Work meetings clashing with school pick-up are making me anxious

[LiquoriceAllsorts2]

I have received several meetings that clash with the time that I need to collect my kids. Where possible I have tried to make it work and have my husband collect but there is a couple that I can’t make work due to him being away. I will tell work I can’t make it and will need to leave early but I feel so anxious that it will reflect badly on me and hate that I have been put in this position.

feels that however hard I work, sometimes it just can’t be enough.

dont know what I am looking for really, just want to rant and get my frustrations out. I hate that this needs to be an issue.

In the diversity training at work arranging meetings when someone has child commitments can count as indirect discrimination he "Childcare Disparity": UK employment tribunals explicitly recognize that women still bear a disproportionate share of primary childcare responsibilities in society. Because of this, an inflexible meeting schedule is legally recognized as placing women at a collective disadvantage compared to men

Would you say the same if scheduled to 7 or to 8, what is the cut off?

the problem is that these hours fall outside of what is possible based on normal childcare. Obviously alternative options such as Nannies are available but the cost of those is not reasonable within the salary paid for the job.

so effectively your argument is that is not possible to do the job if two working parents.

there is the option to reduce number of days worked but not hours in a day so that doesn’t solve anything

This explains it very well

FWIW, OP, when my DC were a similar age and we were really struggling with pick up, I posted on a childcare website and asked for someone from 5/5:15/5:30 until 7pm and found a lovely lady. Sha was in her 20s, needed some extra cash and her job finished at 5pm. She was happy to keep the car seats in her car (her partner had a nicer car than her so they tended to use his when they were out together) so she left work, was at school pick up at 5:10, at nursery at 5:15 and then brought the kids home. My job spec was essentially to give them some toast and keep them alive but she did so much more! Played games with them, took them to the park, for a walk along he river. All sorts. And then made sure they were home for 6pm so she could give them a bath and put them in their PJs. One of us was usually home by 6:30 but knowing we had the flexibility if a meeting overran or there was bad traffic was such a difference. And it was so nice not rushing into after school club & nursery knowing your child was going to be the last one to be picked up again, knowing that they would be tried and hungry and that you only have an hour in which to feed them, hear about their day, try and have some quality time with them and get them bathed and ready for bed whilst also winding down yourself from a busy day at work and a commute.
She was amazing! Her office shut for two weeks over Christmas and we’d always book a couple of those days for her to look after the kids and she took them off with her sister and niece and nephew for fun days out. Same in the summer holiday. She even went to the occasional event at school on my behalf.
It worked so well for us but it also worked well for her as she said she used her full time job for rent, food etc and then everything we paid her was fun money. And she went on some amazing holidays essentially funded by us! Plus she said she never did much in that gap as her social plans were never until 7ish and her partner didn’t get home from work until 7:30.
There are people out there if you can find them but I appreciate it will add more to your costs (although we were already paying extra to school and nursery for the latest possible pick up so not having to do that went some way to cancelling this out).

I have the same contracted hours but core hours are set and meetings (especially in person) usually take place within them. Board meetings often later but staff are encouraged to take back time beyond core day as TOIL as a disincentive to anyone who thinks meetings until 6/7pm is a good idea. It’s not just about parents, everyone commutes a fair distance and it’s unreasonable to expect people to be getting home late at night.

I’d decide your set hours and block
out your calendar @LiquoriceAllsorts2 . If it’s important for you to be there you’ll be accommodated, if not, no problem.

Are you supposed to be working at that time? If so, you need to sort something out with childcare or out in a flexible working request. If not, block your calendar out.

So with your update IMO your H should be job seeking for a job with less travel and, like you, seek to agree a set finish time on certain days of the week.

The company being unclear on core hours etc in contracts and HR policies doesn’t mean you can’t negotiate with your manager and set reasonable boundaries.

I often find myself in a similar situation, if it is a general update/others needing information from me I contact the facilitator directly and provide my inputs and ask to share actions/questions aftetwards which they hopefully do anyway. But sometimes I need input from others like an approval from management so have to attend in which case I go in advance to school and connect from the car. Just wanted to share that many people are in a similar position, also i know many male colleagues who come and leave earlier just to avoid traffic and no-one had a problem with this.

I used to be a PA and whilst i wouldn’t have booked meetings until 6 without checking, between non working days / people blocking out the school run AM & PM / different lunch hours etc it honestly became a total nightmare trying to arrange meetings. To the point I moved into a totally different role as I just got so fed up with it.

