AIBU to think working from home with chickenpox child is unfair?

[Wfhsucks]

So I called work this morning as my 5 year old son has chicken pox and they advised for
me to still work (from home) I am really struggling juggling everything and I don’t think it is fair as I couldn’t take him into the office and be expected to work?

OP this thread is slightly unravelling on you! You are either available to work or you are not, if you are not available, tell them. You won't be paid.

It sounds like you wanted paid time off and are shocked you have to still work in order to get paid.

Why don't you accept your employer's kind offer and get on with your work and looking after your child?

What did you actually ask for?
Also, you say you don't have time to work and care for your child, but you do have time to muck about on mumsnet. Ok.

Your alternate is unpaid emergency leave.

However chicken pox lasts a while. They are being pretty good by allowing you the grace of working from home and looking after a sick child rather than enforcing you to take unpaid leave. It’s a given that your productivity isn’t going to be as high with a sick child home but a lower level of productivity short term is better than none for an employer. In most cases, it also benefits the parent when they don’t lose money through unpaid time off unexpectedly

If you want that though, contact your employer again and let them know that whilst you appreciate their flexibility, your child’s needs are higher than anticipated and you want to take unpaid emergency leave

Well said, @YorksMa .

What exactly is the purpose of this thread, @Wfhsucks ?

I don’t really understand what you are asking. Are you expecting to be paid for not working? If you worked away from home you wouldn’t take your son into work with you and you would therefore be expected to take either annual leave or unpaid leave.

Presumably because he's poorly in bed, and apart from taking him a drink, giving him some calpol, and applying calamine lotion, you can work on-line.

I think they do but if you couldn’t WFH you’d have to take annual or unpaid leave. You couldn’t just have an extra day off.

‘Hello op, it’s your boss here. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been unproductive today. Can you let me know if you would prefer to take it unpaid or would prefer to make up the hours? I do apologise wholeheartedly for being kind enough to offer you the opportunity to wfh on the chance your ds doesn’t actually need any care today, and will ensure that going forward I won’t offer this, but will just go straight to unpaid.’

Yeah my work doesn't allow us to work from home with a child under 12. If child was unwell we'd get 1 day special leave where we are expected to make other arrangements. If there's no one else that can have them we'd be expected to take unpaid leave or annual leave.

I think OP thinks that people WFH do very little and came here to vent about it.

Not everyone WFH starts threads on MN.

So what was stopping you saying this ?

If you can't work while your child is there, you will need to either take annual leave (paid) or Parental Leave (unpaid).

I don't think you are necessarily being unreasonable. I would just say sorry my son is needing too much attention so I can't.

I think it depends on the situation, sort of illness and child's temperament - if my 3 year old was ill but still had a bit of energy I would need to take a day off and I think I would say that to my work. But I have managed to work from home okish when she's been ill but mostly sleeping it off.

I am currently working from home with an ill 6 year old but there is another adult here and he's much better at entertaining himself.

Take parental leave

I have several in my team. They all have kids at varying ages, all WFH full time. If they ever have sick kids, they let me know and the response is always “is there anything I can take off you work wise/meetings I can attend in your absence”
followed by a “just do what you can and don’t worry” type reaction. The ones with sick 2 years that will be very little, the ones with sick 8 years olds may find it a bit easier. The point is, I’m telling them I don’t expect them to work at full capacity on those days. If at all depending on the age of the child and what the illness is. No requiring a day’s holiday or sick leave or parental leave.

Depends. Emergency leave for dependents is paid at my work.
But op should have said to her work that she needs the day off.

Couple of choices for you really op and it will depend on the age of the child and if they are feeling poorly in bed or racing round.
Last dc who was ill was lying on the sofa/bed sleeping on and off so I wfh and kept an eye.
When I had toddlers no wfh so I took annual leave
If i offered wfh to an employee I would assume they could work adequately or it gives the flexibility to catch up when spouse is home etc. If they couldn't I would expect them to use their "grown up voice" and request leave
You are being deliberately obtuse and studdorn

Is your child very ill with chickenpox? If not, what is there to juggle? Pop them in front of the tv, or let them play with their toys. Is their dad in the picture?

Hi op if you cannot do the work you need to tell them it sounds like a misunderstanding to me. Hi employer sorry I can’t do both on this occasion poorly child so I will need to take unpaid leave. Done.

Did you ask to take unpaid leave instead? Seems they are trying to help you, you could have just asked for unpaid or to use annual leave surely?

Did you ask to take unpaid leave? Sorry it’s not clear what you actually wanted.

Do you expect them to pay you when you aren't working? If so YABVVU, if you asked for last minute annual leave and there wasn't some huge deadline I'd have some sympathy. But it's not up to your employer to pay you to look after a sick child, they pay you to work on their priorities.

Your child is 5 so doesn't need to be supervised all the time so there's no reason you can't do some work.
If you didn't want to have to work why not call in sick yourself or take carers leave.

Do you have limited/no paid leave for situations like this? At my work we get two days paid carer leave per year. If one of my team contacts me in this situation I'll just say "No problem, just do what you can workwise" because this means they can keep an eye on emails, deal with anything urgent and maybe do a hour or so whilst their little one sleeps without losing a days leave. I don't expect them to perform to their usual standard. I'd only suggest using the carers leave if they specifically asked to use it because they want to be able to forget work for the day and focus 100% on their child.