To turn down a job after accepting because they lied re. hours

[MrsH99]

This is my first post although I have been a long-time lurker. I wasn't sure whether to post this here or on the 'Jobs' section.

Anyways, I have been looking for part-time work for a little while now and recently applied to a well-known budget shop that sell mostly frozen food (hint: It's not Iceland). It was advertised as part-time, three days over seven. At the interview I was told it would be 20 hours a week over four days and was even given the days and times of work. I thought great, that's exactly what I'm looking for, the hours was the biggest appeal to me of the job. I'm not really fussed what I'm doing work-wise or where it is, it's the hours that is most important to me.

I was offered the job and accepted. Went in on Wednesday to hand in some documents and asked again about hours so I was clear in my head what days and times it was going to be, was told again the same hours as at the interview.

Then on Friday, the manager casually mentioned in a conversation while I was in doing my training would I be okay doing a 7:30 to 7:30. It soon transpired they want me to do 12-hour shifts on a fairly regular basis i.e. at least a few weeks in the month from the sounds of it. Also, I have now just seen the rota for the next three weeks and every week I am working at least 30 hours, not the 20 it was advertised.

I'm totally gutted and feel really tricked that they weren't upfront about this at the interview. I do remember something being said at the interview about being "fully flexible" but I thought this meant with regard to the days and times worked and was fine with it - I didn't take it to mean that they could put me down to work any number of hours in a week. I can be fairly flexible with regards to days and the hours worked in that day, I just can't manage to work anywhere near full-time hours right now.

If it was up to me alone, I would tell them now that I do not want the job as it is not as advertised but my husband and SIL are putting pressure on me to accept it even though it won't work for us! I feel totally trapped into accepting this job because if I don't it is going to cause a huge argument with DH .

I suppose this post is a bit of a rant as I don't have anyone else to get opinions from - I don't have any friends as I don't enjoy socialising and I don't really have any family to speak to either.

AIBU in feeling so disappointed and angry that they blatantly lied about the hours? Are these sort of shady antics commonplace now in low-paid jobs (from my experience job-hunting recently, it seems they are or maybe I'm just unlucky).

So as not to dripfeed, the reason I want to work part-time is not to do with childcare or benefits. It's because I suffer what I suppose you could term 'gynaecological issues' and suffer with chronic migraines and I find it more manageable to work part-time especially when I have a lot of doctors and hospital appointments and am having a particularly bad time re. pain. DH acts supportive in the sense of running me around to appointments and taking time off when I've had surgeries (I've had four in the past five years) but I often get the feeling that below the surface he doesn't really quite 'get' how bloody difficult it is to do 'normal' things or just carry on when I'm in pain on a weekly basis or so dizzy from migraines I can barely stand up.

Any opinions welcome as I really don't have anyone else to speak to about this.

If life will be tight and no money for fun I would take the job while you look for something else.

Also maybe it's a short term thing getting 30 hours and it will settle.

Initially I thought you should turn it down. But then you said money is tight - so I would accept and go to work BUT- apply for anything that you think will remotely work for you. (I totally get why you want part time). That way you have some money, and it’s easier to find a job if you e already got one. (Daft but true)
Oh, and do tell sil to bug off out of your business.

I wonder if doing the job for a month or so would be beneficial in terms of work experience, helping you get a better job elsewhere?
I certainly do know mothers who work for a supermarket and can do a certain amount of hours but no more or it buggers up the benefits they need to live on (and hours aren't permanent so they couldn't just come off benefits) so I do think there a jobs that don't expect full time hours. You will need to be a bit more forthcoming though OP to not be treated as a push over either by work or your family.

This happened to my dsis a few yeara ago. She specified at interview that she would only be able to do Mon-Fri, 10-2. If that was going to be a problem, she wouldn't be able to work there.

It was all agreed but, like you, OP, they changed the rota. Dsis is pretty bolshie and refused to work outaide of her agreed hours but was under increasing pressure to do 6 am starts and overnight stock taking because "everyone is expected to row in" and "it's not fair if you get special treatment". In her case, this was impossible because she had 2 young kids and no childcare.

She left because the stress of the job and the pressure to be "flexible" started impacting her health.

Can you say that , as discussed at your interview, you're only able to do 20 hours pw, and although you're prepared to be flexible as which/ how many days, you're not able to do more than 20 hours because of your health. The fact that you've been allocated way over this makes you wonder whether your manager has been given the necessary info, so you're flagging it up now, at the earliest opportunity, that you won't be doing over 20 hours this week or in the future.
Then see what they say.

