Do you resent work colleagues with children for working flexible hours? (4 replies)
To be honest, this has not been my experience. 2 of my teammates have children and are as hard working and reliable as anyone else. They always go the extra mile and will step in to offer cover whenever they are needed. With regards to taking time off during school holidays, the truth is that going away is so expensive during that time that my husband and I make a point of avoiding going away then.
It irritates me a bit when a colleague announces that they have to leave early or so due to something going on at the school or to take little Johnny somewhere. I only have the doctors or dentist as an excuse to get an extra bit of escape from work. It means that I am left covering them and it increases my workload. Maybe you be given a set amount of leave for child activities and the same is awarded to nonparents. If you take over that then it gets deducted from holidays or pay.
In my type of work it tends to be quieter during the school holidays. More people are away so its a good time to be at work. Best to be on holiday when everyone's back and it is busy 😉
To me, if you have holidays to take then you can take them whenever you like. Whoever requests them first should get them, regardless of whether they have children or not. I also think that flexible working hours are brilliant, but they should benefit those without children as well. For example, my Father is elderly, and I look after him a lot of the time. I have a lot of problems trying to get out of work early, yet if my dependant was a child it wouldn't be an issue. But in general, I think flexible working is great.
I don't really resent them, because I've never needed to work abnormal hours myself, so it's never been something that I've felt as though I'm missing out on. But who knows, in the future when I need time away from work for something I may find it a little more unfair, because I can see why others would expect to be helped a little more if those with children are.
I came across this article in the daily telegraph (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/10669956/Anger-of-non-parents-forced-to-work-longer-hours.html), which discusses the tension that can arise in the workplace because of what is often seen as making too many allowances for people with children over their childless colleagues. Among the examples cited are flexible working hours, which often means that in jobs that require staff presence 24 hours for example, childless people end up working weekends and night shifts while those with children are often exempt. Other criticisms are that those with children always expect to take time off during school holidays etc. Has any of these been your experience and if so, do you resent it?