Work colleagues

[BC17]

There's someone at work who always refers to (Microsoft) Teams in written communication as TEAMS. No idea why she always capitalises it but it slightly irritates me.

A colleague who I message hourly on Teams constantly tags me when writing my name, even though the chat is between just the two of us. Then I have to go on and clear the notification of him tagging me. It fucks me right off.

[Moomintroll]

7 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

Aye but, I've always had the impression that this kind of shit is normal. Always melts my mind when I hear about employers allowing their employees to sack off work for family reasons; nobody I've ever worked for would put up with that. My current lot are just sneaky and incompetent - I've worked for some real psychos. Probably explains why every single employer I've ever had went out of business...wouldn't surprise me if the current one goes the same way TBH.

I think it's time to admit that the problem may be me!

It really isn't, it will be unpaid but bloody hell your Employers are a disgrace for not allowing time off. You are not the problem, they clearly are.

[BFTD]

8 minutes ago, keithgy said:

We can take 5 dependents day a year and they can't hold it against us,it is unpaid but handy to fall back on.

That sounds nice. We don't get paid for sick days, but being able to do that would be useful. Most of us work alone, so I'm sure the reason why that wouldn't be allowed would be that there wasn't anyone to cover. Because they refuse to employ any cover staff, of course  

Something that just occurred to me - like a lot of people, we were asked to take some holiday time during furlough, for all the reasons that everyone was discussing on here at the time. The idea was supposed to be they'd pay us the full whack for that week, rather than just the 80% from the government. When that month's payslip came in, I noticed that we were still receiving the 80% from the government, and our employer had just topped us up with the extra 20%, rather than paying the full 100% themselves. Is that the way that was supposed to work? Something about that felt a bit dodgy.

[microdave]

A guy at turnstiles at Ochilview has been saying 'alright Bryan?' to me for the last 25 years. 
My name isn't Bryan. It's gone well past the point I can correct him.

How do you know he's calling you Bryan with a y rather than Brian with an i?

[Todd_is_God]

Just now, BigFatTabbyDave said:

I noticed that we were still receiving the 80% from the government, and our employer had just topped us up with the extra 20%, rather than paying the full 100% themselves. Is that the way that was supposed to work? Something about that felt a bit dodgy.

Yeah.

Annual leave doesn't break furlough, so while you get full pay, your employer can still claim 80% back

[BFTD]

Just now, Todd_is_God said:

Yeah.

Annual leave doesn't break furlough, so while you get full pay, your employer can still claim 80% back

OK, thanks.

Obviously didn't matter to me one way or the other, but you start looking for dodgy behaviour in everything after a while!

[Andy Dufresne]

22 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

That sounds nice. We don't get paid for sick days, but being able to do that would be useful. Most of us work alone, so I'm sure the reason why that wouldn't be allowed would be that there wasn't anyone to cover. Because they refuse to employ any cover staff, of course  

Something that just occurred to me - like a lot of people, we were asked to take some holiday time during furlough, for all the reasons that everyone was discussing on here at the time. The idea was supposed to be they'd pay us the full whack for that week, rather than just the 80% from the government. When that month's payslip came in, I noticed that we were still receiving the 80% from the government, and our employer had just topped us up with the extra 20%, rather than paying the full 100% themselves. Is that the way that was supposed to work? Something about that felt a bit dodgy.

We get 80% sick pay for the 1st 3 times in any callender up to a maximum of 6 months,the half pay.

[parsforlife]

High number of folk with 2 first names who seem to think it’s someone’s else’s fault.

[BFTD]

13 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Sounds like you need to unionise BFTB

We already are; the organisation has ties to one of the major unions  

I know of three of us who actually pay their dues, one of whom only started when they felt they were being pushed out by senior management. They let slip they were "taking advice from the union", and the harassment stopped immediately. Well, the immediate harassment...they have form for getting rid of difficult staff over the longer term.

Depressing how, any time approaching the union to resolve issues is brought up, the general consensus is along the lines of, "what's the point, they don't do anything, no chance I'm giving money to pay for their expensive cars", etc.

[senorsoupe]

We already are; the organisation has ties to one of the major unions  [emoji38]
I know of three of us who actually pay their dues, one of whom only started when they felt they were being pushed out by senior management. They let slip they were "taking advice from the union", and the harassment stopped immediately. Well, the immediate harassment...they have form for getting rid of difficult staff over the longer term.
Depressing how, any time approaching the union to resolve issues is brought up, the general consensus is along the lines of, "what's the point, they don't do anything, no chance I'm giving money to pay for their expensive cars", etc.

1. Your employer is garbage

2. Your union is garbage

[BFTD]

4 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

So what does your rep say when you ask them about the issue with booking days off?

Nothing - I haven't. I'm doing my best to stay off the radar until it suits me not to.

