Work expectations

[wotindnameofdlordisthis]

I’d really appreciate some outside perspectives on this work situation.

At my job, we have a shared inbox and 2 persons is “on duty” each day to clear emails by 5pm. Yesterday I was on duty. Around 4.45pm I opened an email that had 12 attachments, including 6 bank statements that were out of sequence. This wasn’t a quick admin task. It required checking dates, sequencing documents, and deciding whether further financial information needed to be requested.

By the time I’d saved and attached the final document, it was 5.29pm. At that point, after a full day, I was mentally drained and didn’t feel able to properly analyse the bank statements without risking mistakes. Because accuracy matters, I left the assessment until the next morning when I could do it properly.

My manager has now said I shouldn’t have done that and that I should have been able to complete it because I took my breaks during the day. I’ve explained that taking breaks earlier doesn’t necessarily mean you still have the mental capacity late in the day to do complex financial processing safely.

Am I being unreasonable here, or is it fair to leave detailed analytical work that comes in late in the day until the next morning?

manager said to ask for help if struggling at 5:30 every had finished and logged of and it was not a mater of struggling 🤷🏾‍♀️🙄

@rookiemerei never mentions that I took many breaks and I didn’t and the manager hasn’t got any point as the manager and the senior manager are just delusional to say taking a 30 mins break is a magic bullet that will automatically erase mental fatigue at 5:30pm.

@MagicStarrz I do have a contact but to be honest I will have to go dig it out

You weren't even being paid to be there at 5.30.

In the kindest possible way - you need to grow a pair and work your contracted hours and that's that.

I used to have similar, but it was phone calls. Had to answer the phone at 4.59pm regardless of enquiry which could take over 30 mins. I used to pretend to be on the phone at 4.45pm so a call wouldn't come through or make out I was doing an admin task for a call.

You need to speak with your manager about any emails received after 4.30 are left until following day. Or could you choose a different simpler e-mail if the one you initially select is long?

Sounds like local government dept with micro managers who don't care about their staff and its needs of service / customers rather than employee health and wellbeing.

Mine was local Government too they just didn't care.

Hugs 🥰

To be honest, if they dont want overtime doing, I would be closing the email check at 4.30pm. And assessing what ones can be completed and what ones will need to wait til morning. Its really not hard for a manager to understand this logic.

@CombatBarbie@Haribosweets@RescueMeFromThisSilliness. your points are all good & thanks but like you said they don’t care at all even if employees are literally falling apart and I know the HR / organisation is aware but won’t say anything because they want results and the manger can’t do anything because her manger is controlling her like a puppet & she only just took the role but I don’t see any independence being gained at all. What happened yesterday after the email was left on Wednesday till Thursday morning was the the senior manager came back to work on Friday and started hammering and putting pressure on all through group teams chat saying what time he wants take done by and nothing should be left at all referring to the other day. But they have met their match this time as I won’t be quite about this because it is not right forcing employees to work till 5:30, 5:45 and then overtime is built up which is not paid for and then pressure is applied to reduce the overtime while we are forced to make sure emails are cleared till 5pm and this can have some legal ramifications for the organisation - I am sick of it and hate being cheated like this. It’s gone on for too long and everyone there is quite - they do not want to talk Apprently high turnover of the job - I am just finding out a lot now. The othe r dept know and HR too know what’s going on. The other managers or employees in other team say senior manager likes things to be done in a particular like saying he is efficient covering nasty bulling behaviour up.