To stick to designated day off?

[HandbagsnGladrags]

Am early 50's and work in a mid senior high pressure role in financial services. I've just dropped to a 4 day working week and taken a 20% pay cut. There was initially some resistance to me dropping my hours but I eventually got agreement. I've asked for the same day off each week and that was agreed.

Here's the dilemma - on only my second week of the new working pattern, one of my colleagues who was resistant to my drop in hours has put in an overnight stay which would mean me either travelling back home on my day off, or swapping my day off that week.

I don't want to start agreeing to swap days all the time as the whole point of me dropping my hours was to give me a better work life balance and be able to plan things for my non working day. WIBU to say that my day off is my day off and not be chopping and changing all of the time?

True @Ginger1982 but it sounded like they really had to be persuaded to agree to the arrangement and now this makes sense why.

The thing is you want to make it work. Your employer presumably has the right to tell you it's not working and request that you go back to your original hours (that's definitely the terms of our flexible working agreements)? But you want to strike the balance of it not taking the piss. I think you will get there, the first bit - and making it work - always takes a bit of trial and error. I recommend trying not to take things too personally, and just be pragmatic about things. If you are as senior as you say you will have a good idea of what's important and what's not (as well as who is important!) and you can adjust yourself accordingly.

That’s harsh do you not recoup the hours from the evening before? Perhaps others are free to go home and that’s why it’s often a Thursday?

I am definitely in the camp of block your calendar but would have hoped that the Thursday meeting problem would have been addressed when deciding my working hours, especially if it’s likely to crop up often.

Dont let the knobber bully you though. Good luck.

If there's a reason for you to attend a Thursday evening event on a regular basis where travel is Friday morning then your manager and whoever else was involved in the flexible working request should have granted dropping to 0.8, but not approved your day off to be Friday.

It's unreasonable to expect that everyone else changes the day because you've chosen not to work Friday.

It's reasonable if they're every few months for you to show flexibility in a senior role, but having two booked in in January is a problem and you're going to quickly find you're out of the loop on things.

If arrogant male colleague is starting to book them frequently after you've gone part time, you need to discuss with your manager to find out what is going on. After all, even if you were full time, it seems a huge waste of productive working hours allowing several people to have a lazy Friday every other week.

^If there's a reason for you to attend a Thursday evening event on a regular basis where travel is Friday morning then your manager and whoever else was involved in the flexible working request should have granted dropping to 0.8, but not approved your day off to be Friday.

It's unreasonable to expect that everyone else changes the day because you've chosen not to work Friday^

I agree with this. You could have equally had Monday, to keep the long weekend, or Wednesday to break up the week as your non working day. I know that Friday is a popular non working day for part time staff, but there are knock on effects of this. As well as it disrupting return travel from these work events, often cover is affected because too many people are off, so it reduces the opportunity for full time staff to take Fridays as annual leave because a certain number of people need to be in.

@springerspanielpuppy nope - no recouping of hours from partner socials. At least not formally. But I take the odd hour back here and there informally.

Knobber asked again this morning if I can go to this week's event as someone else has dropped out and they have a spare place. Errrr nope.

Is he thick?
What does he not understand???

He's a man. And he thinks it's a treat to take clients out. Have been doing it for years and I'm over it.

I can see that there is a potential problem with changing from training events on Thursdays if that has been the norm up to now. Other attendees will probably have arranged other activities (e.g. evening classes, voluntary and sport activities, babysitting) on the assumption that they need to keep Thursdays free. At the very least if your employers are going to change that they are going to need some reasonably wide consultation.

Sorry to read that your time is not being respected.