To think we shouldn't have to work the day before Christmas Eve?

[blinddoorshyt]

I work in a bathroom shop.
We are closed over Christmas and were lead to believe we broke up on the 22nd
Turns out now we don't
On the 23rd we have to travel to Manchester (3 hours each way ) to have a buffet and games with the company owner.
We have to listen to a presentation on how the company's done this year.
If we don't go we will have a day deducted from our salary.
It's the day before Christmas Eve and we have to drive to Manchester to have picky food with the owner and play Christmas games.
Aibu to think it's ridiculous?
And we have been repeatedly told if we don't go we won't get paid and it will halt any progression in the company !

how will you travel to Manchester? Who will be driving? Is the car insured for a business trip? Commuting to work is a different insurance than driving to a business meeting in another city and if you don’t notify your insurance, then you’ll not be insured.

my previous work asked me to do this, I could for £50 extra on insurance and work didn’t want to pay the difference- so I used public transport which I could then put in as expenses

somet insurance don’t charge anything to change to business, but some do

@OhYeahOhYeah yeah we have to be there for a 9am start

You can do what most everyone else does - book your holiday in advance around Christmas. Then you can plausibly say you have other plans.

I booked my days off for Christmas in July.

What is the financial difference between the cost of the train and the amount you get paid for a day's work. If its an amount you can afford to lose then take the day off as unpaid. Is there career progression within the company that would apply to you or are you intending to be shop based for the foreseeable future? If you are in the shop location and happy to remain there, and do a good job, then its unlikely not attending a jolly will impact your career.

Honestly, it’s ridiculous. They’re not even paying your travel?

take the day off. Or go off sick/car breakdown

Looks like the usual corporate insanity. Nobody can just have a job any more, can they?
I find it fascinating that so many people on the thread ( and elsewhere on the forum) have bought into all this nonsense and made it normal.
I've worked Christmas and bank holidays due to the nature of my work but I knew about it and expected it. It's a very different thing when you're expected to do what OP is talking about.
I'm often aghast at the lack of critical reading/thinking skills in some posts.

Are you in Carlisle? Black eye Friday is a gave away 😊

Surely they haven't changed this? The shop is still closed from Friday 20th December. From then until Christmas the days were always working days and you needed to take a days leave to cover them. You now have the option to take one less day's annual leave and to go to this get together in Manchester.

If you don't go to Manchester, you have to use a day's leave as you were already expecting to do (or not get paid, as it's a working day you're not working).

If you do go to Manchester, you don't need to use the day's annual leave that you thought you'd need to take that day.

For some people a day of nibbles and socialising would be an easy day, and they'd prefer to save their leave. For others it will be their idea of hell, so they can take their leave instead or choose a day of unpaid leave.

No biggie.

I think that the issue is you've equated "the shop is shut" to days off. They're not the same thing. Working days are working days regardless of whether or not the shop is open, so they need to be worked, covered from the annual leave allowance or taken unpaid.

But maybe there are other locations and this is central or another reason we don’t know about?

I don’t understand how you think it’s unreasonable for your employer to ask you to work on a working day. You may not like the agenda and travel (sure we don’t always like to do this!) but it’s a work day.

Unfortunately attendance isn’t dependant on days activities if dictated to by the company and is perfectly reasonable.

I get you don’t want to go and it’s a pain but it’s perfectly reasonable.

I travel quite a lot for work, but if I was expected to be in a city 3hrs away for 9am I would request an overnight stay and travel the night before. Work would pay for both the hotel and the travel.

Being expected to leave your house at 5am and drive for 3hrs at your own expense is unreasonable I think. If they were paying for travel and hotels I would be fine with it.

If you don't want to go couldn't you say that you have plans already and take it as leave?

It's the 6 hours travelling time for tram bonding they're complaining about not the actual working.

I notice you've cunningly set the times to get the cheap day return price 😁
If she has to be there by 9, the cost... triples, I'm going to guess?

