Work one AIBU

[Covidbegone]

So I was asked to help out with a project months ago, but in the final stages, the editing down and smartening up stages. The people I’m helping have a reputation for being late to hand work in. The original lady who was liaising with them left her post before they got it to her. When she left she apologised to me and explained how long she’d been waiting and they were notorious for this.

Anyway new liaison lady comes on board. She gives them a deadline to work to. I go to her and explain that the deadline she has provided is in the middle of the Easter hols and I’ll be off as I have young kids. I ask if I can have the work a few days before as they will literally need the work on my return from A/L not leaving me any time to actually help out. This still leaves them a good few weeks to do the work. Anyway they complain they have not enough time. I advise them I can still help if they give me a day or 2 prior to leave.

A/L time arrives. I go on leave, no sign of the work. I return to work this week only to discover in the interim that the liaison lady has taken the job to my colleague who also has young children and is on A/L. My colleague however has done the work. I understand that that is her choice, however I feel completely undermined. It makes me look bad that I’m not willing to give up A/L for work, which tbf I’m not in this instance (they were given months and months to get something to me). I imagine that my colleague perhaps does not know the full story of repeated requests for work to be handed in by the original lady or myself. With all that in mind, would I be unreasonable to raise this with her? I just feel so undermined

[quote Covidbegone]@GreenWillow I’m relieved I don’t work for you.

I have quite a unique job where work gets thrown at me from all angles. If they stopped my A/L to meet deadlines, I’d never be allowed time off. The problem is there aren’t enough of my job type in this organisation which is an issue that has been raised time and time again (not by me).

I like the fact that the team that missed their deadline by 2 months appear to have no accountability in any of this, however at a drop of a hat I’m supposed to ditch my plans and fit in [/quote]
You never said that you were supposed or expected to ditch your plans,

what you said in your OP is that I return to work this week only to discover in the interim that the liaison lady has taken the job to my colleague

so as you were unavailable someone else did the work.

You make it sound like one of these people who try to mess everything up to be sure they look indispensable.

OP, you seem very passive about the whole thing. Blame it on the management. You need to go to management with a proposed solution. Put together a list of missed deadlines due to insufficient staffing. Propose some other solution. But don't grumble that they had to find someone else to do your work at the last minute.

[quote Covidbegone]@GreenWillow I’m relieved I don’t work for you.

I have quite a unique job where work gets thrown at me from all angles. If they stopped my A/L to meet deadlines, I’d never be allowed time off. The problem is there aren’t enough of my job type in this organisation which is an issue that has been raised time and time again (not by me).

I like the fact that the team that missed their deadline by 2 months appear to have no accountability in any of this, however at a drop of a hat I’m supposed to ditch my plans and fit in [/quote]
But you weren't asked to ditch your plans to fit in! You told them you were on annual leave so they got someone else to do the work. You seem to feel as though you're being hard done by, but that's not the case. FWIW, I don't think you should've given up your AL, no one should be forced to, but at the same time you can't be unhappy that they got someone else to meet the new deadline.

the normal reaction is to be grateful things get done while you are on AL and you don't get lumped with double the work when you come back!

Any organisation where things come to a standstill when 1 person goes on leave is doing it completely wrong.

I get where you’re coming from OP, I would probably feel similarly, but you’re over-extrapolating the consequences of her always being golden girl and you looking rigid. She WILL have to take annual leave sometimes, and if she gets in the habit of working in it she will eventually burn out. We’re all human, we’re all doing our best. It was a one-off, try bot to make it mean or lead to something it doesn’t.

@user1636853246842157

She can’t have it both ways. This idea that OP and her colleague should somehow have colluded not to do the work during the Easter break, to prove a point is just laughable.

OP can either keep her annual leave and be shown up by another colleague as happened here, or she has the choice to do a bit of work (maybe from home?) while she’s on AL.

But as an employer you state you want to have it both ways. So why do you find it objectionable in others?

You want to reserve and exercise the right to cancel/dictate when staff use their annual leave under the law, but you don't want to obey the law that requires staff to have a minimum time per annum on rest without undertaking work - which means that they cannot be working whilst on annual leave, they are either working or using annual leave.

