Work colleagues

[DA Baracus]

4 minutes ago, throbber said:

I had a truly awful time of it of late at work and applied for other jobs but didn’t know my cv uploaded onto indeed.com when I applied and the managing director of my company found it and pulled me into his office over it. Was awkward as f**k.

Should have told them to bolt. You're free to look and apply for other jobs.

[Aladdin]

The problem is that you will still see some insistence on presenteeism on the part of employers.

Employees are entitled to make requests for variation of their place of work as part of  flexible working.  Employers can only refuse requests on certain (albeit fairly extensive) grounds.

Employees wanting to continue to work from home will need to point to how they have continued to work for the past 12 months as mitigation for any effect on the employer however it will depend on the nature of the job. 

[Markka]

My current work is a bit of a mess at the moment and IMO me leaving makes matters a lot worse for them.

Asked for a 50% wage increase to stay when giving notice, which perhaps unsurprisingly has not been forthcoming.

[throbber]

4 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

Should have told them to bolt. You're free to look and apply for other jobs.

Well yeah exactly, I wasn’t getting told off but he wanted to know why I was applying for other jobs as he wasn’t aware I was unhappy. I was getting pelters from my line manager over stuff to the point it was among the worst states I’ve ever got myself into mentally before. I had it out with them and it was concluded that I was doing too much work and to slow down and stop trying to please everyone and it’s been much better since and they actually took my antics seriously. 

The other jobs were further from my house and one company wanted me to work away at times which just ain’t gonna happen. A case of better the devil you know.

[DA Baracus]

I produced a 12 page document with fully referenced stats and also clearly laid out the benefits of working from ho me and the business (for example, the department are trying to save money and have seen selling off buildings and have stopped renting spaces from the NHS, with plans to cram even more folk in to our office, I pointed out that me working at home saves money on power and other associated office costs and frees up space in an already tight office), including a section that detailed how I feel I met each point in their criteria for home working (an old part of the HR website I imagine no one looked at in a while).

 

[Bairnardo]

I produced a 12 page document with fully referenced stats and also clearly laid out the benefits of working from ho me and the business (for example, the department are trying to save money and have seen selling off buildings and have stopped renting spaces from the NHS, with plans to cram even more folk in to our office, I pointed out that me working at home saves money on power and other associated office costs and frees up space in an already tight office), including a section that detailed how I feel I met each point in their criteria for home working (an old part of the HR website I imagine no one looked at in a while).
 

Check that part of the HR website tomorrow. Pound to a penny "whoops, something appears to be missing"

[DA Baracus]

2 minutes ago, Bairnardo said:

4 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

I produced a 12 page document with fully referenced stats and also clearly laid out the benefits of working from ho me and the business (for example, the department are trying to save money and have seen selling off buildings and have stopped renting spaces from the NHS, with plans to cram even more folk in to our office, I pointed out that me working at home saves money on power and other associated office costs and frees up space in an already tight office), including a section that detailed how I feel I met each point in their criteria for home working (an old part of the HR website I imagine no one looked at in a while).
 

Check that part of the HR website tomorrow. Pound to a penny "whoops, something appears to be missing"

Nah, it's still there and still the same since I sent the document (months ago, although I only sent a copy to the union recently).

I also clearly caveated that the document was written in line with all current guidance (it also referenced the Scottish Government guidelines) and that I would happily update anything should guidance change.

After reading it all one of the managers took from it that I wanted a window seat. Whilst I did mention natural light (and the utter lack of it I get in the office), it was very much a 'point massively missed' comment from said manager, who said she had passed it on to the overall office manager. 

[Melanius Mullarkey]

22 minutes ago, throbber said:

 Was awkward as f**k.

Did it still have cartoon penis on every page?

10 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

I produced a 12 page document with fully referenced stats 

You'll be due a promotion.

[throbber]

1 hour ago, MONKMAN said:

 

I’ve spent my entire working life adopting the same philosophy - do the bare minimum that’s required as to not arouse suspicion, that I’m a lazy c**t with absolutely no interest in actually being there.

 

This is exactly the sort of attitude I want to pass down to my children. I have spent too long being too obliging and trying to keep too many people happy and it’s ended up leaving me overworked and going home after my days finished and thinking about work and having sleepless nights over it all. It is a truly awful way to live. 

 

[throbber]

4 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Did it still have cartoon penis on every page?

You'll be due a promotion.

Nah I did say I was looking for a new challenge rather than my current employers are causing me to have a mental breakdown.

[Melanius Mullarkey]

2 minutes ago, throbber said:

Nah I did say I was looking for a new challenge rather than my current employers are causing me to have a mental breakdown.

f**k 'em. 

[die hard doonhamer]

I spent most of last year not enjoying working from home at all. However, I have to say my opinion has now changed and I can't see me being in the office very much at all when they reopen. A big part of that is the fact I've changed team within my department recently, and the rest of the team are all based down south, so there will be no real advantage in me actually being in the office at all. The other part is that I'm now properly set up at home, I bought myself a sit/stand desk last week and it makes a massive difference to how pleasant it is to be working at home. If I can get an actual office space in the house, rather than being in the bedroom all day, then that would make it to the point that I won't entertain working in an office regularly again.

