To be very glad I don't work with some Mumsnetters

[sootyisback]

You shouldn't take sick leave unless you're practically at death's door.
As soon as you're capable of crawling out of bed you should be back in work.
You should never, ever be even 5 minutes late no matter what the circumstances or how flexible you've been re working extra time.
Unless there's 20 ft of snow blocking your front door you should get yourself into work.

Honestly, I'd have been sacked long ago if some of them were my boss.

Oh God, the people who seem to think that it is weird, wrong or self-indulgent to socialize or make friends with people at work.

We spend a huge % of our life at work--why choose to seal yourself off from people?

Seems symptomatic of general social trends towards people in general becoming more and more isolated and spending less time having face to face social contact with each other.

YANBU. I am often appalled at some of the intractable, unbending attitudes of some posters, who seem to see the workplace as an extension of school and want to impose all kinds of petty rules and regulations on grown adults.

Most people, if treated with a bit of respect, will do their best and be flexible when needed. Managers who are constantly clock watching and rule checking and issuing warnings for this, that and everything just breed resentful staff who will behave like the school children they're being treated as - doing nothing more than absolutely necessary and breaking the rules willy nilly when the boss isn't looking.

I have no loyalty to any employer

I'm guessing you won't be surprised then, if they feel no loyalty towards you.

Yes there are some employers like this on here. Equally or even more so, there appear to be employees who think the company exists for their benefit, and it should agree to all their demands. So it goes both ways.

Glad I'm pretty much a polar opposite to the stereotype! WFH all this year so far due to colds, no problem. Roll in late, roll in early, no problem - timeshift/split hours around and all the work gets all done.

I tell my staff to not come in when they're sick, and definitely not if they're infectious - WFH if they're up to it, or I'll arrange cover and they can go crash out under a duvet until they're capable of useful work again.

There's no point in having people present and not working due to illness and extending their illness by being present, not to mention multiplying it to other people.

Anyone can take leave any time (I'll discuss if there's something major happening, only ever had to insist someone rearrange once in the last five years). Mental health sick days I'm fully supportive. Emergency dash because great-grandma's fallen over and needs picking up, why haven't you already left? Go!

No one takes the piss, because we're all responsible adults.

I haven't seen much evidence of posters thinking the company exists for their benefit. Maybe the odd one here or there, but it's far from a regular thing on here.

I see a lot of posters expecting some reasonable compromise and flexibility in their workplace.

Oh, and DP comes from a work we were both at 25 years ago.

Me too, sooty, me too.

God forbid you have a mind outside of the collective!

Why should anyone be ‘loyal’? We are being used to line the bosses purses usually, it’s how profit works! The employer is not doing the employee some massive by employing them.
I do not behave according to this principle in real life, I’m an arse licker, but I do like to think it sometimes

I can see where you're coming from, but I suppose it depends on your job and the standards expected. If you go into a job where being on time is important (and not necessarily just life or death ones) then being late is a problem. On an extremely rare occasion? Ok, these things happen but even semi-regularly there are jobs where it's not acceptable.

Ditto being off when you have a slight cold or feeling a bit tired or something. If you really are genuinely too sick to work, then take time off and stay off until you are well. But if this is happening frequently, then you do have to accept that this may become an issue for your employer.

I guess it's about balance.

I think many on MN would be annoyed if the school was opening 5-10 minutes late. Many people wouldn't be very understanding if their GP or hospital consultant arrived 15 minutes after they were supposed to have started their surgery or clinic (I have seen complaints on MN about GPs starting or running late). I know from my own experience if you say to patients that you will call at x time and you are even 10 minutes late many people will not be at all happy (even if you preface it with an apology and you have a good reason, such as dealing with an emergency or a previous consultation took longer than expected).

Generally, I think keeping clients waiting, not opening on time etc is something that shouldn't happen often in most workplaces. Obviously, things like hospital and so on where you are dealing with an unpredictable work load this can be difficult (but that is different from not bothering to be in on time).

