Taking annual leave on-site, on-call, and general boundary issues with employer

SillyOne

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

Post #97


You say "...the manager is perhaps good with people..."


Surely the whole point of your thread is that they are NOT good with people, except insofar as they are able to exploit YOU successfully.

It's complicated, I guess. Manager has lent me emotional support (whilst acknowledging powerlessness) and is much better than I am at "interfacing" with people outside our team.

Andypandyboy

SillyOne wrote: »

I did indirectly ask something like this, but got the response that "I don't know what we'd do. It would be panic stations" - my paraphrasing, again, but essentially that.

I don't take on any unnecessary journeys, activities etc outside of work because of this risk. If I do have unavoidable "unnecessary" trips (e.g. visiting parents 150 miles away) I am on edge the whole time. I'm a good driver but who knows what might happen.

This seems like a joke to me, are you saying that it crosses your mind that you need to be careful because you are indispensable at work before it crosses your mind that your family might suffer? If that is really true then you need to see a counsellor. Either you have an over inflated sense of your own importance or you are so browbeaten by the demands placed upon you that you can't see the wood for the trees. Either way you need help.

Or, this is a wind up.;)

Manxman_in_exile

I see you've responded to my post #101. Thanks, but it's not an answer as far as I'm concerned.


I also note that you've ignored the questions I posed in my post #93 despite the fact you've made multiple posts since then.


I asked those questions because it seems to me that you are trying to be helpful to your employer and colleagues, but in fact are putting yourself (or perhaps allowing yourself to be put in) a precarious position. If anything goes wrong with your "widget" reports, or if your client(s) make some complaint about them, ask yourself who is going to be blamed by your employer and colleagues?


I find it hard to believe that any responsible employer would allow any one employee to be in such a crucial position where only they can be relied upon to produce business-critical reports.


Find another job ASAP

Manxman_in_exile

Andypandy - I must admit it has crossed my mind this is a windup. I'm interested to see the answer to my post above.

Savvy_Sue

SillyOne wrote: »

I did indirectly ask something like this, but got the response that "I don't know what we'd do. It would be panic stations" - my paraphrasing, again, but essentially that.

Then offer solutions. "Well, you say that when I ask my colleagues to follow the SOP that this isn't helpful, but actually, if no-one but me can follow the SOP we're in a really precarious situation. We really need to train a couple of people up better so that when I'm not here, it isn't panic stations. I wonder if Fred and Freda would be good for this, could I have some time with them please?"

SillyOne wrote: »

I don't take on any unnecessary journeys, activities etc outside of work because of this risk. If I do have unavoidable "unnecessary" trips (e.g. visiting parents 150 miles away) I am on edge the whole time. I'm a good driver but who knows what might happen.

Oh for goodness sake.

You know who I feel sorry for? Not you. Not your boss or your colleagues. I feel sorry for your family, who are so clearly in second place to your all-important work.

getmore4less

SillyOne wrote: »

That's exactly it - I am "Senior" based on tenure and level of knowledge but it isn't an official promotion to be in charge of people and so on. Here a 'Senior' is just someone that's been there longer and knows more than the others. For example if we run the test 'T' on the particular widget and it produces result 'R' which is unexpected, the 'standard' widget tester would just report that to the Senior as 'unexpected result on T' and move on. The Senior would then investigate that result: is it legit, repeat the test, what could have caused R and does it happen every time, etc. Ultimately the stuff we report on has to be "reconciled" as regards unexpected results being explainable.

The complicating factor is that the manager of this team doesn't have a great deal of knowledge about Widgets or general diagnostic procedures (e.g. if something fails: When did it last succeed? What was changed? Rule out variables one by one, etc) the manager is perhaps good with people but with no specific technical knowledge.

OK you need to establish more control and recognition for your position.

If your manager can't deal with the technical stuff you need to step and manage that situation because currently it is a shambles

It is fairly standard to have senior technical people that are equals and in many cases senior to the management structure.

That might be a bit too far for your place but for your department to survive it needs a technical leader which currently it's lacking.

You need to decide if that person is going to be you.

With a bit of proper planning all the catch up and pickup of non conformance analysis can be scheduled so you can have a week or two off, and certainly no reason not to free up your weekends immediately.

Another thing to consider is widget testing shutdown so everyone gets a week off.

