Completely shafted over in the christmas rota

[Mysticcatmum]

I work in a call centre

Everyone has to work 2 out of the 3 bank holidays, I put in my preferred date of Xmas off

I have been scheduled to work Xmas day, new years eve and day

I then have the parents of toddlers asking me to cover their Christmas eve shifts as I am 'childless'. I have found out that the same people do infact have off Xmas day

Apologies, more of a rant but AIBU to be sick of the mentality of 'christmas is for kids'?! Despite me adoring the holiday

Sorry OP but 111 is an essential service and you knew when you took the job about working Christmas. You haven’t been shafted at all.

It's not heartless and I'm a parent.

If you want Christmas with your kids, don't take a job where you have to work Christmas. It's that simple.

It’s really not.

Anyone who think their Christmas plans are automatically more important, year on year pisses people off. It just so happens that when it comes to Christmas, it’s often parents who believe that due to them being parents their Christmas’s should be priorities for many years.

I used to have a colleague who wanted to travel home for Christmas and so wanted Christmas off every year. She believed her being home every year should have been everyone’s priority and they should be happy to work Christmas to facilitate it. That annoyed people. She didn’t have children.

But it’s a fact that when it comes to Christmas alot of people think like you. That people with kids should be everyone else’s priority year after year and that your Christmas is more special and more important than theirs.

It should be a case of taking it turns. It’s really that simple.

My first year working in a group home I started in October. I worked
Christmas Eve 4-11 sleep in
Christmas Day 7-4
Boxing Day 7-4
New Years Eve 4-11 sleep in
New Years Day 7-4
The person who did the rota did no Christmas or New Year shifts. I only realised how unfair she had been the following year when the manager asked me which special shift I wanted to take on. Those special shifts being all the ones I had done the previous year.

My child will only be a young child visited by Father Christmas for a short few years that isn’t a feeling that is a statement of fact.

Of course. But you’re unlikely to be the only parent in your team.

There have been something like 20 young children of the people I work with, over the last decade. That’s a lot of “short few years”, and it’s how I ended up working 7 consecutive Xmases. Because every parent on the team was only concerned with their own situation, and all of them wanted to preserve the magic for the short few years.

Just say no to working Christmas eve.

Or swap Christmas eve for New year's day with someone. Make sure they stick to their end of the bargain and management are really clear that you won't be working NYD.

I also think that those younger people without dc are someone's child and we'll want to see family at Christmas whatever the age. I don't think parents deserve precedence. The only exception is single parents without childcare but they are rare and wouldn't do such an inflexible job.

I don’t actually think parents should have Christmas off every year as I made it quite clear when I said I don’t think it should be company policy.

What I think would be nice it people were be willing to help parents out the same way they would help others out instead of raging about entitlement.

I don’t have an elderly father because he died young, if someone were to ask me to cover for them because it might be their father’s last Christmas I wouldn’t obviously fly into a rage.

But if another person said their child would be upset if they missed Christmas could I cover people seem to think that’s a more justifiable reason to become enraged about entitlement.

We all have needs but only parents citing needs that seems to be particularly rage inducing to some.

Fair point as I said I don’t think it should be company policy tor this exact reason.

Asking someone to do it as a one off, which it would be if their father is dying isn’t usually an issue.

Because the person is dying. Do you really believe missing one of your children’s Christmas morning is the same as someone spending the last Christmas their parent will ever have with them?

you said ‘My child will only be a young child visited by Father Christmas for a short few years that isn’t a feeling that is a statement of fact.’

So you think it’s heartless for people to not prioritise your Christmas whilst your child is young. You child could be 10 and believe in Father Christmas. You might consider them ‘young’ til they are 15. Your child is 6. So for 6 years, at least, you feel that people who work with parents should prioritise their christmases not their own. That’s completely different to someone asking to spend their father’s last Christmas with them. which would be a one off. Your child’s Christmas is one of many.

You don’t think parents should get every Christmas off? But also think it’s heartless to not accommodate parents for the whole time their kids are ‘young’? How does that work? Every Christmas till the child is 18?

Again, it’s not parents. It’s people who think they should be everyone’s else’s priority that make people annoyed. It just so happened this tends to be more common with parents when it comes to Christmas.

No I don’t think parents should get every Christmas off, but yes to fly into a rage because someone with a young child asked for Christmas off and start banging on about entitlement is heartless.

what annoys me about it is the sense of automatic entitlement. not all parents but some parents. the entitlement is not industry specific either.

i had a job, when i was much younger, where i was the only person without children. my parents lived several hours away and back then i didn't drive. i asked for xmas eve and boxing day off once, in my second year there, so that i had enough time to get the train there and back to see them for xmas. it was made clear to me by the manager i'd be working regardless of whether i asked for time off, because everyone else had kids and i didn't. likewise every half term and school holiday. it didn't matter if i wanted to visit family whilst they were off, or spend time with my young nieces and nephews whilst they weren't at school. i was invited to an extended family holiday one summer and couldn't go as it was during the school holidays.

the absolute outrage when i gave my notice in. i'd been there for several years and they'd got used to me always covering. the irony was that most of the time i didn't mind, but they'd made it so clear that it was expected, and that any request i made which would inconvenience them would be shouted down. i can't remember what tipped me in the end. but on my last day they were still fighting about who was going to work xmas when i left! having an argument about who had the most children vs the youngest children vs whose children still believed in santa and who deserved to have the time off.

i don't mind helping people out, but when they make demands because they think they are entitled to dictate how i spend my time on account of me not having children...nope.

