Tell me not to resign

[Itonlymakesyoustronger]

Good morning people.

Holding myself back from resigning this morning, im a employee who is always on time, and works without sickies etc. however after 4 years of working in my work place I requested for half a day working at home as I cant get child care cover for my son. However manager agreed and said that's all fine. then comes in this morning saying change one of your working days instead, to which I said I cannot as this week my childminder has got Covid so I'm really struggling for child care. He then goes this is the last time something like this happens and I wont tolerate it in the future. WTF?

Please tell me I am not been unreasonable for asking for literally 2.5hrs to work from home after all these years?!

Don't resign but do start looking for a new job. The manager sounds like a right arrogant bastard.

@NeedAHoliday2021

It’s really hard to comment when we don’t know the manager’s side. Likelihood is they’re being unnecessarily annoying. That said, I’m a bit baffled by the poster who compared her boss working from home with a 15 year old for 2 weeks to wanting to have regular wfh with a toddler. Not at all comparable and shows a total lack of understanding from the employee of she thinks it’s the same. As an NHS manager in a hospital, I’m not allowed in work if dc have tested positive for covid. I worked from home in those circumstances with my 13 year old home. She left me alone to work and made me the odd cup of coffee… does your toddler do that?!

That was me and I didnt explain exactly why it was a case of double standards. Her DC was forced to isolate because a distant contact in her bubble tested positive, her child never tested positive or developed symptoms. Her DH was at home the entire time so there was no need (supervision or otherwise) for her to be at home herself however she decided to wfh for the entire 2 weeks despite it not being normal practice in our area.

When DS's childminder tested positive, DH managed most of the childcare alongside work like the OP in this case. I requested if I could assist him for 2 afternoons where I was scheduled to be doing non-clinical work that could very easily have been done from home or finished off later in the evening if there was a problem during working hours. He would have been napping the majority of my working hours anyway but DH had 2 meetings with his CEO that he could not risk interruptions and he had taken on all the rest of the childcare for the isolation period. I also ensured our team was well staffed before asking. I was met with a no because 'our team does not usually wfh'. So it was fine for her to do but not for anyone else. Double standards and unnecessarily inflexible is exactly what it was

Hi all. We've deleted a few posts on this thread for veering into personal attack territory. Hopefully the thread will get back on track now.
Please do report any further fall outs and we'll take a look.

OP, other posters are being unfair.

You were not unreasonable and your boss was heavy handed in their response.

Just take a 1/2 annual leave - that's what it's for?

Agree wfh with a toddler isn't feasible or fair to either of you.

Bit shit of your manager to say yes and then backtrack though. Did you ask why the change of mind?

If there are facilities to WFH and you simply aren't allowed then I'd be leaving, its 2021.

@newwifewatnumber10 I feel so sorry for your staff. In no way did I state that my child is a toddler. You jump straight to conclusions. you don't know my job either. Sometimes in life, if you have nothing better to say then keep out of it.

I know for a fact I will not tolerate this kind of behaviour anymore, I have given this job everything and more, grown it with my own hands but never been recognised. This was the final nail in the coffin for me. I'm going to look for a new job. When I do resign I will state exactly why!

Also for those that keep saying it cant have been your first time to ask, I can assure you it was my first time to ask. His way of saying 'Last time' Basically means its the only time I can do this.

I hate people who try to micromanage others, we are adults for goodness sake! If you cannot trust an employee that has been working for you effortlessly for 4 continuous years, without sickies, or any other disturbance in my working career, then why cant he accommodate for 2.5hrs?

Just look for a new job with flexible working, I am sure you will find one.

Its likely that you've always been the reliable one in the office/go to person to pick up everything, but other colleagues get away with more as they didn't set the precedent at the beginning. Its always a massive trap when starting a role between shining and falling in this trap or being seen as under performing, because at the point in time you don't know what your colleagues were like. Therefore making it more noticeable when you have little requests/change habits.

Happens to the best of us, and it is annoying.

Start mirroring the lazy peoples behaviour and stop seeing it as a 'career' just see it as a 'job' and it will refocus your mind onto what's important while you look for something else.

In my organisation we are really flexible and offer as much support as possible. Someone asking to work from home is almost always accommodated.

However, if they asked to work from home to look after a child, that wouldn't be possible, but they wouldn't ask, they'd use leave.

