© 2022 Fairygodboss. All rights reserved.
Dear employers, don’t give us flex time if you’re going to punish us for actually using it
I work at a company where they say they promote flex time but it’s frowned upon when we actually use it. I’ve literally seen my manager’s lip curls when I actually leave the office early. I don’t know about you all but I believe in getting work done and getting the F out to enjoy my life.
AK1285
13
08/27/18 at 12:52PM UTC
I get a ton of passive aggressive comments about my flex schedule. I work four 10 hour days to be able to save money on daycare costs by being off one day a week and I am permitted to work from home as needed. I know that this is a gift from my manager; to be able to work like this and allow for a nice work life balance and get an extra day with my very young children. It's incredibly frustrating to hear coworkers make snide comments about my schedule and I have to constantly remind myself that my manager supports me and their opinion doesn't matter. If i have to hear "Must be nice" one more time I'm going to lose it. Yes, it is nice, but also, I'm working from 7:30 in the morning until 6:00 pm, and I barely see my family those four days. I leave before my kids are awake (I have an hour commute each way) and get home barely in time to eat dinner with them and put them to bed. It's a trade off, but it works for me and I don't see why people feel the need to give me a hard time about it. Also, I'd like to go on record saying it's BS to not allow people without children to do flex time! Everyone is entitled to a life outside the office, no matter your family situation!
Unless someone is abusing the system, why can't flex time and remote work be the NORM? SIGH.
Yolanda Solo
15
08/24/18 at 6:43PM UTC
My job did not have flex time, but I and another mother used to work full-on all day so we could leave on time to collect our kids or spend with our kids instead of living in the office. We got more done during the day because we didn´t waste it chatting, going to the pub at lunchtime and generally not being productive.
We still got ´the look´ when we would leave from colleagues who would stay late because they were soooo busy having pissed about all day.
Too many people think more hours = more productivity and it just isn´t true.
Anonymous
08/24/18 at 4:53PM UTC
In my office, only one staff member has been allowed to have flex time. When she started here, she had a young child and justified her request because she had to leave a half hour early each day to pick him up. Now, her situation has changed, but our supervisor (next-door neighbor to the Favored One), has (1) denied the same request from a co-worker who now needs to pick up HER child before 5:00 p.m., telling her she needs to make arrangements to have an adult son (!) take care of this, and (2) won't talk to the other employee about changing to a standard work schedule.
As a married woman who never had children, I have been told that there is no reason for which flex time will be allowed for me.
Anonymous
08/24/18 at 4:48PM UTC
In my experience, the problem isn't always hypocrisy on the part of the "employers" who made the flextime policy. I worked as a consultant on a project to encourage employees to work from home at least 1-2 days per week. The executives were fully bought in, both to save money on office space and because they were having trouble attracting and retaining people due to high cost of living and bad traffic in the area. We conducted a survey to ask employees what obstacles they had to working remotely. Ranking higher than technology and higher than physical things needed at work (some workers used historical and archival documents that were not yet digitized): "My manager won't let me." Controlling middle managers were actively defying the executives on this.
Anonymous
08/19/18 at 1:50PM UTC
I have the same problem. It’s not a benefit if you’re being judged for actually taking the benefit.
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