Totally fair and it’s not nice to be treated that way.

I will say though there is a flip side I see increasingly on MNs where people simply refuse to help people out full stop especially when it’s parents asking.

Who is flying into a rage.

If it’s a parents turn to work and they are expecting people to work it for them then people have the right to be annoyed. Because the parent does think they are entitled to every Christmas off.

Expecting to have Christmas off, then when it’s your turn to work expecting other people to swop with you and labelling them as heartless because they won’t prioritise you IS entitled.

Thinking your Christmas is more important than everyone else’s because you have a child, is completely self centred.

How exactly do parents not miss any of their children’s christmases but also not have every Christmas off?

it's mn so i'd always question how much of it is actually real versus someone being a keyboard warrior.

in my experience entitled people are that way regardless of whether they have kids or not. someone who is young and has no kids but who wants xmas off and refuses to compromise, is just as likely to be the parent 10 years later who wants xmas off and refuses to compromise.

in the same way someone who wants to try and be fair, is usually still doing so whether they have kids or not. the parent in that scenario might have a bit less flexibility, but the intent to try and work out a compromise is still there.

Lots of people fly into a rage about parents “ entitlement”.

In my job I’m sick go listening to people rant about parent’s “entitlement” when parents get prioritised for nothing holidays included.

Its just a lazy excuse to go on a rant.

Right, but not everyone works where you work.

Parents shouldn’t get prioritised on the basis of being parents. It should be fair.

A lazy excuse? If someone wants to have a rant, they will rant. Can’t work out why that’s lazy.

Sounds like you just wish your colleagues would prioritise you and you think they are heartless, then extrapolating that to anyone who doesn’t believe everyone needs to prioritise parents at Christmas time.

I don’t think you’ve been shafted but YANBU to refuse to do Christmas Eve for someone else.

Wrong - my office isn’t even open at Christmas and other holidays are first come first served including the days after Christmas which I’ve done many times and have no issue with,

It’s not about me personally, I don’t think there should be a policy that people with children always get priority at Christmas. I simply think it would be nice if someone would be prepared to do it so a child could have a parent on Christmas morning. I don’t feel entitled to it, nor do I think it should be every Christmas, it would just be a nice thing to do at Christmas if the person is in a position to do it.

I do strongly feel that there is quite a heartless attitude towards children from some quarters. The type that would rant that a child isn’t entitled to a seat on a train even as they watch them fall over or look exhausted. Because it was the parents choice to them etc.

In the OP’s case she works for an emergency services and she doesn’t like the days she was allocated in accordance with their policy. So she was angry and instead of a no thank you when a parent asked her to work on Christmas Eve she added it to that anger.

When my daughter’s children were very young their father was a prison officer and he worked his normal shifts whatever the bank holiday, which meant working Christmas Day for several years running. They simply changed Christmas Day for the children, who knew no different. On the real Christmas Day my daughter relaxed with nice food and TV, and then when her husband had his day off, they pretended it was Christmas Day.

I had my first child at 37 and worked in several different jobs before then including for the emergency services and in hospitality (jobs which don't break for Christmas).

Pre-kids. I always offered to work Christmas so the mums and dads could be off with their children. It never occurred to me not to.

This was when i didn't intend or plan on having kids myself so I wasn't doing it expecting payback in years to come, I just think Christmas is all about kids and family - even though I absolutely love Christmas too and always have. Nothing beats little kids faces on Christmas morning.

My 'trade' back then would be to expect them to work new year instead which would be my time off. I thought (and still think) that was a reasonable compromise.

YOUR child will yes but when they are grown there will be others starting in the workplace who have kids who will expect the same as you.

The problem with anything other than a totally fair sharing-out of work days is that it's not simple or cut and dried. For every parent who feels that 'Father Christmas only comes on Christmas Day', there'll be another who feels that telling their child the 24th or 27th or whatever is when Santa's coming, and doing the celebration then, to fit around work and other logistics. There's always lots of people who feel this way on these kinds of threads.

You get into very murky waters very quickly once you start trying to justify prioritising people with kids having time off. It's all been said on this thread, but what about someone who has a parent for whom this will be their last Christmas?
Or someone who doesn't have kids but desperately wanted them to be told they need to work Christmas because those with kids re more entitled to the day off?

Someone's also already said this, too, but it bears repeating: how is it fair if someone with kids who (rightly) expects that fact not to be considered when they're being interviewed for a job also expects that fact to be considered when they want Christmas Day off?

I think helping people out should be extended to everyone. That can only be achieved through a fair share of holidays/important days off over time.

I do agree that Christmas is about the kids, if you have your kids. But they're should be a fair division of labour! I used to be a nurse and Xmas rotas always seem to cause issues but the way my ward worked it is if the ones with kids want Xmas off then they need to work the nye shifts, I don't have kids so I used to volunteer early on to do night shifts so I could still spend days with my family over Xmas but still go and party Nye!

My child will only be a young child visited by Father Christmas for a short few years that isn’t a feeling that is a statement of fact

Yes YOUR children will but when they're past that stage they'll have been replaced by other employees who are now parents.

And so the cycle continues and potentially childless people would never ever get Christmas off because there'll always be children