Calm me down about work issue please.

[Geckos48]

We have a new senior at our work, we'll call her A. I never have this trouble with the other one.

Two weekends ago I was doing some extra calls on Saturday morning because they had nobody in to cover, I was promised by my boss (B) that I would finish at 11am, which was clear from my rota, I get a call from A as I am heading to my last call;

'When you've finished you will go to '

No please or thank you, nothing. I was in front of a client so just said 'okay speak to you in a bit', when I called her afterwards I said 'is there anyone else who can do it? I'm supposed to be off now'. She said no, a girl had gone sick. Again no please or thank you.

Last night was a cock up and I ended up going to a call twice because the office messed me calls around, I ended up out until 9.30 when I was rota'd in til 9, not great on Christmas night. It wasn't A's fault but she could have gone and done the call much earlier and saved me staying up later than anyone else at work.

Today I had my first call at 7am but a gap between 8 and 9 so I checked with my client who I am good friends with and he said I could come between 7.30 and 8am instead ( the call is for an hour) after fannying about with the car being frosty I finally managed to get to his at 7.50 leaving plenty of time to do the call, I get a call from A

'After your call you need to go to ...' I said 'sorry I can't, have just arrived at first call and can't do it'. 'that doesn't matter, I need you here' she starts shouting at me and I hang up (eventually) looked at my phone ten minutes later and had a missed call, so I phone her

'Yeah don't worry about it, I've had to go and do it, I should have finished by now but because or you I have to go to another call'

Now this woman has no kids, gets paid a healthy premium for being on call and it is her responsibility to cover not me.

I sent her a message saying that I am only available for the calls I have agreed, that I will be speaking to the office tomorrow and that I don't wish to be treated like a skivvy.

She phoned me and I said 'is this about the calls I have this morning' and she said 'no I am trying to be nice Gecko' I said I didn't want to talk to her about it and hung up. The thing is she gave the impression that I was in some sort of trouble and by making a report about her I would be shooting myself in the foot and I am worried about it. I am always going out for extra calls, working as hard as I can and often working on my weekends off. I am now worried about tomorrow :(

The most significant factor of a genuine zero hours contract is the absence of mutuality of obligation.
i.e. the employer does not have to provide any work and the employee is not obliged to undertake any work offered.

Oops, pressed post too soon.

Given that your contract purports to be zero hours, you shouldn't be getting any pressure whatsoever to complete any tasks.
So, being shouted at is completely out of order.

I've written what I hope is a measured email to my boss.

I will wait for her call tomorrow

She wasn't unreasonable to think that given you were due to work 7.30-8 you might like another paid hour as you were up and out. Plus you'd rearranged your call out (are you supposed to do that?) and even running late on that.

She shouldn't be guilt tripping you but she's probably equally stressed by lack of cover herself. It all sounds pretty disorganised.(terrifying and saddening in its own right) She also rang to apologise by the sounds of it. So I would say try to sort it out between you.

And childless people are entitled to time off at Xmas too.

My issue is not that she asked me to cover, it is that she acted as if I had to despite her being available to do the call, as I said if I had of been off in that hour I would have come home, not gone to another call, as it is my right to do.

I am always picking up calls for them left right and center because yes, it is terribly organised but I do that in the knowledge that they need me to go in, not that the senior on call cannot be bothered to work.

Yes she's entitled to time off but she has chosen to receive a healthy premium to be on call and to be working over Christmas. I don't get that premium so I should not and am not expected to be on call.

I've woken up feeling a bit apprehensive this morning, I have to go in to work to get my rota and I am sure my boss will want to discuss the email I sent to her.

Try not to worry. You wont be spoken to like that on any day let alone Christmas day.

oadcb that's all very well, but if this woman's senior to the OP (I gather not her line manager but nonetheless senior to her?), then a degree of tact and diplomacy is required where there's a difference of opinion. The bottom line is, that the op is on a zero hours contract, and the other woman is not (have I interpreted this correctly?) and therefore the management might decide to take her word over the op's

We are all on zero hour contracts but the seniors have to do 40hrs + be on call for two weeks a month and are only allowed 1 weekend off a month.

God - I don't think I'd realised before that she was on call and you weren't. A friendly offer of an extra call since she could see you were out already is about as far as it could have gone, in that case. The call was hers to respond to, not yours.

Exactly tri and if she was really stuck, like already out on calls and couldn't fit it in, that would be understandable but that she had just finished a call and still felt it acceptable to boss me around irrespective of the fact that I was unable to respond to the call and she was!

If they want me to be on call, they should start paying me to be. Until now I really felt that they only called me when they needed me. Now I just feel quite used to be honest.

She gets paid more and her contract is different. But it sounds like she's under unreasonable pressure too if there is a big staff shortage over Christmas.

She rang you to speak about it (prob to apologise?) and you put the phone down on her. You acted unfairly there, and are misdirecting your anger at being asked to do another call out.

Sort your issues with your colleague and the way she spoke/speaks to you with her. Sort the expectation that you are on call unpaid with your manager.

It sounds like a nightmare all round but if you as workers just blame each other nothing will change ever.

I get what OP is saying (I used to live with someone on same sort of contract for carework, no end of hours available if you want them!)