Can you say that , as discussed at your interview, you're only able to do 20 hours pw, and although you're prepared to be flexible as which/ how many days, you're not able to do more than 20 hours because of your health. The fact that you've been allocated way over this makes you wonder whether your manager has been given the necessary info, so you're flagging it up now, at the earliest opportunity, that you won't be doing over 20 hours this week or in the future.
Then see what they say.

This is good advice. The fact the person before you did it has absolutely no bearing on this at all. You were offered hours that suited you, confirmed them several times, they should honour that agreement.

YANBU I had exactly the same situation. I told the employer from the start at interview that I couldn't do mornings. When I got given my hours for a week they entailed a 6am start or something! Then they said that my contract specified flexibility and I needed to look at it. True it says that, but I said I couldn't do mornings from the first time I spoke to them. I was flexible in that I was prepared to do any nights till eleven or whatever, which some other people no doubt wouldn't do.

I know how disappointing this is- so sorry you had this experience :( If you can't do it, you can't do it.

On to the next application and offer etc. Best wishes. xxxxx

.

Talk to the manager, tell them that you can not commit to working more than 20 hours a week on a regular basis - if that’s what they need you will have to turn the job down. They might agree, if not look for something else.
Explain your thinking to your husband and tell your SIL that you were happy to hear her opinion but you have to make your own decisions.

... the person who had the job before me didn't have a problem with it...
That old chestnut!
A huge argument with your husband sounds infinitely preferable to working for these dodgy, deceitful, people and their crude manipulation techniques.

Why don’t you learn to drive OP?
Surely it’s an essential life skill and you would have a greater selection of contract jobs to choose from.

I have had this in a previous job. I was employed on an 8 hour set days and times contract. Think I only did my contract hours a couple of times. I was always rota'd for 3 or 4 times more. I queried it with management and ACAS and was told that they could do that because of the flexibility clause written in the contract.

I have been job hunting recently and found that so many companies now advertise tiny hours but expect you to be fully flexible and work more at the drop of a hat. How do they expect people to support themselves with a job like that. One week you may be working the base hours of 6, next week it may be 40, the week after 10. Something needs to be done about this.

I'd decline the job. Retailers mostly need staff who can work flexible hours these days and that sounds like it won't work for you.

I think your bigger issue is your dh not fully understanding your medical needs.

Someone upthread mentioned learning to drive as a pathway to improving job prospects. It can certainly help but if you aren’t in well paid employment finding the requisite £25 an hour for lessons (what my DD is paying in Greater London) for as many lessons as it takes (over 100 for me!!) is tough. Then you need to buy, tax, fuel and insure a car. Depending on where you live you might have to factor 9n the cost of a parking permit at home and parking fees at your place of work. And it costs over £60 a time to take the test!

For a minimum or low wage PT job, funding all that lot could easily cost in excess of a years take home pay.

Honestly, reading between the lines here, I think your h is fed up of being the main earner in the house, and you having excuses of not being able to work. Learn to drive, speak to the company and say you only agreed to do 20hours (then do it- not quit).

I've been thinking about it since last night but I still can't make up my mind. Honesty, I don't want to do it because I've had a look at the rota again this morning and it's been changed again. The shifts are just total crap. They told me, twice, that I would have Sundays and Mondays and Fridays off but no - the rota has been done up to the middle of November and every week I am off Sunday but then working Monday and off a day during the week so I've never got two days off together. But it's the hours I'm most nervous about - most of the shifts are finishing at 730pm at night and then in again to open at 7am the next morning. Next weekend they want me to do six days in a row, all between six and eight-hour shifts alternating mornings and evenings then culminating on the sixth day with a ten-hour shift 830am to 630pm at night, off the next day and then back in the following day for it all again. I don't know if it's me and I just need to toughen up or whatever but this is totally not what I signed up for. I thought I was getting six-hour shifts on Tuesday, Thursday, Wednesday and Saturday, they even specified the times those shifts would be at the interview.

I had decided last night that I was just going to phone them today and tell them I wasn't taking the job because the hours were not as they specified and that I had never agreed or signed up to work full-time hours doing 10 to 12 hour shifts on a regular basis. Now, this morning, I'm unsure again and feel I'm going to have to do it until I get something else which could take months. I'll speak to the manager tomorrow and bring up the fact that it's not the hours I was told but I know they're just going to come back with that "fully flexible" line again.

The most absolutely depressing, gut-wrenching thing about this whole situation is that before my endometriosis destroyed my life, I was working towards working in the legal field. I had just finished my law degree at university when the problems really began to affect me on a daily basis and of course then I decided to postpone doing my post-grad qualification that I had to do to be a solicitor and I've never gone back to it and it's too late now because my degree will be so out of date (law changes all the time afterall). It is utterly soul-destroying to think where I could have been now and no, instead I'm having to apply for jobs like this where you get taken advantage of.

