To wonder if this is a valid reason to be off work for the day

[Louiseeel]

That your Dparents car was broken into the night before so you had to be with them

The fact they are still driving implies they have a level of competence to deal with calling their insurance. Why would someone need to take time off?

I wouldn't think so. Pretty sure my (divorced) parents wouldn't have needed me to take time off work for that reason - even when they were in their 80s.

A car being broken into is not necessarily a big deal. I presume it was not stolen otherwise the person would have said.

There are people (young men) who go around opening doors on people's cars parked on the street or even on their driveway. You see them on CCTV. The owners (like that employee's parents) can forget to lock the car doors so the person goes in, rifles around and maybe takes stuff but most people probably won't have valuable stuff in sight anyway.

The guy who did this to our car sat in the passenger seat, ate a mars bar and threw the wrapper in the car and left some lingering BO. That is why we knew he was in there. Otherwise, we could not see any other thing that he did. Yeah, there is a sense of invasion, but it is not a big deal.

Is the employee also a snowflake? Could be hereditary.

Assuming you’re not their carer and they’re fit and well enough to handle things, then there’s no reason for compassionate leave, sick leave or anything like that. If you could take last minute annual leave then fine. But it’s not really a family emergency that requires time off work.

No ? In addition to annual leave and study leave we receive personal leave (usually for bereavements) , parenting leave (for emergency childcare issues) and personal motoring leave (for transport issues to work). When electric cars had smaller ranges I needed to take a few more of these every year but it's probably only a few days every half year now.

What about the situation means they or you feel they need you with them during the day?

Having a car broken into is upsetting, but it shouldn't be an insurmountable obstacle for someone who's capable of driving a car. They phone the police and insurance company as needed, give any statements and that's more or less it for essential things to do.

On the information given - no, of course not.

I suspect we are assuming that if they are still driving then they have mental capacity.
Even if not, then it isn't an emergency in terms of dealing with the insurance, etc - the adult child could help them after work.

However, I suspect some more information will be dripfed , in time.

As a manager of a fairly large global team, I really don’t care what the reason for last minute leave requests are for, so long as other team members do not need to pick up extra work, and it is taken from annual leave allowance then it’s fine by me.

@Louiseeel Im guessing you’re neither the employee or the boss in this situation. Is it a colleague or yours? Maybe a friend, or your sibling?

Heck no!

So their parents are late 50s-early 60s. Full capacity. They started the job in late November and have had 7 or 8 days off so far so it’s getting. A bit of a pattern

Also, this is a nursery so cover has to be found and all staff ratios worked out again etc

7 or 8 days off since November. Time to give them presumably their week's notice and say bye. They're taking the piss.

Now that we have more information it's a definite NO from me. How can parents of that age not be able to cope with their car being broken into?? I agree with pp, they are taking the piss.

Time for some hard talks and a performance management plan.

Of course they should be given the day off.

And all subsequent days off too, for ever and ever and with immediate effect. 😀

sod a performance management plan - presumably they have a probation period of three months?
8 days off in three months, when one of those months presumably included a lengthy Christmas break? - for parents that aren't exactly elderly FFS.

Presumably a reasonable objective for the probation period is that are expected to actually come in to work?

No.

If they'd had their house ransacked, that would be a different story.

No. Why would you need to be with them?

If they can drive, they can deal with it.

Sorry. Posted on wrong thread.

Sack them, give the job to someone reliable.

I think they’ve shown what sort of employee they’re going to be.

I’d expect them to fall probation.

No they’re taking the piss.

We have discretion over using our annual leave as there are no concerns about coverage or staffing. We are just expected to manage our workflows like adults.

so while I wouldn’t find this particular reason to be a likely cause of someone taking leave, I work on an office where someone can decide to take the day off on a whim by just sending an email. no one would really care unless there was a big meeting or deadline that got disrupted.