Am I being unreasonable to think that my boss's reaction to me asking to work from home one day a week so i can pick up DS from school is totally outrageous??

[PSCMUM]

Everything was going well. I had just had a 6monthly appraisal in which she said I was doing great, all my cases were on track and I held the fort 'brilliantly' while she was on holiday for a fortnight. So I thought I'd take the goldern opp to ask her if I could wokr from home 1 day a week so I could take kids to school and pick them up - I want to do this as DS was bullied last term and I'd just like to have a more visible presence at school for him. She knows this and was always very verbally sympathetic when it was going on. So when I asked, I thought she'd be totally cool. But she went completely frosty, invented all these reasons why it wouldn't be a great idea -

HER: what if we have a really mad day and you're not here to assist me and I need you? ME: we never have mad days we don't know about in advance and so I can always plan to be in on those days
HER: What about file security? I'm sure we're supposed to lock up files, not bring them home with us?
ME: Lots of other people work from home ad bring files home, we both even do that now when we bring work home in the evenings, and we also bring files to prison, to hospitals, to client's houses, to court, on the train etc.
HER: Well I ahev no objection in principle but its not a decision for me you have to go thru personnel

And then she was just completely forst with me fro the rest of the day. I am so confused. I asked her if I ahd annoyed her by asking and she said 'No, I just don't have anything more to say on the matter'

WHAT A TOTAL TOTAL COW

WE haven't had a nice moment since, and normally get on great.

Can I have some sympathy pls? OR even better, some similar stories. I cannot say how furious I am.

Thanks for listening!

PSCMUM

I must agree with FloweryBB - I had numerous chats with an employee who thought I was being totally unfair not letting her "work from home" on a Friday as her Mum worked on a Friday so she had no one to look after her 9month old DD...

Unfortunately some people do think like that, so don't be too hard on your employer for asking the question.

Thanks BEtsyboop, actually my employer didn't ask the question, I was just responding to Happymumofone who mentioned she makes all her employees prove they haev childcare in place before considering work from home arrangements. My boss knows me really well - we share an office - and so she knows that my oldest 2 are at school, my youngest is at nursery, and I made VERY clear when I asked her, that I would be home alone all day, and just wanted to avoid my commute so that I could have time to collect DS who was bullied last year. Her objections were not reasonable - they were things like would it be safe for me to take files home, but I take files home now and work on them in the evenings but this is unpaid extra work so is perfectly safe, whereas if I was taking them home to work from home during the day, this woudl not be so extra! Also we take files to prison, court, mental hospitals, on long train journeys to visit clients etc, so really, that was just a cr*p excuse to object. I really didn't, and wouldn't, have asked for this, unless I was genuinely absoltuely sure it woudl not affect my work - and she knows that. She was just throwing her weight around! Totally and utterly fed up. I really don't think I'm being too hard on her, but it is good to hear the employers side from all the Mum's who are bosses. I'm sure you're all much more reasonable than she is!

Just for the record, as your post makes me sound like a horrible person, i never said I was a manager - i said our company asks re childcare if a request is made to work from home - never said I did personally.

o god really sorry - didn't mean to make you sound horrible. When you said 'we have some employees' i thought you meant 'we' as in a company that you own or are the boss of. You also said that people would not take their children to the office and used that as a justification for why they shoudl have to prove they have childcare at home - completely missing my point that as we are all adults, many of us in high pressure jobs with a lot of respoonsibility, we should be trusted to work at home, as we are trusted to work in our office without someone standing next to us all day supervising us, coming with us to client meetings to make sure we actually go and don't just bunk off and go shopping! I'm judged by the quality of my work at work, and I would like to be judged by the quality of my work if I worked from home. There should be no difference!

My point was that if we are trusted with these roles, and trusted to get on with it in the office, then we should be trsuted to get on with it out of the office.

Flowerybeanbag pointed out that I was overlooking the fact that plenty of people don't think like I do, and that people have asked to work from home without childcare in place - I honestly wouldn't consider for a moment working from home without childcare in place! Its funny that you reading back what you said makes you feel that you sounded horrible! You were just putting your views across, perfectly reasonably actually, but those views are probably more in accordance with those of a boss getting their 100% rather than an employee wanting to give 100% but still have something left for their children!

Also actually happymumofone, even if you didn't say you did it personally, you did say you agreed with it. so what is the difference? would you do something different if you were in that position?

Do amke sure when you do the request that you use the ACAS website and follow their advice about how to do this step by step- DH has managed to get a pretty good 9and essential for us) flexible pattern sorted (basically no sudden shift changes due to ASD kids who cant hack it, and bits and pieces like that- they'd had 5 shift changes in the last year). of course you need to have kids the qualifying ages for that.