You are moaning about having a company engagement event, all costs covered, including your time. Well just think… there are thousands of nurses, doctors, paramedics etc that DONT get 2 weeks off, and most have to work everyday except one day with Christmas and new year if they are lucky. You are being unreasonable.

These corporate events where some self important CEO who wouldn’t know most of us if they passed us in the street announce how wonderful they think they are because of how much money they’ve made are dull enough as it is. We get to watch them on teams because we WFH, but doing a six hour trip for what will probably be a twenty minute self congratulatory monologue followed by a few Canapés? Na stuff that.

I would tell them that you’ll be going into the shop on the 23rd, but that you absolutely cannot travel to Manchester and back the day before Christmas Eve.

I'd take the day off unpaid, if you go it will likely cost you more in petrol, time unpaid and general effort and faff than if you didn't get paid.

Then I'd use that unpaid day to polish up my CV and job hunting to get out of that place as fast as possible

I used to work retail and only manager ever had to travel for company meet ups, us sales staff never had to go anywhere unless we were asked to cover a shop in the next town over (never more than an hour away)

It isn't a race to the bottom! So because someone else might have to work Xmas then OP should just lose hours of her own time and ££ that she won't get back in petrol costs?!

Maybe those in the NHS should just suck it up and be ecstatic to be working because some people in other countries are in a war zone.

people can have a whine about their situation and get advice without having to consider others who have it worse.

Are you having to drive 3 hours to arrive at your normal start time, @blinddoorshyt ?

Do you mean actual Christmas day and boxing day come out of your allowance. These are bank holidays and I would have thought these would be allocated separately. Any other day would normally come out of your allowance. I agree, it's ridiculous asking you to do that just before Christmas your clearly won't want to do it so why force people

Yawn. The “think of all the <insert people who don’t have a choice> line is getting tedious.

Yes it’s really unfortunate that in some professions you are required to work over Christmas. But presumably you realise that before heading off to med school?

And no the OP’s expenses aren’t covered, she’s expected to drive three hours to Manchester and then three hours back again and will be getting two hours in lieu for that. If it was some dull corporate event they had to go to the office to you may have a point, but it isn’t.

I’m guessing that they have calculated the holiday allowance to take account of Christmas.

So they’re e.g. probably told that they get 28 days holiday, but three of those are the Christmas/new year bank holidays, so they probably get 25 days normal holiday but the way it’s written is likely confusing.

You sound very bitter and generalise about management, who here, are clearly trying to ‘include’ and build their team within the company. I’d be interested to know your working background because it sounds like you are neither a leader, or a team player.

It’s not costing the Op nothing though. It’s costing her either petrol or a train ticket which could be potentially the same amount she’d earn for the day anyway and over 6 hours of just travel.
Its also unfair to compare working in a bathroom store to essential services, they understand and agree to those working conditions

If you're a leader, it would be worth having a really good look at how your staff really feel about these awful team building days.

Is this your first job? I'm going to assume so.
"having Christmas off" in retail means Xmas day and Boxing Day - and there's plenty of people who don't get that perk.

Having a team build event in Manchester where you'll actually find out what's happening, what to expect in the future etc is a good thing. This shows your company treats its employees well. You may not be interested in doing any more than bare minimum, but some of your colleagues will be and they'll probably get a lot from the day.

You sound immature, unambitious and weirdly entitled. Your description of "black eye Friday" says it all.

It would have been a reasonable expectation if they gave you plenty of notice and paid your travel expenses.

Leading you to believe it wasn't a working day asked then changing their minds is not on. What if you'd booked to go on a foreign holiday over Christmas?.

And not paying expenses? Very unfair. I think it's worth approaching them about this, including showing how much the train fare would cost.

If you don't want to progress in the company, maybe weigh up the difference between one day's earnings, and the cost of travelling. It's possible that the return train fare is actually more than a day's earnings!

If you're hoping for promotion, I don't think you have much choice.