Opinions sought - weekend travel

shortcrust

ReadingTim wrote: »

An explanation is polite and politeness, along with good manners is the social lubricant amongst people. You will not endear yourself to others with such a rude approach.

Exactly. I'm amazed it needs to be said.

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

ohreally wrote: »

That assumes they are owed an explanation, they're not.

Arrangements were already agreed, subsequently to be unilaterally changed by the employer.

He doesn't say anywhere that arrangements were already made and then changed.

getmore4less

I used to extend trips to include weekends if I could get costs down.

Not the back end of nowhere, usually somewhere with things to do.

The time to discuss logistics was when it was identified this was 180miles away.

It must have been obvious this would require Sun travel at double time.

NewShadow

Thank you for the continued comments.

There have been a couple of questions/comments relating to when what was agreed with whom:

ScorpiondeRooftrouser wrote: »

He doesn't say anywhere that arrangements were already made and then changed.

To be clear - this is training that's being arranged centrally - normally my travel is arranged by the agreement of me and my boss so this is an exception to my norm hence the questions about what other people consider normal.

When the email about the training came around in January I discussed it with my boss as someone in the team needs to go - No one else was keen, I needed to meet my CPD requirements for the year, I don't have small kids or other personal commitments, and this is an easy way to do it in one lot so it was a win/win.

Central services gathered names and as the training is being delivered by an external company we were all just told to wait for further details.

Out of the blue back in June I was sent the registration form by the external company and the confirmation of the dates/venue. I discussed it with my manager and we agreed how to switch work around so I could fit those dates.

That was when I agreed to attend in North Wales - both of us were under the assumption I could travel up either the Monday morning or Sunday eve - which would be determined by the programme for the course which we expected to receive closer to the day.

Last Thursday I receive an email from central services to pass on to my boss - basically telling my boss I would need to be released to travel on the Friday. Not giving either of us a choice - just saying he would have to release me early enough in the day for me not to work/travel more than 10 hours - as per our policy.

That's when I posted here - it annoyed me - they don't seem to think people might have an issue with their plan and I wanted to check if it was just me being unreasonable before firing off an email I would then regret.

I've since not been in the office but I sent an email to the external trainers asking them to confirm the timings for the week and the earliest/latest delegates can arrive and leave. Hopefully have a reply to my work address waiting for me on Monday.

getmore4less wrote: »

The time to discuss logistics was when it was identified this was 180miles away.

It must have been obvious this would require Sun travel at double time.

It was obvious to me and my boss but it seems someone in the chain realised what travel was like in Wales on a Sunday and it's likely the contract with the training providers means it's cheaper for us to stay and be fed for the weekend than pay for everyone to have the time off at double time rates.

To be clear - Boss is okay with me traveling on Sunday - it's central services who have said I have to go on the Friday.

Or maybe someone else's boss kicked off at the idea of giving their staff two and a half days off when everyone's understaffed and overworked? This wouldn't surprise me if it was a knee jerk reaction to from someone in HR.

Manxman_in_exile

Are they paying you for your weekend "time"?

karcher

What was the outcome OP?

greenbee

I regularly have to travel out of hours. We get time off in lieu of the travel days rather than being paid - which TBH when you travel a lot is preferable.

Surely people will want time off to compensate for their Sat/sun anyway? So if you have to go up on Friday it makes sense for the course to start on sat and finish earlier...

If you already have personal commitments for the weekend, and you were previously told the course was mon-fri its not unreasonable to explain that you can't travel till sun. Maybe arrange with your boss to have time in lieu rather than overtime.

getmore4less

If your boss agreed Sun travel let him sort it out that's what bosses are for.

If they want you there Friday are you sure the course is not starting Sat.

Remind your bos that as they are saying you have to be at that site it will be work time and need paying anyway.