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.

Why can’t you just print out the bank statement and remove all others entries with a black sharpie? This is pretty ridiculous but that would be a very simple solution.

Couldn’t you have just printed the statement and blocked out irrelevant info? Why are you so against doing this?

Sounds like the Union have a voice of reason.

Hope it all goes well.

A lot less stressful than having meetings with managers and union reps etc. Or at least I would find it less stressful.

You’ve asked to provide proof of being in
Seems like the temp card you were given is not enough so you’ve asked to prove via a bank statement

You would fit in well at my job, you can’t bloody sneeze without someone talking to their Union.

This is such a non issue, provide the bank statement, print it and cross out the other transactions of save as a PDF and redact

You’re causing unnecessary work for all

just stop being a dick and show them the statement.

The only unnecessary work is being caused by my jobsworth employer. I provided them a screenshot and they decided not to accept it.

If they didn’t pay so well I’d be off!

Save your bank statement as a PDF.
Open it as an image in GIMP, a free image editing software www.gimp.org/downloads/
Select & delete the areas you don't want them to see.
Export the redacted image as a PDF.
Zero ability for your employer to reverse the process or reconstruct the missing data.

Seriously OP, you’re the one who is being the jobsworth, not your employer. You’re refusing to listen to the countless people who are suggesting an easy way forward and you’re blowing this up out of all proportion. So many employees are now getting fed up with people who work from home taking the piss, and it’s not unreasonable for them to ask to see proper proof that you were really in the office that day.

Seems an odd hill to die on, but for me I’d look for the easiest solution as dealing with idiocy is exhausting.

But why should she? She was there. Why is the onus on her to prove she was there? She hasn’t don’t anything wrong. What happened to innocent until proven guilty? They have means of confirming whether she was there or not but are choosing to to regale themselves of those options and instead are forcing her to prove her innocence. If you were arrested would you expect to have to prove your innocence without any evidence against you?

This is what people seem to be failing to grasp - OP provided proof of a transaction in her works canteen. If her integrity was not in general question, why ask for more? Fabricating the evidence provided would be so ridiculous. And if OP hadn't bought a sandwich, she'd be unable to prove she was in at all, unless she provided things like a photo of her mileage, or train tickets - which could be deemed as only proof she was in the area, not the actual office anyway.

It really is the principle here. I'd be mightily disgruntled at the blatant implication of dishonesty and untrustworthiness.

And this, 100% .

I genuinely would be looking for another job tbh - hopefully one that pays even better!

I think the general anti-WFH sentiment MN is famed for is clouding a lot of views here - although I note common sense is largely prevailing on the poll.

I saw the term ‘bootlickers’ branded earlier in the context of people allowing companies to get away with anything, and I’d say that’s spot on.

Do you have your train tickets for that day or a record of you ordering them

I can't see (sorry of I've missed it) that you have described what the process is with being issued a temporary pass.
Are the passes signed in and out?
Have they checked this system?
There will be a record (obviouslt) of all electronic pass use for the day in question.
I dont see why they would need anything else as evidence you had been at work.
Otherwise why issue passes at all?

I'm not anti WFH at all, I'm just anti 'making a huge fuss when you could resolve this in a matter of minutes'.

Same. I work from home a lot. This is the OP just being difficult!

You need to make sure you raise the fact that at no point were you ever told that the temporary pass would not record your attendance at the office so that you could make other arrangements to let your manager know you were in and it needed to count as one of your days there.

good luck OP, please do come back and update us.

You're just digging your heels in for the sake of it.

Get the PDF of your statement, and with the free version of Adobe, redact the other parts of the statement. It will remain on your computer, no-one will be seeing it. Just like using word for your CV doesn’t mean Microsoft can see it 🤦🏼‍♀️ or print it out and score through the other parts with a pen!

you are being so difficult - if you’re like this all the time maybe they’re looking for an excuse to sack you?

I find it really quite shocking how people deal with employment issues when I see them raised on forums - soooo many people do the wrong thing when in fact it’s their employers terrible processes etc!

What about login records from the IT department?

Yes, it'll show logins from home and from work, however, there's going to be different source IP addresses depending on if you worked from home (your ISP), or from office (work's ISP).

Analysis of long term login records should show a pattern of IPs depending on where you logged in from (home or office)

I would print off a PDF of your statement at home, get a black marker pen and redact every transaction inc opening and closing balances except the office canteen transaction - keep your name and address at the top and scan it to her (copy in HR & Union Rep) or if it’s a face to face meeting show it to her. That way you know it’s not an online blur or line that could be removed.

Me too - I’ve worked from home for the last 25 years. The OP could have sorted this out in the time it took her to type out her first post, but has just decided to dig her heels in instead.