To refuse to provide bank statement to my work to prove I was in the office

[HanExplorer]

I’ve found myself in a very unusual situation and am standing firm so far despite pressure.

I work in a hybrid role with a requirement to attend our office twice a week, this is measured monthly based on card swipe data. On one of the days in May, I forgot my pass so was issued a temporary one to use that day.

Earlier this month my manager flagged I was showing a day short for office attendance in May and said I’d need to make up a further day in June. I looked at the dates they had on record and quickly realised the missing one was when I had the temporary pass so that obviously hadn’t registered on the system.

I explained this to my manager and she still maintained I’d need to attend an extra day to balance the totals on the system as there ‘wasn’t any record of me attending’.

I realised I’d spent money in the on site restaurant that day and there’d be a record on my bank showing the company name. I screenshotted this on my phone, cropped it so you could see the date and sent it to my manager.

She has checked with her manager and told me that I need to provide a copy of a bank statement which shows my name and the transaction - that would of course also show all my other activity!!

This has been dragging on and I’m standing firm so far, but I’ve had a call booked in with my manager and her manager for tomorrow and I’m wary of what they are going to say.

My office is over an hours train journey each way so not a case of driving 5 minutes down the road to work a further day - regardless, I don’t feel I should do out of principle.

I can’t get over that they are handing out temporary security passes with no record of who they are handed out to. So they are giving people access to the site, but if there is a situation where something happened (an assault by a contractor or whatever), there would be no record of who was issued that pass? That’s bonkers. What is even the point?

I would refuse on principle just because they’re twats, and make them review the security footage with me. Surely, they should not have to blur out everyone else just for you all to go into the security office and view it. Sending it electronically or adding it to your employee record in some way, sure. But not just to be viewed.

Eh? Paperless statements are printable. So print it, go through it with a pen and photo it.

Unless you’re running Only Fans on the side which you want to keep quiet this all seems OTT.

Take a screen shot of the statement, print it and physically blackout anything you don’t want them to see. Then give them the piece of paper.

I understand that you’re resisting on principle, but there doesn’t seem much point if you'll be the one who ends up suffering because of it.

You can use a programme on your computer eg Photoshop to hide the other transactions.

I'm not sure why you were comfortable using your phone editor to edit and send a screenshot but you're uncomfortable with this?

I don't think you're unreasonable for not wanting to send the full statement which is none of their business, and the whole situation is unreasonable on their side. But you are being kind of unreasonable acting like it's unsafe to send a redacted statement.

You haven't responded to the idea that your phone (or possibly even the satnav on your car) will indicate where you were on the day in question.

And you're still ignoring the most obvious thing, which is referring HR to the person you spoke to from the office on the day you were in-house.

As others have said, the most obvious thing to do is print up a copy of your bank statement, redact it yourself by blacking out, cutting out or covering everything bar the transaction and details showing your name and address or whatever, and then photographing and pdfing it. Something I've done several times recently, as part of proving my address/ identity.

And if not you can download it as PDF and use a PDF editor.

Print the statement, put a marker through everything not relevant and scan and send. Job done.

Pretty sure your DP is wrong.

Either way, just print the statement out and put post it notes over the other info.

Really not getting the issue here (employer is being petty but you can resolve this extremely easily).

As pp said, that is a fire risk! If there was a fire and they had no log of who signed in... 😲 They should be in hot water over that!

But yes, get it printed, redact what you need to in sharpie then scan and send. What utter jobsworth micromanagers though!

God help us if this is what British managers and employees have to spend their productivity time on these days.
How much has all this cost in terms of staff and management time per hour when they could have been carrying out their proper jobs?
Just print out the bank statement black out anything private and get it over with FFS.
And the manager is just ridiculous! - if you’re a good employee, not overlooking that day or asking you to make it up at some point when something really important is going on in the office, also shows a real jobs worth culture.
🙄🙄🤪

Another vote for submission of redacted bank statements.

I can understand OP’s annoyance - her employer’s systems sound shit. But you’re really just cutting off your nose to spite your face by being awkward here.

I dont start a war unless there's a good reason so I would just provide it.

I can’t get over that they are handing out temporary security passes with no record of who they are handed out to. So they are giving people access to the site, but if there is a situation where something happened (an assault by a contractor or whatever), there would be no record of who was issued that pass? That’s bonkers. What is even the point?

It’s appalling security practice. Could put the person issuing temporary passes in a very difficult position if they have no way of proving who they issue passes to and no record of passes being received or handed back.

I think you’re hitting the nail on the head here.

Think about it from the company’s perspective. If a manger posted here and said “I’m in charge of a team who must be in the office for X days each month. One of my team were a day short in May (according to their pass log) so I asked them to make the day up in June. They said they came in another day in May using a temporary pass because they’d forgotten theirs. There’s no record of a temporary pass being given with security. They had no on-site meetings, no one has told me they saw them that day (but I obviously haven’t asked people). I asked them if they had any evidence they were in and they gave me a screenshot of a purchase in the staff canteen but it only shows the clearing date, not the purchase date. She’s refused to show the full transaction on her bank statement which would confirm the transaction date” people would definitely see the manager’s side.

@HanExplorer is your hill to die on?

Your manager / company sound like a pain in the arse / micro-managing. Sounds like it's an oppressive culture.

Morally, I think you are right and actually this highlights quite a big problem with H&S, security and employee rights & confidentiality within this organisation.

You need to decide if proving your 'right' is worth it

I'm totally team OP.

This thread rates as one of the most Kafkaesque situations I have come across in terms of mundane horror via authoritarianism.

It is entirely the principle of the thing and the failure of the company to do the same diligence that the OP has.

The question has to be asked why would anyone go to such extreme lengths to blag one piddling office day when they have an apparently good track record?

I too would fight this one on principle.

From an employees perspective:

Company has no record of who is in the building on a temporary pass.
Company has no procedures in place for lone working.

What happens if a lone worker takes ill? What happens if there is a fire and they don't know how many people are in the office?

This request from the company has exposed that they basically do not give a fuck about their responsibilities towards their staff. The fact that they do not know whether a member of staff is in their building or not on a given day unless the OP happened to use the staff canteen, pay for it on a card and then provide a bank statement is beyond nuts.

And you're still ignoring the most obvious thing, which is referring HR to the person you spoke to from the office on the day you were in-house.

Do you really remember accurately all of the work colleagues whom you saw or spoke to on a particular day over a month ago?

And even if you somehow did, from the manager's pov, you could easily just speak to the colleague privately in advance and ask them to cover for you and lie.

But it seems like the manager very gladly does.

It's so ridiculous it's impossible to believe.

Anybody will give their own biased perspective on an event - whether accurate, exaggerated or outright lying - and that's all we can have to go on.

MN isn't the supreme court, though, it's a discussion forum; if they get advice or opinions based on a lie, they've just wasted their own time as much as everybody else's.

When i had to provide a statement for somethig i just used a pdf editor to black out sections of my bank statement.

Agreed but she can only have that conversation when she has proved her presence in the building. Until then they could ignore that bit and claim she wasn’t it in. I’d gleefully show them my bank statement and then lodge a complaint.

Just redact all of the other information on the bank statement besides what needs to be provided.

Me too. I’d like to see the manager’s reaction when they realise I was telling the truth.

And then tell them the system is wrong and temp passes must have a paper trail.