Related side note: a colleague (no longer with the organisation) asked who our union rep was before he quit, as he had some very legitimate gripes (including the hilarious suggestion that his boss was going to tear up his contract and make up a new one if he didn't do as he was told). He was told it was his boss's boss  

[BFTD]

5 minutes ago, senorsoupe said:

1. Your employer is garbage

2. Your union is garbage

I'm being very careful with what I say on here  

[BFTD]

7 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

Well first step would be to actually speak to your rep. Nobody will help if you don't tell them there's a problem. If you feel like your rep is going to be unable to help as they're management with conflicted interests, frankly they should be asked to step down from steward duties. In any case if that's bthe situation, ask to speak to someone at the region level in the union about finding suitable representation.

I will, if it comes to it, but that's proven to be step one in looking for a new job for anyone who's done it in the past while I've been there. Any personal issues I have are minor in comparison to virtually everyone I know, and I'm covering myself in every way possible. While advising others to do the same, I should add. Amazing how management can back right off as soon as they realise they're being monitored  

There are...conflicts of interest between the board and the union. Which is all I can really say.

[BFTD]

9 minutes ago, MixuFruit said:

What you say to your rep or indeed the fact you've even met them for a chat is none of your management's business. You could run your concerns by them and leave it at that, there is no reason your boss would ever know. You should definitely do so. For all you know there could be a lot of you with similar issues who could form a collective grievance. That could be led from regional level, they don't even need to say who they're acting on behalf of, just that they're representing however many members.

Whatever your concerns about how your board interacts with your reps sounds like it needs to be escalated and dealt with.

Yes there is, is what I've been trying to say. Can't really say more than that. There's a worrying transfer of information between employer and union, which is part of the reason why enthusiasm for the union is so low. The folk I work with have seen a lot more than I have.

If you aren't happy with it, you leave. If you obviously aren't happy with it and stay, the job leaves you. They've become quite agile at that part, even with long-term employees. Nobody's in a position to risk that happening at the moment! Thanks for your concern, though.

[Busta Nut]

2 hours ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

Aye but, I've always had the impression that this kind of shit is normal. Always melts my mind when I hear about employers allowing their employees to sack off work for family reasons; nobody I've ever worked for would put up with that. My current lot are just sneaky and incompetent - I've worked for some real psychos. Probably explains why every single employer I've ever had went out of business...wouldn't surprise me if the current one goes the same way TBH.

I think it's time to admit that the problem may be me!

I work with a person who seems to use looking after a family member for a few weeks off every year.
My work are decent and pay the time off but she seems to have a crisis where the guys carers suddenly can't show next week or  something like that. She works long days and he is fine 99% of the time but there is then always this wee buckle or two every year. Clearly taking the pish.

There quite a few folk who I have to email with the same name and there are a couple who in particular get really pissy when they get the others Emails. Dealing with the shared mailbox for the department show how much of a pair of wee guys these clowns are. So ratty in their replies and so dickish.

While we are on names I deal with the general public a lot and the amount of people who are called things like:
Donald McDonald
Steven Stevenson
William Williamson
Edward Edwards
Neil Neilson

is fucking frightening.  Having recently had my first child when discussing names the first thing I said to my partner was let's not give the kid a fucking daft name here so I can't imagine what goes through the fucking parents minds when naming their weans these sort of things.

[BFTD]

With names like that, I bet it usually turns out that it's a family tradition or somesuch.

Not that it's an excuse, but folk do daft things for family and tradition. My mother had to be talked out of giving me five middle names as using the mother's maiden name (along with the previous ones going back generations) had become the thing to do in one branch of the family. Mental.

[tamthebam]

There are females in the Western Isles called names like Donaldina which I always thought was a bit odd.

Imagine though we did the same thing as the Septics:

"Hi, I'm Shug McGlumpher the Fourth..."

[The_Kincardine]

30 minutes ago, tamthebam said:

There are females in the Western Isles called names like Donaldina which I always thought was a bit odd.

Imagine though we did the same thing as the Septics:

"Hi, I'm Shug McGlumpher the Fourth..."

Also in Sutherland/Caithness.

I have Teuchter cousins called Hectorina and Angusina.  They make it easy, though.  One is Rina and the other is Ina.

[Academically Deficient]

40 minutes ago, BigFatTabbyDave said:

With names like that, I bet it usually turns out that it's a family tradition or somesuch.

Not that it's an excuse, but folk do daft things for family and tradition. My mother had to be talked out of giving me five middle names as using the mother's maiden name (along with the previous ones going back generations) had become the thing to do in one branch of the family. Mental.

Same in the wife's family although they stopped at 3 middle names.

We restored normality by sticking with just both mother's maiden names for ours. 

Apart from anything else, it takes so much time when you have to fill in a form.

[Bairnardo]

22 minutes ago, Academically Deficient said:

Same in the wife's family although they stopped at 3 middle names.

We restored normality by sticking with just both mother's maiden names for ours. 

Apart from anything else, it takes so much time when you have to fill in a form.

My kids each have two middle names. I'd have been happy giving them zero, but its an argument I wasn't ever going to win. Absolute nonsense, done for the "benefit" of others rather than the kids you are naming. Fucking bizarre.