Boss has complete disregard for policies and the law

[Gremle]

That’s not even my UR !

My AIBU is the fact that all ‘higher ups’ so Management, HR, even Union, etc basically look for loop holes, grey areas, ambiguous wording that allow the crazy Managers to make a career of getting away with shitty behaviour (yes, it’s gone on for years).

Was IBU to expect anyone to say ‘hang on, this isn’t right ..?’

There is no point working somewhere like that - it will grind you down.

They're not that bright, giving employees like you direct visibility of their lawlessness.

It depends on what it is, if you can pursue it further, or look for another job.

Resign from the Government. Go on I'm as Celebrity or stuff.

Hmm. If you're finding that even the union are suggesting that the manager's behaviour is lawful, then I think you've got to at least question whether your assessment of the manager's behaviour is correct. What sort of thing is the manager doing, and what are the justifications that you're being given?

I think you’ll get better responses with specifics right now nobody can say who is unreasonable.

That being said you’re clearly not happy and it sounds like nothing is changing so it’s going to be on you to change something… either stop caring or find a new job.

I found a new job don’t worry 😉

Its been such an eye opener, any policy can be circumnavigatied by a phase like ‘where possible’, ‘timely’, anything is open to interpretation.
Even where things are black and white, Managers are enabled to get away with bad behaviour. The higher you go, the more they close ranks.

@fescue yes I am talking about local government, how did you guess!

No idea..if they're asking you to do your job, not unreasonable. If they informally want you to work on Sundays, like my private sector job does, which actually pays all those taxes that keep governments going, yeah I guess that would be unreasonable. As indeed it is in my situation, but I don't blame managers. I blame the fact we really need to make a bigger profit soon, otherwise I have no job. So I have to work. Realise that's not really a concern for public sector. 🙄

I mean “where possible” and “timely” are put in policies for a reason so I can’t say that a manager following that would be out of line.

I think just be prepared for the next job (and the one after that and the one after that) to have the same thing. I mean you still haven’t given examples so still no judgement from me either way.

For example, if your employer has a policy that says “employees should be paid timely, when possible “ the no that’s not reasonable. On the other hand a policy that says ‘all effort should be made to approve, if possible, annual leave requests in a timely manner” then yes that’s absolutely reasonable.

On the other hand a policy that says ‘all effort should be made to approve, if possible, annual leave requests in a timely manner” then yes that’s absolutely reasonable

company policy is there to ensure compliance to legislation. If managers habitually fail to approve annual leave, which is a statutory obligation, and the employee is left guessing as to whether they can take their leave or not, that isn't OK.

Fair enough but the OP still hasn’t given examples of what the problem is. And even with the AL example I’m guessing that the law doesn’t say that managers have approve all AL requests immediately 🤷‍♀️

Like what? The law is the law. If they brake it, you can sue.

'If possible' doesn't mean that refusing when not possible is breaking the law.