[Derry Alli]

26 minutes ago, DA Baracus said:

After reading it all one of the managers took from it that I wanted a window seat. Whilst I did mention natural light (and the utter lack of it I get in the office), it was very much a 'point massively missed' comment from said manager

Terrific trolling by the manager. 

[NotThePars]

I don't think my department has plans to go back to full time office working as there's no one from management to dicks like me that are that keen on it. That's despite them leasing some primo office space in Manchester as well. I wouldn't mind 3-4 days in the office especially when I can load up flexi at home.

There isn't really any real justification for going back to the traditional office Monday-Friday 9-5 but then John McDonnell's pledge to bring in a 4 day week had everyone lose their minds so it's not a surprise employers will act against everyone's best interests.

[Fullerene]

9 hours ago, Aufc said:

Does anyone else work with people who always want to come across as the busiest person ever? I have a girl in my office who is actually sound but no matter what you ask her she always has to relate it back to how busy she apparently is. You ask her how she is getting on and she always replies “oh its mad in here” (she is one of about 5 people in my work that is working from the office). She always lets out a huge sigh when she leaves her room.

I dont understand why people do this

Sounds like me yesterday.  Busy as anything.  Then afterwards I had to make dinner.  Holy shit.  Just macaroni and cheese but more complex than you might think.  Then I had to eat it.  Not straightforward I can tell you.  Then a cup of tea.  Where do I start  ...   

[philpy]

3 hours ago, throbber said:

Well yeah exactly, I wasn’t getting told off but he wanted to know why I was applying for other jobs as he wasn’t aware I was unhappy. I was getting pelters from my line manager over stuff to the point it was among the worst states I’ve ever got myself into mentally before. I had it out with them and it was concluded that I was doing too much work and to slow down and stop trying to please everyone and it’s been much better since and they actually took my antics seriously. 

The other jobs were further from my house and one company wanted me to work away at times which just ain’t gonna happen. A case of better the devil you know.

Kind of in the same boat myself. Been with my current employer for ten years, but some of the working practices are now laughable, including 4 stocktakes  a year.  So there are 4 months of the year where you are not allowed to take holidays at the end of the month, June being one of them. We are constantly sending our trucks to help out 2 other depots, as they don't have enough transport. So our bosses are trying to cram as much deliveries as possible into the morning runs so they can free the trucks to go to the other branches.  This can mean the trucks can be sent out overloaded, but when you raise the issue of it, you just get a sigh and "oh well, we'll have to do it tomorrow", as if you've just pissed in their coffee for putting health and safety first.

Edited March 15, 2021 by philpy

[Aufc]

I suspect ill be back working in
The office full time next month. Shame as actually got used to working at home.

On the discussion about working bare minimum, my contracted hours are 8.30-5 and i generally work 7.30-5 which is fine. I got offered another job not that long ago which was a pay rise of about £40k a year which i turned down

[Bairnardo]

I guess it'll need to be tested at a tribunal at some point but for those of us able to work perfectly well at home who have been doing so for a year, there's going to need to be some pretty bulletproof evidence it can't continue in some form.
A while ago my work brought in this set of policies that amounted to 'clean your desk up and put stuff back where it's supposed to be at the end of the day' but dressed up in the usual corporate bullshit jargon. They then did a presentation showing how it had been an enormous success with lots of graphs of compliance being through the roof. I asked them if it had actually increased productivity which left them going in circles pointing out people had signed a sheet to say they'd put keys in a strongbox and whatnot. The brain geniuses hadn't thought to settle on any metrics they could use to actually determine if the policies did anything to get more work done and consequently folk just stopped doing it all and went back to their old ways. I suspect a fair number of workplaces will be in a similar boat of not having measured what working at home has done to performance in meaningful ways (i.e. not how long people have logged into their systems), so won't have a leg to stand on when they make an attempt to say working at home harmed productivity.

I'm not fully convinced that it's an argument that is there for the winning just because you have better info than the employer. Ultimately, if they want you back, they will get you back..... Or you will leave for a job that suits better. Which is obviously the course of action that will promote increased reasonableness in the long run.

[Rugster]

14 minutes ago, philpy said:

Kind of in the same boat myself. Been with my current employer for ten years, but some of the working practices are now laughable, including 4 stocktakes  a year.  So there are 4 months of the year where you are not allowed to take holidays at the end of the month, June being one of them. We are constantly sending our trucks to help out 2 other depots, as they don't have enough transport. So our bosses are trying to cram as much deliveries as possible into the morning runs so they can free the trucks to go to the other branches.  This can mean the trucks can be sent out overloaded, but when you raise the issue of it, you just get a sigh and "oh well, we'll have to do it tomorrow", as if you've just pissed in their coffee for putting health and safety first.

Four stock takes a year? They’ll be asking you to serve customers after 4.45pm next!

[philpy]

7 minutes ago, Rugster said:

Four stock takes a year? They’ll be asking you to serve customers after 4.45pm next!

Well, we shut the doors at 4.30 now, so GIRFUY.

Edited March 15, 2021 by philpy