around and try again and again that the phone will be picked up.

It looks unprofessional for a business not to pick up the phone at 9am.
It is unprofessional for someone who is the face of that business to the public - i.e reception/switchboard - to not be ready at 9am to pick up the phones.

Littledrummergirl · 28/11/2017 13:32

Are you feeling well op? No d&v? I would be sick given those circumstances I'm afraid.

FlowerPot1234 · 28/11/2017 13:35

owltrousers
Wrongly or rightly, I was running 5 mins late on one occasion in my last week. Not exactly warranting a telling off email is it.

First, it's definitely wrongly. There is no rightly about being 5 minutes late and missing calls.

Second, your employer needed you to pick up the phone and immediately advise clients that they were ill and their appointments were cancelled. Any delay in doing that would have impacted all those client's days. Depending on what therapy it is, this might have involved vulnerable people for whom setting off on a journey to an appointment which had been cancelled without them knowing would aggravate their issues.

These consequences of this failure, and the other reasons which your employer has cited to show their feeling that your 'work is slipping' and a list of all the things you have done wrong lately, is actually worth an email, yes.

Chrys2017 · 28/11/2017 13:39

If you are employed to work from 9am but you choose to show up early to suit your own personal preferences, then that's your business. But you shouldn't use that as an excuse to turn up late on other occasions!
Your employer needs you there at 9am! Not 8:15am and not 9:05am!

Roomba · 28/11/2017 13:41

You may have to start your Mat Leave early if you go off sick now though. Someone I worked with pulled a sickie (and boasted she was going to do it) when she was 30odd weeks pregnant. It backfired as she was legally forced to start Mat Leave a few weeks before she'd intended to.

I sympathise with anyone who has a twat type boss. The main boss of my old organisation threw a water bottle at my colleagues head after the guy informed him he needed adjustments for his degenerative, painful disability. Boss then screamed at him that he was taking the piss, he was just a lazy bastard and that he knew what disabled really meant as his brother was disabled from birth. Colleague resigned without a fuss instead of suing the arse off the company, sadly.

tampinfuminragin · 28/11/2017 13:47

Smile through the next 2 days and don't look back. Can you look for work during your maternity leave? Can you afford to not go back?

tampinfuminragin · 28/11/2017 13:47

Sorry I've just seen you're not planning on going back.

AuntMabel · 28/11/2017 13:50

Bringing up performance issues 2 days prior to maternity leave?

Is this the first time these problems have been raised to you?

AuntMabel · 28/11/2017 13:50

Bringing up performance issues 2 days prior to maternity leave?

Is this the first time these problems have been raised to you?

Therewere5inthebed · 28/11/2017 13:53

FlowerPot are you her boss?

oldmum22 · 28/11/2017 13:56

Hang on in there for the final two days ,is my advice. Don't expect anything and don't give anything to give them a reason to fire you or write a damming reference for the future. I think whoever ends up doing your job , will always have references to how wonderful owltrousers was, coming in early and sorting things out for them . Idiots !

FlowerPot1234 · 28/11/2017 13:57

Therewere5inthebed are you her mother?

Thebluedog · 28/11/2017 13:59

They do sound like a nightmare. Who brings up performance issues 2 days before Nat leave.

I’d be tempted to reply to the email just to cover my arse, apologise for being late, but state that you have an exceptional time keeping record and this is the first instance of lateness in X time.

Then fuck em

ILostItInTheEarlyNineties · 28/11/2017 14:01

If your boss can send you Emails then it was perhaps unprofessional of him not to alert you to his intention to take a day off sick via email?
It isn't ideal to phone in sick at 9am if you have clients booked in...

Giving you what is essentially a written warning because you didn't launch your pregnant self across the office to answer his phone call is a complete overreaction.

RhiannonOHara · 28/11/2017 14:03

But you shouldn't use that as an excuse to turn up late on other occasions!

Don't be silly. Stop exaggerating. She's been there early every day until this week, when she's been arriving at 9 on the dot. She missed the first phone call by seconds and picked up the phone to her boss's message five minutes later.

Flower, she missed a phone call from her boss, not a client. And eleven minutes later, it was all sorted –boss had told her to cancel the appointments for the day and (I assume) she had got on with informing clients.

AlpacaPicnic · 28/11/2017 14:05

Next time take the phone off the hook...
They'll think you're on another call.
#terribleemployee

Flowerpot, how would you account for differences in clocks? Say your watch or clock is a minute to a minute and a half fast. The person opening up or answering the phone might have a clock that's a minute or two slow. That's nearly four minutes of difference... making all the difference between answering the phone at what you think is dead on nine or a bit later. Can't you be a tiny bit flexible to allow for clock differences?

Gudgyx · 28/11/2017 14:05

OPs start time is 9am. She WAS there by 9am, opening the shutters, part of her job, therefore working. She wasn't late as per her contracted hours, just later than she normally is.

I'd ignore it OP, you're almost done!

Chrys2017 · 28/11/2017 14:07

RhiannonOHara Being there early is her choice as it suits her usual ride. Using the fact that you had to get the bus as an excuse for being late is shoddy, in my opinion. Buses are predictably late so get an earlier bus than one that's supposed to get you there at nine on the dot.

If you think your boss is out to get you then don't give them any ammunition to use against you—simple!

Original poster

owltrousers · 28/11/2017 14:10

I despair at some of these responses

But thanks everyone for your imput. I'm gonna hang on in there and just be super nice to everyone for the next two days and then never see them again.

OP posts:

FlowerPot1234 · 28/11/2017 14:12

RhiannonOHara
Flower, she missed a phone call from her boss, not a client. And eleven minutes later, it was all sorted –boss had told her to cancel the appointments for the day and (I assume) she had got on with informing clients.

She missed answering a call at 9am. That call could have been a client. There is an issue for the reception of a business not being available to clients at 9am. The OP was not available to clients at 9am.
The boss needed her to pick up at 9am. The OP was not available at 9am to do that. The boss had to call again. The boss must have thought how unprofessional it was that their business was not available to him/her nor to clients. The delay she caused was then passed onto the clients who were told later about their cancelled appointments. If the first appointment was 9.30 that left very little time for that attendee to change their plans.

If you don't think there is any problem at all with an employee who is contracted to work from 9am not working from 9am , and for a business whose opening hour is 9am to not be open from 9am , what do you think is the reason that the bosses are not happy with the OP?

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