So you're a hypocrite and a law-breaking employer. Nice.

The law gives that right to employers, that’s why I have it

Employees are absolutely entitled to annual leave, but I have the right to tell my staff when they can take it, and indeed to cancel it if there is a business need.

In practice, of course I allow my staff to take leave whenever they choose, and have never cancelled someone’s leave.

The point I am making is that OP should consider herself fortunate that her employer has offered her the perk of choosing her own annual leave, and furthermore not cancelled it when there was a clear business need for her to be in to do the work required of her.

The fact that she has this huge perk, well over and above the legally required minimum, yet is still complaining about it is pretty galling to read.

I have to agree with a pp here, and wonder what OP would have liked to happen instead?

Had OP’s employer cancelled her AL, I’m quite sure she would be the first to complain about it.

[quote Covidbegone]@GreenWillow I’m relieved I don’t work for you.

I have quite a unique job where work gets thrown at me from all angles. If they stopped my A/L to meet deadlines, I’d never be allowed time off. The problem is there aren’t enough of my job type in this organisation which is an issue that has been raised time and time again (not by me).

I like the fact that the team that missed their deadline by 2 months appear to have no accountability in any of this, however at a drop of a hat I’m supposed to ditch my plans and fit in [/quote]
So they’re 2 months behind schedule? Yep, that’s annoying, but it’s one of those things.

As I think several pp have now said, you had a choice to either do the work yourself, or keep your AL plans unaffected and have someone else do it.

You have made your choice, now you need to live with the consequences.

If this was my organisation they would have asked to see if anyone minded coming in during their A/L (which they wouldn't lose - they'd get back at another time). If someone said yes, management would be grateful. If everyone said "no", they would have had to apologise and suck it up.
It would in no way reflect on anyone that said "no" as it's accepted that people need leave.

And it would make no difference why people had said "no". If you've booked leave, you have no less right to take it just because you don't have young children (which is why OP having young children is irrelevant).

I agree with you OP in that a workplace that allows (and possibly encourages?) people to work during their a/l is not a place I’d want to be.

Those posters saying it’s up to it your colleague whether she works on a/l and it’s nothing to do with you need to think about workplace dynamics. I’ve seen it happen in teams where a couple of people who genuinely don’t mind working out of hours or on a/l set an unspoken precedent that everyone should do this. It would then take a very brave person to come along and say ‘I’m on leave for 2 weeks, I won’t be looking at emails at all”. You then a race to the bottom with people sending emails at all hours, never taking proper leave, etc.

@HerculesMulligann

I agree with you OP in that a workplace that allows (and possibly encourages?) people to work during their a/l is not a place I’d want to be.

Those posters saying it’s up to it your colleague whether she works on a/l and it’s nothing to do with you need to think about workplace dynamics. I’ve seen it happen in teams where a couple of people who genuinely don’t mind working out of hours or on a/l set an unspoken precedent that everyone should do this. It would then take a very brave person to come along and say ‘I’m on leave for 2 weeks, I won’t be looking at emails at all”. You then a race to the bottom with people sending emails at all hours, never taking proper leave, etc.

If people don’t like a culture where efficient working is valued, then they are free to look elsewhere for employment.

I do take your point about a race to the bottom, but that race is what gives businesses their competitive advantage in the marketplace.

There is a lot of legislation that protects employees in this country, it’s not unreasonable for employers to expect to see flexibility and hard work from their staff, within the confines of the law.

Fwiw, nobody is asking anyone to work through AL, just to reschedule a day or two’s AL to be taken at another time.

[quote Covidbegone]@GreenWillow I’m relieved I don’t work for you.

I have quite a unique job where work gets thrown at me from all angles. If they stopped my A/L to meet deadlines, I’d never be allowed time off. The problem is there aren’t enough of my job type in this organisation which is an issue that has been raised time and time again (not by me).

I like the fact that the team that missed their deadline by 2 months appear to have no accountability in any of this, however at a drop of a hat I’m supposed to ditch my plans and fit in [/quote]
What are you talking about? The new deadline was fully accepted by management and no one expected you to drop your plans and fit in. They found someone else to do it instead. They didn’t even suggest you do it.