However in your last post you say that your child 'isn't a toddler'. If your child is old enough not to need any care, then that's different, and again, no problem.

But if anyone in my team, including me, has caring responsibilities, they take leave, they don't ask to work while doing so.

Why were you I would be looking at getting a new job anyway. 2 years in a poorly paid job is time to move on and move up. Push yourself into something a bit more difficult. Do this every couple of years to progress your career.
My boss lets us manage out own time entirely, as long as I get all my tasks done and am adding to the bettering of the organisation I can work when I want. I always work hard and well and some weeks work over my hours and some weeks much less.

Take 2.5 hours annual leave and spend your afternoon with your son doing something nice.. after that I wouldn't offer to work it from home, and if they don't approve it take it as dependent emergency.. nothing they can do

@Newwifeatnumber10

Your childcare issue is not your employer’s problem though? I hear what you’re saying but I think there sounds like a history of childcare related absence by his comment.

You are 100% wrong and I hope you have zero people ever report to you. Are you from the Dickens era or what?

I have no children. I do manage staff. Their needs are very much my problem. They work so they can care for their families. They have lives, dependents, illnesses, emergencies. If they need 2.5 hours off (or a week) and I can’t sort things out, then I’m terrible at my job. And ultimately they will leave.

A little understanding and kindness gets you employees that give their all and stick with you through thick and thin.

And if someone wants to cover their time/workload while dealing with a family thing? By all means.

@NataliaSerene

And if someone wants to cover their time/workload while dealing with a family thing? By all means.

It's fine if that works in your workplace.

It won't work for all. In my organisation, we have a lot of flexibility around hours (core hours, flexibility otherwise), taking leave (no complicated rules about notice), setting your own tasks / workload. But we are also working in a team environment with a service output, and therefore, given all the flexibility in place, a team member with caring responsibilities needs to take leave.

If they didn't have leave for example, we'd work something out of course. But that wouldn't be, work while you are caring for your child.

I expect, and my employer does, employees tonne focused on work during work hours, and their home / personal lives in their personal time, and I think that distinction matters.

Op I wish you good luck with your job search . I hope you tell your manager why you are leaving when you do.

This is about so much more than 2.5 hrs which could have easily been made up once op's DH returned from his meeting or at the weekend, and then billed (if necessary) to correct client as usual.

This boils down to an employee's consistent efforts being unrecognised and unrewarded and a good reliable employee, who patently finds it hard to ask for any special favours, feeling hurt and humiliated for no good reason, resulting in them feeling instantly alienated from an organisation which doesn't have her back. It demonstrates very poor management indeed. It is also about speaking to an employee respectfully as a fellow human being who is doing their best in difficult circumstances, not playing petty power games as a boss, which fosters an "us and them" dynamic rather than a sense of everyone being in the same team, working towards the same goals, with the bosses prepared to muck in where necessary and take the difficult decisions.

Don't get me wrong, childcare issues can be a nightmare to manage in reality especially when unexpected, and difficult to plan for, and some employees swing the lead, but this was absolutely not the case here. Advance notice was given. A consistent and reliable track record was demonstrated over time. Good management should be flexible enough to accommodate individual needs to a reasonable extent. It sounds as though this manager has been having issues relating to child care with other members of staff and it was wrong of them to dump this pressure on to the one person who normally doesn't have issues in this area.

We manage fourteen employees in our office and everything and anything that impacts upon their work performance from childcare, transport, physical & mental health, interpersonal relationships with colleagues, office environment, relationship with clients, to the quality of the soups, cheese rolls and salads that are available at lunch time and the quality of the air conditioning system, is of course our business. Admittedly these sorts of things are much harder to manage in a large organisation but one would be quite stark raving mad in this day and age not to try your best to accommodate a reasonable request from a good employee, and some of the old fashioned managerial attitudes displayed on this thread are quite frankly out of the ark!

Op. It's not fair to give a pp a hard time for assuming you have a toddler ( as presumably your child is preschool age therefore requiring a childminder).

That being said, I think you've been treated unfairly by your employer and I would request a meeting detailing the concerns you have set down on this post. There should absolutely be a degree of flexibility applied, especially if it is a hardworking, long standing employee who has already proved their worth. You need to get your point across