I am a single parent. Before I went on maternity leave I was in the office once a month on average. There was a general idea that we should try and go in if we could but I was never pulled up on it and everyone worked from home in this way, it was accepted. On maternity leave I was told this continued, even less office time than before with months passing sometimes with nobody going in. We all have teams etc and remote working is effective.
Since I was on maternity leave my manager left. Two new managers have joined, a couple of people have left in the team and basically it’s like I’ve gone back to a new company in some ways
Getting to the point.. my new supervisor is asking that I go into the office once a week. I am struggling so much financially and whilst I know this isn’t the company’s problem, I did not expect this when I chose nursery and chose to return to work with the company. It costs around 40 quid a time to get into the office as I have to drive to a train station, park, get the train and then a tram and pay extra for dc at nursery to stay late.
Not only this but I am under so much pressure to keep the house running and sort dc out etc with zero help from anyone else (dad lives 200 miles away and sees dc once a month). Do I have rights to refuse to do this? I am not saying I would never go in but this is totally different to how I was working for over two years before maternity leave. It’s not just the cost but the stress and organisation of getting to the office when it makes no difference to output of work. I feel like giving up.