I think you thought they'd struggle without your help and are just annoyed that they found someone else to do it.

Surely what you do with your leave is up to you, and up to your colleague if she wants to help on her leave? You can't decide what she does or doesn't do, to suit how you think it should be. I have been the one to help out on my leave before.

Some people are very 9-5. Some people will work late from home or go the extra mile. Sometimes it's appreciated, more times not. Dog eat dog. To complain that the company had to find someone else to finish the job while you were on leave is absolutely ridiculous though. Somebody had to do it!
I worked a lot with the US Head Office. They hated how many bank holidays we had. They only had about 10 days holidays, a few bank holidays and they worked all hours of the day and night! We have relatively good employment rights in the UK. I know some EU countries have even better rights, but we're not doing too bad here.

Interestingly OP, can I ask whether you have a partner and if so, when you knew you had an important deadline, was it ever discussed that your partner would take the time off while you worked?

@rawlikesushi

I think you thought they'd struggle without your help and are just annoyed that they found someone else to do it.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head here. I get the feeling that OP was somehow seeking to ‘punish’ the other team for not getting the work to her in good time and it backfired.

I think the issue here is not this project, or the liaison lady, or the colleague’s actions, but the culture this is creating.

A mother of young children has agreed to give up her A/L at short notice to meet a deadline which was jeopardised by other issues upstream.... and I don’t think the OP has said how her colleague felt about that?

This creates a norm, where it is precedented, if not expected, for people to give up their plans at short notice for a deadline.

And no one’s mentioned the pandemic - this is context of us all WFH, home schooling our children, and with studies showing that mother’s are doing the lion’s share of childcare, homeschooling, cooking and cleaning. And young people need extra special mental health TLC after a year that has hammered them.

Yes, I get it that it’s hammered many companies too, and they are try to recuperate. But at the expense of home working young mums?

I get that we are operating in a competitive global marketplace - more so than ever thanks to Brexit - but if we are heading for a Great Reset, pressuring mums to give up time with their children over the school holidays is not really indicative of a culture we want to be part of.

This creates a norm, where it is precedented, if not expected, for people to give up their plans at short notice for a deadline

It’s not just a norm, it’s the legal right of all employers to require this. The WTR reg that gives this right to employers dates from (I think) 1998.

It’s not only expected of an employee, it can be can be forced upon them.

There’s nothing new here.

Well unless you've a partner willing to take on the childcare while you go to work, that's it. We'd all love infinite time off (which I have at the moment as I'm not working lol), but it's not realistic. Demanding roles, particularly in a global working environment, will not always be family-friendly.

I think it’s also worth keeping in mind that public sector working conditions set a sort of floor for private sector companies to trail, and it’s in no one’s interests for public sector working conditions to be degraded, because it’s less likely to be a levelling down, than a degradation in both camps.

If it's a husband and wife and the wife has to take all the AL while MAN doesn't chip in, then that's an issue within the partnership.
It's simply not realistic nowadays to allow for complete flexibility for everyone. Somebody has to work!

Economies exist to serve people and families, not the other way round.

What GreenWillow is suggesting that no one could book flights for a two week all inclusive holiday with any kind of confidence that they wouldn’t be told to cancel that holiday.

Clearly in some industries, where a critical level of service may be required, cancellations may be necessary, but just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it should be normed.

If you choose to prioritise family, as is your right, you have to realise that others won't have the same priorities and that might give them the edge in future for promotions. As you say OP, you both have children which is why you both wanted leave over Easter. You're both women. All things are equal here. You didn't prepare for the work to be done, so someone else had to do it at the last minute.

@Libelula21

Economies exist to serve people and families, not the other way round.

What GreenWillow is suggesting that no one could book flights for a two week all inclusive holiday with any kind of confidence that they wouldn’t be told to cancel that holiday.

Clearly in some industries, where a critical level of service may be required, cancellations may be necessary, but just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it should be normed.

It wouldn't be the norm. I've never in my entire career had anything cancelled at short notice. We have however had a blanket ban on certain dates which were business critical.

I've been in places where they would have had the cheek to ring me while I was on leave demanding to know why the work hadn't been done or asking me to log in to send on emails etc.! I was in low level jobs at the time! I didn't last long there.