We have an issue at work where one worker will quite often leave 10 minutes early if her last slot is not filled (and another group of workers can't ever leave early, even if no-one is there t be seen as they work in reception and phones need to be answered and so on until end of the day). The person who is leaving could be required to help in an emergency so not being there for 10 minutes may seem insignificant but it could have an impact on everyone. Also, it is really irritating for the group of staff within the team who can never just leave 10 minutes early. This staff member is also one who gets very irate if anyone ever asks her to work through even 5 minutes of her break (even if she gets 5 minutes on the other end of it) and is very inflexible. She does her own duties to a reasonable level, though never really put herself out for anyone and isa bit lazy. She does, however, frequently want to move her hours around but people's willingness to find ways to work around this has rapidly diminished due to her general attitude. It is leading to tension with the team and now rule changes have had to be put in place that impact everyone as we can't be seen to make rules just for her. I'm sure if you asked her, she'd see it differently.

I think a lot of those posters are just mouthing off. Some of them probably left the workplace years ago and are just theorising because it's something that will never affect them. In real life they probably wouldn't dream of being as ridiculously inflexible as they endorse on here.

I certainly hope not, anyhow, because some posters must be an absolute nightmare to work with if they practise what they preach.

Yet the number of posters who advice, at the slightest thing, that the employee 'just work from home' is astonishing.

I've never understood the attitude that you should be grateful for your job. No private employer hires you for your benefit, it's to maximise their profits. It's a two way thing.
Employers exploit staff far more than the other way round. It really amazes me the way some people will go in early, work extra for no extra pay and just keep quiet and accept any changes imposed on them by an employer.

Agreed! A job is just that. A JOB! I have no loyalty to any employer

Well, let's hope that you don't expect any from them

I think its because there are seem to be an awful lot of shift workers on MN, which I think does make flexibility in the workplace more difficult when it comes to being late etc.

Yes and thanks to whichever ill person was out and about and gave me the flu I've spent the last week and a half dealing with. I really wish people wouldn't come into work ill, expecting a medal and then inflict it on everyone around them, some of whom have immune system problems

polarbearflavour
I have no loyalty to any employer

I do hope you're not one of those people who complain about the so-called 'gender pay gap'.

I think it's all about being a grown up - grown ups make an effort to be on time whenever possible, and they can decide for themselves whether or not they are too sick to work. If you can't trust someone to make those decisions then either you have a crappy employee or you are a crappy boss.

My favourite is the old "school isn't childcare" - "your child's inset day isn't your employer's problem" - "SAHMs with school-aged children should get a job" one. You think like, well, which one is going to give because they can't all be right? Or maybe we just have to accept the fact that working life for parents is a series of more or less difficult compromises? There seem to be a lot of people on here these days who just can't tolerate shades of grey - it's all black and white thinking and snappy phrases in place of reason. "School isn't daycare", "pregnancy isn't an illness". They seem to lack the idea that there might be some more subtlety to making these judgements than just reducing things to one word categories. I don't know what that is about, do they not know how to think more flexibly or do they just not want to?

In general I consider MN to be an odd parallel universe where there is random ire that is usually reserved for despotic dictators being levelled at a toilet brush

However I am realising some of the insane views about employment here I am seeing in my teams .... the level of random rule creating and at the same time entitlement seems to get worse

I've had staff who were surprised to be pulled up on being 4 hours late to work because they felt they were doing me a favour turning up ( there was a comment about not owing any loyalty to me on that one...i pointed out that I wasn't asking for loyalty simply to do the bare bones of her job...like actually turn up!) And others who will go to the effort if attending a meeting to point out someone had misspelled a word on a single form

I particularly laugh at the eating at your desk is disgustingly unprofessional comments on MN

I work in health and social care...we would literally not eat in the day if we couldn't eat and work. I particularly like the ones that insist everyone has a break room...how much do you think local authorities pay us ? We get a kettle and a bin for the tea bags that's about the room we get (and we are higher end !!)

YANBU! Imagine it

You'd hit middle age at 25.

I have no loyalty to any employer

I do hope you're not one of those people who complain about the so-called 'gender pay gap

WTF has the gender pay gap got to do with her comment?

Some odd comments on here.

I expect my employer to employ by the law and their own policies. In return, I do the work that is required and abide by my contract.

My work is not my life. It’s just a job, it doesn’t define me.

We see it time and time again on Mumsnet - posts where a hardworking, employee is shafted by their employer.

Can anyone tell me why I should be loyal?

Polar why the ? My job is very important to me and quite an integral part of who I am. I would say that a lot of people in my industry would feel the same way - we have chosen to work in this industry despite the fact that the pay is often not great (and mainly located in London, which doesn't help). Some vacancies can get upwards of 300 applicants.

RiverTam - good for you.

The vast majority of people have bullshit jobs though.