Xmas week would be a good start time to schedule the work so that you don't need to be there from Sat 24th to Jan 2nd if anyone comes in to do testing you pick up the results on the 3rd to start working on them for the next report.

globetraveller

I think you need to see a psychiatrist. There has to be another reason for this. Are you actually just avoiding your family? Is something not working out there that you have to feel that you are so indispensable at work?
If the whole company is only surviving because of you, they must be in a complete shambles management wise. What is the point of staying with them if you can easily find another job?
But is it actually how you are saying it is or are you just pretending it is to escape family life.
If you feel offended about my advice, go back and read your posts, especially the bit about visiting your parents. I almost hope you are a troll as it's a pretty empty life you are describing.

74jax

Andypandyboy wrote: »

Or, this is a wind up.;)

I have thought this since page two.

SillyOne

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

I'm confused on a couple of points. I apologise if you've already answered them.


First, you said in an earlier post that you've not had an "actual" holiday for seven years. I think you've also implied that most (if not all) of your holiday requests end up being refused. If I was an auditor working on your company's accounts I would be concerned about any employee not taking any time off. Where I used to work this was a standard audit check - for a number of reasons. Has an auditor ever asked why you don't use up your holiday entitlement? Or do you think your employers are concealing this fact from the auditors?


Second, you say your OH gives you "grief" when you are called back to work at some ridiculous time on a Sunday. Well, why wouldn't they give you grief? I've certainly done it. But who else is at work on a Sunday to call you in - your manager? Well let them sort it out. Or don't they know how to do what you can?


You've not had a proper holiday in seven years!!! And you are worried about what will happen to your fellow colleagues and the company?


You've also had a lot of good advice from other posters but keep coming back with "reasons" why you put up with this treatment. If you can't get your employer to sort out this mess of their own making, find another job ASAP

@Manxman in exile - Sorry, I missed responding to this one, just by accident.

Yeah, by an "actual" holiday I mean like going away somewhere, rather than just kicking around at home. I have had time off in that time of course, but it's rarely the time originally requested (after being 'bumped' to later dates) and frequently doesn't go undisturbed, like being phoned about 'urgent' requests. The problem really is never being able to plan anything in advance or have any confidence that it will actually happen.

So hopefully an auditor wouldn't have an issue with that, and I'm certainly not up to anything dodgy. Although I'm not aware that we have been audited by anyone that would look at holidays and stuff?? - we do get 'audited' (inspected, really) by the professional body that oversees what we do, but that's from a "process management" and "doing things as per the process" perspective rather than looking into "is anyone on the fiddle" or something like that. What's the risk as you see it from an auditor's point of view? I have only heard of this in places where people could fiddle money into their own bank account while doing accounts payable, and financial stuff like that.

(Edited to add: I don't touch anything to do with clients, contracts, payment and the like, our team just gets the requests and puts the technical stuff together accordingly. Customer service people - not sure of their actual title - deal with the customers and contracts.)

Being given grief on a Sunday - it's the manager, or the team in general, when we are up against a deadline and "hope" we don't have to go into the weekend (my days are M-F) but then something goes wrong, and there goes the weekend! I've learnt not to plan anything for "deadline" weekends which is about half of them.

SillyOne

Andypandyboy wrote: »

This seems like a joke to me, are you saying that it crosses your mind that you need to be careful because you are indispensable at work before it crosses your mind that your family might suffer? If that is really true then you need to see a counsellor. Either you have an over inflated sense of your own importance or you are so browbeaten by the demands placed upon you that you can't see the wood for the trees. Either way you need help.

Or, this is a wind up.;)

@ Andypandyboy - I spent a couple of days reflecting about your reply (not constantly, of course!) as you are right that that's ***ed up. Now that I've thought about it I think you're right, 'browbeaten' - maybe more by my sense of obligation than something imposed externally though, and losing sight of the big picture. I'm really angry at myself about that as in general the big picture (cliche, but what I mean is the opposite of "not seeing the wood for the trees) is something historically that's been one of my strong points and now I am obsessing over details of stupid stuff most of the time.

As said - ***ed up as it may be - it does occur to me when driving off somewhere that "what happens if I'm in an accident" (or whatever) "because we have the ABC report to send out on Thursday" I guess family could manage without me, the team unfortunately is in the position that they will be ***ed for now if things don't get sorted out.

I really wish I could train and offload / delegate but we are always in "fire fighting" mode and no time for training - on the couple of occasions that we have had 'slack' in the past though, my manager has asked me to cross train (with "training plan" and things to tick off etc) which I have done to the best of my ability, but the trainees either aren't listening, aren't capable, aren't taking it seriously that they might need to engage with any of this stuff, or some other negative I haven't accounted for!