To the poster who mentioned about learning to drive - I've been thinking about this for a while now but it's finding the money to do it that's the issue. It's at least £25 a lesson around here. It's something I am seriously thinking about though as it would make it easier to get to jobs.

Thanks for all your replies - it's good to hear everyone's opinions and especially from the posters who've had/know someone who has had similar experiences with other employers. It's depressing that this kind of thing seems to happen so frequently but it's good to know it's not just me who's experienced it.

This is not remotely a part time job. Surely with your level of education there is something else you could do to bring in money, it seems to be like you'd be taking a full time job from someone who actually needs/wants it. Do part time office jobs not exist any more? If you took the job and your husband saw it was wearing you down, would he notice, or just be glad of the extra money?

I'd speak to acas about whether endometriosis is a disability (I suspect it can be classed as such) and go back and speak to employer about why you only want the 20 hours.

re looking at nhs/public sector jobs - I would second them being good flexible employers (in the main- non clinical ) look for admininstration clerical staff type jobs the money is often not fantastic but your opportunities for moving /progressing are better once you are in the organisation as they like experience - nhs jobs is a good site and you can search by area.....

re your current job - can you contact them today? if not i would go in monday and say cant do the rostered hours.. can do 20 as discussed and see what they say...if no flexibility then leave...could you do 2x12 hour - that maybe more useful for them and clearer for you ..in teh short term

OP

If your background is legal then have a look a the Legal Executive route. It’s a way into a legal role and you can ultimately qualify as a solicitor.
You may be able to get paralegal work.
www.cilex.org.uk/study

Maybe take this job for now but explore other options.

@pandaintheporridge I live in quite a small town and even retail jobs are hard to come by. I can commute a fair distance by public transport as buses etc. are not bad around here. Part-time office jobs don't come up all that often but I was at an interview two weeks ago for a job I desperately wanted that was an office-type job in an opticians. I thought the interview went well but funnily enough I didn't get it. The problem is that my degree is a good few years old now and all employers seem to see is the retail job I last had where I was there for three years and disregard the fact that while I was studying for my degree and before I went to university as a mature student that I worked in law in an admin role for 12 years. Therefore I feel I've been 'pigeonholed' as that's the most recent job on my CV. Re. DH - honestly I don't know if he'd notice or care and that's the truth, he has this attitude that you should just suck it up for the money but he is a lot older than me - I am 32, he is 52 so I don't know if this is a generational thing or not. His parents were the same and worked like dogs doing crazy unsociable hours in factories while DH and his sis were growing up as this seemed to be the norm then so I think this is where he gets it from. His parents even shipped him and his sis to live with their gran growing up so that they could work more hours. I think these sort of hours are normal to him.

Re. disability - I didn't say a thing at the interview about my endo. as I've done that in the past and it's an immediate red-flag for employers, you can almost see it on their faces the moment you mention it that you're not going to hear from them again so I've stopped mentioning it and tried to mitigate it by only applying for part-time jobs with hours I think I could manage. I have a feeling from when I worked in law that an employer actually has to be aware of your disability in advance or they don't have to do a thing to help you but I could be wrong. I'll look into it but it's not a route I'd be keen to go down with a new employer - rightly or wrongly I was actually kind of hoping not to have to tell them at all.

@averythinline if they would allow me to do two 12-hour shifts I would do that for definite and just suck up the fact it's two very long shifts but I already know they'll say no. One thing I have picked up is that they are understaffed so I can't see them agreeing to have me in just two days. Which is a pity as two 12 hour shifts would be something I'd do.

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude Thank you, I will defo look into that. Being back working in the legal sector is really where I want to be.

That sounds like a difficult situation. I worked in retail in my early 20s when I was studying and always found them to be quite accommodating. Everyone had pretty set hours. They knew I was a student so would never have put me down to work during the week without speaking to me first. There were always enough people wanting extra shifts too so it generally worked well.

I think speak to them and explain, and if they won't have it, walk away. In most cases I would say it's better to be in work and looking than out of work altogether but you do need to consider your health.

If you think you are pigeonholed, a job in FF certainly won't help I'm afraid. I'm assuming you aren't able to move, so the ability to drive becomes increasingly more important. Even at the end of a working day, getting into a car to go home will make you less tired than a long commute. Is there a library where you are? The ones near me are always looking for library assistants.

I think this is pretty standard in retail to be honest. I used to work retail. My contracted hours were 8 (back in my student days) and I'd usually always end up working 16-20 per week instead. 8 hours was just my contract but you are expected to work more.