Work trip

[brieislife]

So, for context, I work in admin. Not the very lowest rung of the ladder but not high up. Nobody reports to me. I earn less than the average wage. When I accepted the job I asked about working from home and was told it would be ok as an occasional thing. I have a laptop so can do this and have done a handful of times.

I work near Leeds. We have an office near Heathrow (about a 4 hour drive, if traffic's ok) and there's a conference there that I have to go to in May. It's on a Thursday and is expected to run from 9-5.30. Work are putting those of us coming from Leeds up in a hotel the night before. We would be leaving work at 2-ish on the preceding day to drive down, getting to the hotel at about 6, all being well. My normal working hours are 9-5.30.

I asked my (fairly new) manager if I could work from home the following day as I would likely not be getting home until 10ish & it would be nice to not have to be up early the following day to commute. This was refused with my manager basically saying he had worked most of the previous Sunday and there was a need to work a few additional hours occasionally for the sake of the business. Regardless of the fact I wasn't asking for time off, just to work my normal hours from home. Or that he is significantly senior to me (director level) and as such both his responsibilities and salary are much higher than mine. The tone of his email was disapproving & seemed to suggest I was cheeky for asking.

Then today he sends me a meeting invite for a (fairly unimportant) conference call with him, me and a customer. Just a catch up kind of call. To take place on the day before the meeting between 2.30 and 3.30. Meaning I won't get to leave the office until nearer 4, and won't get to the hotel til around 8.

Would I be unreasonable to ask him if there's any chance of rescheduling? I get the feeling it won't go down too well, but it seems that he's expecting me to work the kind of hours and be as flexible as someone much more senior and more highly paid than I am.

As a one off I wouldn't mind too much but with him being fairly new to the company, and clearly keen to make his mark, I'd rather not just accept this without protest as it could become the norm.

What would you do?

I earn about the same as you OP and travel a lot with work. I always get time off in lieu for travel. I wouldn’t do it unless I did! I worked for one company and all overtime as travel was paid and time away from home over night was paid at half time!

When I worked in the City on a lot more money, we didn’t get proper time off after travel but I did work from home the next day and my boss my fine with that. He would also let me go home early every Friday and it was very flexible in terms of working from home so that was okay.

It’s not “jobsworthy” at all to want to be paid TOIL for travel! Especially when you earn under 30k! The average salary in the UK is 27k and millions of people earn minimum wage. Most people aren’t going to work their way up to be directors on 6 figures and not claiming TOIL won’t make people earn more money or work their way up.

A job is a job. Most people have jobs and not careers. Employers often treat employees badly so why would anybody have any loyalty to a company?

I’d go in to him and say you’re leaving at X time, so you can’t be in on the conference call plus the reason you took the role was because you were told it was fine to work from home occasionally so you will be doing so. Do you have any record of this being agreed at the time?

YANBU. When I was full time and on a fairly good salary, I would always have left by lunch time if I was doing a 4 plus hour drive, and so would everyone else I work with. It’s one of the reasons I’ve stayed there so long because the culture is one where employees are treated well, in return I absolutely work over and above my hours when I need to. WFH is not cheeky, the company is either happy with people doing that occasionally or they’re not, seems like this is a completely understandable reason for asking to do it. If it’s cheeky after a late finish, why is it then ok all the other times?

Turn him down. One thing I've learnt is employers generally don't hold any loyalty to staff so dont go out of your way for them. Decline the meeting telling him you won't be available as you'll be on the road to the conference

Decline it and put the travel time into your diary now.

I think the failure to let you work@home is bad. It's a simple perk that would recognise a late return. We don't sweat the small stuff like this in my work thankfully.

That's a real toughie OP as presumably he's the guy that gives you your performance rating at the end of the year.

Do you have to do much travelling? If this is the only thing scheduled for this year then I'd be inclined to suck it up to an extent and then address it in your 121 when you can have a conversation about expectations versus grade.

It also depends a bit on your future aspirations. So if you want to get to his position one day, then you may be expected to put yourself out a bit more for the company. If however you don't, then that's another matter.

He's being very old fashioned on the wfh and again that's one to discuss at your 121.

For that I would not expect someone to moan about working office hours even after travelling home late from London

The OP is a junior member of staff on a below average salary. Not the same.

OP your manager sounds like a patronising dick. YANBU.

Is there a manager who is higher up than him that you can ask? If not, then I would try to explain the situation in another email to the new boss explaining that you have an agreement for flexible working due to being on a much lower salary/grade than him. Some people really do need everything spelled out to them.

If he still says no to your request then it’s time to speak to HR or a union rep. I don’t think you should give in easily on this.

Alternatively, if he wants you to be completely flexible with your hours, he should agree to give you a substantial pay rise or paid overtime.