But work should be able to arrange so that mothers with children can pick up their DC from school. Companies are here to provide jobs and make a profit that is taxable so that the country can be run for all of us - not just to make shareholders rich. This, of course, runs counter to UK law, so it needs changing and is a feminist issue as well.

I still recommend asking for a new contract with specified hours of work in it.

Working parents have to accept that someone else will pick your children up from school. Whether it's a friend or family member or a child minder. Work provides a salary so you can live. If everyone left work to pick up their children at 3pm it would be chaos. No doctors, no dentists, no hospitals, no retail or hospitality, no police, no fire brigade....the list of working parents is endless. If you have dependent children you need a list of helpers or an extremely lovely boss.

Have you ever discussed this with your line manager? Could someone else cover the meeting for you on the occasions you are not able to attend? I was in a similar situation years ago and either my manager or someone else from my team would cover the occasional meetings I was unable to attend because of the children.
If you are working the hours required then you shouldn’t be disadvantaged because of having a young family. Are HR able to help - perhaps a joint discussion with them and your manager? There must be others in your company in the same situation, perhaps this is something you can raise together? Good luck, hope you find a solution.

RT Effing T

You sound young and I assume that's the case if you have nursery age children.

When you're older like me, you learn to be more bolshy.

I block out the times I'm unavailable. If I'm invited I either say I can't attend or I attend and say I need to leave at X time. I don't give a reason.

If the meeting is required for the correct performance of my job, I ask them to reschedule or to do a catch-up session with me when I am available.

It's not easy to fire people and recruitment is very expensive and not always successful. Don't feel like your job is on the line for living your perfectly reasonable life.

I think you need to go and discuss this with your line manager and/or HR. This could be seen as discrimination against you as a working mother. If they are a good company, they will want to keep you in the workplace and have happy staff. They will also not want to be sued which is a possibility if you chose to make an official complaint. It's crazy that you can't block out your diary with your schedule when it is for caring duties. Please get some advice from someone in position at your organisation - it's all very well to have a rant and get it out but solving this issue will get you much further.

She isn't trying to pick her children up at 3pm ...

It’s tough and difficult not to feel anxious but I find most employers are understandable (they’re people after all, generally with the same constraints and responsibilities) so I’d suggest:
a) blocking out the time in the diary you can’t do - clearly you might need to find a way to do some by exception
b) when you get invited to a meeting at a time you can’t do, just tell the organiser you can’t do that time. If they need you, and value you, they’ll find a different time.

if it genuinely isn’t working because they’re unreasonable, just find a different employer. There’s such a shortage of good folk most employers would be happy to accommodate reasonable requests from capable and hard working employees.

40 hours a week can be 9-5, 8-4, 10-6 or it can be different everyday or flexible - and the latter is generally what companies expect, that senior staff will attend a meeting at 8am or 5pm. But that makes family life impossible, because childcare doesn’t work around those hours plus commute

I think someone upthread has mentioned there should be core hours within all this, ie 10am-3pm, when staff can be expected to be available. If that isn't the case, then why should a 10-6 working pattern somehow eclipse an 8-4 pattern?

Just keep saying no, OP. I wonder how many 9am meetings the 10-6 people decline?

I work in a university and have a similar contract - I'm not contracted to do a fixed number of hours, I'm contracted to fulfil my role. It's normal in an academic contract.

I asked to go 'part-time' after I had my DC - you're very well protected by employment law when you're returning to work after having a baby. I took a slight salary cut with slightly reduced role profile and I don't feel bad about missing meetings anymore. I just tell people I am part-time.

I’d speak to line manager.
I wouldn’t couch it as needing to leave for childcare (people assume you are slipping off early and you aren’t)
You are working your hours.
Meetings 5-6 slot are not workable for you.
You can do earlier in day or later in evening.
Etiquette where I work is to avoid first or last thing as some people are 8-4, some 9-5, some 10-6.
I’d also look for a new job.
I think as you get older you get more robust about these things. People have commitments outside work. If you are a scout leader you can’t just not turn up leaving kids in lurch because someone has scheduled a meeting until 6pm.
My dh had someone regularly scheduling meetings until 7pm on a Friday. There’s been massive push back from senior people as it’s not in keeping with organisations wellbeing policies.

If you don't work those hours then what is the issue. Just be clear and block the time out. Don't sometimes attend and sometimes not, because then people are legitimately going to be confused by you.

Just loving that people are so keen to put the boot into OP that they cant even take a minute to read her posts.

There must be dozens of smug posts on here saying/implying she's a slacker and it's her problem because she's skiving off at 3.30

Is there an option to join without the camera on via the Teams mobile app? That's what I do if I have to leave the house.

It's an in office meeting