It sounds like when A wasn't a senior, she used to work in a much more on call way than OP ever has, so expects others to work in the same manner. I wouldn't call that treating others like a skivvy, it's just how A liked to work, probably appreciated the extra hours, and hadn't realised that others didn't make themselves so available. Since A. is likely to be around going forwards I would try to patch things up with her. But whoever is A's boss needs to clarify what is reasonable to expect. OP can't do that.

Her being unreasonably under pressure is something she needs to sort out with the management not me. There have been countless seniors who have left or stepped down due to the mounting pressure and the fact that the workload has increased massively as the company has expanded and yet they refused, blindly refuse to change how they operate. This is something that has been told to them a million times by various seniors who have stepped down over the years. It is not something I wish to get entangled in because it is basically none of my business.

I do not wish to 'have it out' with this woman, I think that is unprofessional and could backfire very badly on me. If i have an issue with a member of staff (any member) I report to my superiors, not 'deal with it alone' which I am sorry is TERRIBLE advice!

It states this in my contract, it would state this in any contract. This woman has got it into her head that because I always take extra calls at the drop of a hat, it is something that she can expect from me without so much as common courtesy. Her treatment of me has been atrocious, she had absolutely no right to speak to me the way she did, no I should not have moved my call on Boxing Day morning but if I am to be berated about that, it should come from a manager, not from her.

I have received ill treatment from another member of staff at work and I have reported it as stated in my contract (and to be fair every contract I have ever worked under) that I am being told to 'sort it out myself' on here is just terribly unprofessional advice!

Well, to be fair, it wasn't exactly professional of you to put the phone down on her. Not to mention telling her that you don't wish to be treated as her skivvy. That last bit may be true, of course, and valid, but I hope that putting it in those blunt terms isn't what backfires on you.

If someone is being aggressive and loud on the phone while you enter someone's home it is certainly professional to say 'I cannot discuss this anymore' and hang up.

I can't see how there is anything wrong with my conduct in that respects. I also see nothing wrong with asking someone not to treat me like a skivvy. It's hardly calling someone a cunt is it?

I thought it was the second call where you said you didn't want to talk to her and hung up. You might find yourself on dodgy ground on that one - depends on your actual boss perhaps.

Better to keep talking to her and get angry?

Anyway I don't see how I can be professionally judged for a phone call that was wholly unprofessional. She chose to phone me on a personal basis and I chose not to talk to her. I fail to see how that is anything to do with my boss?

Regardless, they can berate me about it if they wish. I simply do not want to be bossed around by her anymore and I am sure regardless of the outcome that will happen.

In the last few months, I have been quite vocal about the lack of appreciation from management - and it's paying off. They are getting better at saying please and thank you, and I've particularly noticed the thank yous, because, as much as it's basic manners, the lack of it does make you feel unappreciated and worthless, particularly if you've been pulling out the stops to do something.

So it is worth raising - and if your behaviour has been less than perfect, then you can also give a good example by admitting that and apologising.

IF you were going to change your shift you needed to report that change to your employers. In this situation, whether you like it or not, A was that person. You can't just change what you are doing. It has all sorts of implications - safety for a start. The employers need to know where you are and when, so that if there is a problem they have the correct information.

It sounds like a personality clash with A, not helped by your inference that your 0 hours contract somehow makes you 'self-employed'. It's not your right to change your shifts, regardless of how good a 'friend' a client is.

A was calling you to ask you to fit another call in. The fact that you had stayed in bed and then been delayed by frosted car windscreen was hardly her fault! Your attitude that she should have just shrugged it off is terrible.

On-call is exactly that - on call for those situations where it's unavoidable that they are called out. If you are 'free' she had every right to ask you to take on the shift. If you'd said you didn't want to, there would be nothing she could do, but to hear that you were available but had slept in then arrived very late for your call would not have been impressive.

lougle I don't think the OP was actually on a shift, she takes calls and only gets paid for the time spent actually visiting a client.

I realise that (we have home care here ourselves) but the OP was working that day. Person A knew that - she had the rota. She phoned to see if the OP could take an extra call between her two scheduled calls. It was wrong of the OP to change her call time without informing her seniors. She's not self-employed. She's employed. The 0 hours contract doesn't mean she can do what she likes. She was contracted to attend a certain address at a certain time and actually attended at a different time by choice.

I know I should not have changed my call time, I have admitted and apologised for that in my email.

But my seniors job is not to discipline me, that is my managers job.

Again, my issue is not that she called me and asked me to take a call, it is that when I said I couldn't/didn't want to she got aggressive and arsey with me. It then turned out that she had enough time to do the call herself so it was needless and seemingly just an excuse for her to have a go, try and get home early and make me work despite what I might have had planned anyway for that hour.

As I said, had I been off I would most certainly have gone home to see the kids, not wanted to take other calls.

The biggest issue I have raised with management is that when I am phoned out of the blue and asked to take calls and run ragged by them, I want to know that it's done because of necessity, not just because the senior fancies getting home early on a bank holiday!

Do you know that that is why your senior asked you to do the call? Did she explain her reasoning? Actually, does she need to explain her reasoning to you?

No she doesn't, which is why I haven't asked her. I have asked my boss.