AIBU to refuse to volunteer (and maybe even email my boss about it)

[Funkyslippers]

Myself and my team work on a term time only basis. We finish for the summer v soon. We've been working from home since lockdown, our normal hours.

We've now been emailed to ask us to volunteer over the summer to go in for a few days to prepare for next academic year but we won't be paid or get time off in lieu. Her words were "I'm relying on your goodwill at this time as I've supported you all over the past few months". Actually I feel it's the other way round! I've barely heard from her in the past few months.

We are under no obligation to go in and I feel like emailing her to say I could go in (but be quite vague about it as I have alot going on over the summer plus childcare) but to say I'm disappointed not to be offered TOIL or pay? I think most of the team feel the same.

I wouldn't ask for volunteers, volunteering needs to be well volunteered!!

If I needed extra help in my business I would ask for help and I would make sure they were rewarded, either paid or find some other way of repaying their efforts. It certainly isn't up to me to decide that my paid staff should start volunteering. That is up to the individual to decide if they are in a position to or even want to offer to volunteer. The moment you ask someone to volunteer is the moment you take free will from them as, yes they can still say no, but if they do it its because they then feel obliged to do it and feel awful for saying no. That is a sure fire way to completely put people off volunteering and not what its about.

People need to want to volunteer.

It's the 'you owe me' attitude and the emotional blackmail that would piss me off.
Anybody who works in education knows that you always end up working beyond your remit
I would probably reply that I have already made commitments for all of the summer break so unfortunately I am unable to volunteer
Be polite

Thanks @Pud2. In France there is far less expectation of teachers to volunteer to take on all the extras that can make school a very special and inclusive experience for so many children.
So many posters are quite clear about not ever volunteering. I think many teachers will start to feel resentful and the altruistic culture may change in schools in future. Being part of a community and helping one another is often a given in schools. There is an expectation that teachers will go on school journeys, often sharing rooms with other members of staff and helping all day and into the evenings. Why do it? The children benefit enormously but most posters on here seem genuinely bemused by the notion of volunteering for the greater good.
I think many teachers already feel unappreciated and some of the comments on here make me see why that is.

No money? I dont work.
That simple
I'd say no without hesitation

It's the "I'm relying on your goodwill at this time as I've supported you all over the past few months" that would piss me off, especially if, as you, say, you don't feel that this is actually accurate.

Either ask me to volunteer or tell me you expect me to come in, but don't ask me to volunteer and add that sort of crap in.

I'm on the fence. If I had been working flat out at home for 6 hours a day, I'd say not unless I was paid. However, if the reality is that I'd been able to condense a lot of work into a shorter day or week, giving me more free time, then I would volunteer a few days that suited me.

As it stands, I have been paid in full while working very little - can't do my job from home - so if I were to be asked, I would agree but be clear that this is a one off due to the current exceptional circumstances.

I think the wording of the request is very clumsy and almost guaranteed to get backs up with the insinuation that boss is "owed" something but if you have had a very light wfh workload with lots of paid free time, she's not wrong.

Nah, I wouldn’t go in for free. I see employment like this. Your employer has ‘bought’ X amount of your time. In my case 37.5 hours a week. Anything I were to do over that they would be getting for free. Er, no way 🤪 They can pay me or I’m not doing it because if I do more then my hourly rate has technically gone down.

@iklboo

Why wouldn't you go in to help out your team? Doesn't sound like thar big an ask. I've done plenty of volunteering in my time as school governor , in fact hours and hours of it, weekends and evenings and help often in a local activity centre for adults with learning difficulties with no expectation of anything in return.

But would you go into your own place of work on a voluntary basis? Choosing to volunteer is different to bring emotionally blackmailed into it.

Yes, because you get an annual salary.

I quite often do "volunteer " hours in addition to my job - but I decide whether to, when and what, and if my employer requires additional hours from me regardless of my preference, then I get TOIL.

YANBU

Be honest, have you really worked your full hours from home? I know I haven't. I've worked every day but lockdown has reduced overall workload. Giving a few hours back during summer would be fair in my case. Schools have been less busy, be honest, did you really work a full schedule?

Ps my teacher friend admits to working only one day a week until June (doing his spot on the key worker rota) and polished off the homeschooling work during that time. He is back now

Ps my teacher friend admits to working only one day a week until June (doing his spot on the key worker rota) and polished off the homeschooling work during that time. He is back now

Ps my teacher friend admits to working only one day a week until June (doing his spot on the key worker rota) and polished off the homeschooling work during that time. He is back now

You’ve spilt his secret 3 times 😉

@Etinox but they are! Teachers are paid for 32.5 hours term time plus 4 weeks holiday a year. The pay is split over 12 months but is not full time, all those summer holidays paid.

As has been said squillions of times on all the Teacher! Teacher! threads ever!

Those who think that TAs have had it easy and should volunteer for free inthe summer holidays, are missing the point that most TAs go over and above their paid hours hours everyday and it could be argued that being paid during lockdown has merely been a rebalancing of the unpaid work they do day in day out.

There has been such a variation around the UK in what has been happening with distance learning and for those of us who have been working over and above it is really frustrating when you hear of teachers and TAs who have done very little to support their learners.

Setting and marking work, phoning learners once or twice a week, worked in the hub, online training courses, delivering i-pads to learners that don't have them, delivering work packs for those who can't access tech for whatever reason, going into school to prepare for the return, visiting learners and standing at the end of the garden to explain how to use our online learning platform, worked through Easter, work through May half term don't tell me I've done fuck all through lockdown and should happily give more of my time and if I don't I'm clearly not a team player - all for my £1007 per month.

My family need me and I need them and for my unpaid 6 weeks they are having me completely and utterly until the hamster wheel starts again in September

I'm relying on your goodwill at this time as I've supported you all over the past few months

It comes down to that. He seems to imply that he has been supportive in some ways. You seem to imply that you've done your job as normal.

Which one is it?

@dontdisturbmenow so the person can’t have done their job if their boss has been supportive? Your question makes no sense.

In the current situation where people are losing jobs so frequently, I would jump at the chance to go above and beyond.

Attempting to extract the question from a school setting (since term time only contracts exist elsewhere such as NHS) I think it depends how you read the request - I would read the phrase about supporting you over the past few months, as code for "I've gone into bat so you guys have kept your jobs" in which case if at all possible I would try and engage. That might need to be "I'm open to helping out on one day but I don't have childcare, is there a way I could help remotely / bring them with me."

If, on the other hand, your industry hasn't been badly affected and you don't think the business is struggling / redundancy is on the table, and your workload has been heavy, and your manager hasn't been flexible about home-working over the past few months, I might feel differently.

@BlueRabbitWasNaughty

In the current situation where people are losing jobs so frequently, I would jump at the chance to go above and beyond.

But we have gone above and beyond, we have worked through Easter unpaid and May half term unpaid.

We go above and beyond every day and all we asking for is to have our unpaid time off work to actually switch off and focus on ourselves and our families.

Have they been supportive though op?

I think it depends on my role in the company...if I was a junior grade on 13k a year it would be a solid no from me. If I was on a higher pay grade, and treated well in the company I would be more than happy to go in so for me it would depend on those factors.

I'm term time only + 2 weeks so I'll be going in for a few days anyway, but in my own circumstances if I could bring my kids in or drop them off at granny's easily then I would consider it. But I've had significantly less work. The OP might not have. I would not give up existing plans or pay for childcare for just goodwill.