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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To be really annoyed when my work contact me on a day off??

44 replies

Sunflowers2811 · 09/10/2019 11:55

It's my only day off this week and I get contacted about swapping a shift. I absolutely hate it when they do this!! I don't think that your work should contact you on your day off unless it is an emergency but AIBU? I was in such a good mood this morning and now I just feel guilty that I can't change my shift (already have plans and would mean day and night shifts in the same week) and its really brought my mood down!

OP posts:

Brefugee · 09/10/2019 13:00

awkward situation for your friend - perhaps you could tell them that in future they should say no?

Drum2018 · 09/10/2019 13:06

Why would you feel guilty? You were not rostered on, you are entitled to your day off.

Dyrne · 09/10/2019 13:07

@Sunflowers2811 surely that is a breach of GDPR? You gave your personal data to somebody for a specific use - for work to then use it to contact you for a work related matter is completely unacceptable, surely?

vodkaredbullgirl · 09/10/2019 13:07

Ive had work contact me on my days off, if someone went off sick.
What really annoyed me is when i was on annual leave, they have rung to ask if i can work. 3x this has happened, 3rd time i ignored the call. Brought it up in a meeting, now ive had no calls while off.

sugar88 · 09/10/2019 13:19

My old workplace used to ring me up on my days off (including weekends) and tell me to log in and work for no pay. And if you didn't do it, it was massively frowned upon and would reflect on your performance review badly.

Needless to say I got the f out of there.

YANBU

rainingallday · 09/10/2019 13:26

@Sunflowers2811

YANBU OP. This pisses me off too. it used to happen to me, but not so much now. DH has always got it a LOT though. So much so, that when we moved house (several years ago) and changed our service provider for our phone and internet, he got another mobile phone, and kept the number to himself, and also they never got our new home number.

THEN they started hounding him on fucking facebook! So he switched off 'chat' and so they'd post on his board; DAVE can you come in tomorrow morning on a 7 til 12?!' On his fucking facebook page. His manager is not even on his friends list; she got a colleague of his (who IS on it) to send him a pissing message.

So he quickly deleted all 13 work colleagues he had on his facebook, blocked them, then deactivated his facebook. He told everyone he had cancelled it, kept it off for a week, then reactivated it, and changed his name on there (so say, if his name was Dave Dill, he changed it to DeDe Jones (Jones being his mother's maiden name.)

His boss keeps moaning that she cannot contact him when he's off as she has no phone number for him. He keeps saying he hasn't got one. No home number and no mobile number. She actually asked for MINE a few months ago. He told her I would go batshit if he gave my number away!

I don't know for sure, but I don't think it's LAW that an Employer has to have your phone number. I am pretty sure though, that they are breaking some kind of 'privacy' or 'right to quiet enjoyment' law by hounding someone on their bloody facebook page, asking them to come into work (on their day off!)

DH and I have suffered also in the past, by our Employers messaging/ringing us in the middle of a 10 to 14 day holiday-leave period, asking us to come into work. We have been abroad a few times, but some of the times we have been holidaying in the UK, and they seriously do not 'get' why we won't drop everything, (halfway into our 10 to 14 day holiday leave,) and leave our family holiday and come into work!

I was even messaged to come in, when we were in fucking Egypt a few summers ago, as it was the 8th of our 10 day holiday. I was asked 'is it possible for you to leave a day or 2 early....' Unbelievable!

Thing is, some of us love our family and friends, and the time we spend with them, a LOT more than we love work! I work to live, I do not live to work!!!

savingshoes · 09/10/2019 13:53

I agree. Change ur settings on your mobile so your network is off and Wi-Fi is on. That way calls can't come through.
You are entitled to a work/life balance.

Tensixtysix · 09/10/2019 14:01

Years ago I used to be a home carer and was a 'bank' worker. I always told them that I couldn't do Sundays.
But without fail, every single week they'd try and get me to work on a Sunday and after 8 months they said that I had to work 7 days or I'd be sacked.
Ignored them and they never tried it.
Gave it up after a year as they started to say that I was not flexible enough as I didn't dedicate myself to the company.
Tw@ts, no wonder people don't want to work in care.

bloodywhitecat · 09/10/2019 14:04

Our manager used to call us on our days off so she didn't have to call us on her day off. I used to ignore calls on my day off unless I knew it wasn't work related.

mabelisthebest · 09/10/2019 14:05

You got a WhatsApp message asking to swap shifts. I’m surprised that has managed to ruin your day off!

Grumpyperson · 09/10/2019 14:08

Turn the notifications on Whatsapp off and then you will only see a message from a particular person when you choose to look. I do it with groups, as there would be a notification all the time otherwise.

zzzzzzzz12345 · 09/10/2019 14:11

Why can’t you ignore a whatsapp? Turn off that infernal thing that tells people youve read their message or whe you were last online and you’re laughing. Why anyone would want to be that accountable is beyond me.

adaline · 09/10/2019 14:15

I don't have a work phone, only a personal phone and they got a friend of mine to WhatsApp me not called me. So I wouldnt have been able to avoid it.

Of course you can avoid it. You're under no obligation to reply to people's messages!

Toastymash · 09/10/2019 14:17

Don't feel guilty. You did nothing wrong.

Original poster

Sunflowers2811 · 09/10/2019 14:21

@adaline I meant that I couldn't avoid seeing it as I was using WhatsApp to talk to friends and family. It was in response to everyone saying why didn't you just not answer the call.

OP posts:

lovelygreenjumper · 09/10/2019 14:34

As a pp said, I'm afraid on too many cases the idea of 'flexible working' is being used as a way to make people feel they should be contactable all the time. In a previous job we were all given It equipment etc/secure log ins etc to enable us to work from any computer/tablet anywhere we were. This was sold as a step forward in making it easier to work flexibly and enable us to fit work around family etc. In reality it meant my boss expecting me to take calls and answer e-mails at all hours and no excuse to not have the info to hand etc (as we could access files remotely). So no time to actually switch off. This included calls from clients at nearly midnight and e-mails asking for me to 'just have a quick look when you get a minute' at documents during my maternity leave when they knew that I was quite unwell. Switching off work phone/not checking e-mails was met with a rather shitty stern call from the boss asking me to make sure work calls/e-mails were forwarded to my personal phone. Needless to say I am pleased to be away from that, but I suspect more and more workplaces are the same

Toddlerteaplease · 09/10/2019 22:34

We got given iPods at work to do observations on. It also meant we could access emails at home.
It's taken me years to stop checking my emails during annual
Leave!

LunasOrchid · 09/10/2019 22:45

You can mute conversations on WhatsApp so you can avoid them

thepeopleversuswork · 09/10/2019 22:48

LOL. I don't think I've ever had a day off in this industry without being contacted about something. I had a whole day's leave cancelled last week purely because of volume of work.

It depends what you're being asked to do. If you're being asked to do a whole extra shift or work for hours from home, yes its cheeky.

But answering a call or responding to an email, nah. It's part of life and won't hurt you. We need to woman up about this a bit.

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