Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the only way you can make it work is to take it at home and then drop the kids, then tell that to your manager. "Happy to take the call, but I'll have to do it at home before I drop the kids. That will put me into the office 30 minutes later (or whatever) than usual."

I get not wanting to talk about your personal life at work, but you could always add that you'd be happy to take it in office once DH returns from deployment the beginning of next year.

The problem is that they literally conflict. DD needs to be at school in the middle of the meeting (15 minute window).

This is a problem with a finite period of time. If this is school, summer break is coming, yes? If your husband is deployed, he will return at some point.
I want to chime in with the others to say you've got to rewire your brain's thinking on this. It is okay to ask for an alternate plan during this time period.
Some to try...
1. Do the meeting by phone (let the teacher's know you'll be in a meeting, so won't be chatting with them during the drop off.)
2. Ask school if you can post a message asking for parents willing to pick up a child. Depending on your schedule, you could offer to do pick up of their kid in exchange, or toss them some money. You don't need to be friends with them, just working out something with a fellow parent who is in your general area or who's route to school is in your area.
3. Ask if there can be reconsideration of the meeting time. Agree with others that there are bound to be others that might want a different time.

Again, it is COMPLETELY reasonable for you to ask for accommodations. This is not about you "letting your personal life impact colleagues."
If you had applied for a job, and when they were interviewing you, they stated that one of the responsibilities of this job was to participate in a in-person, in-office meeting at 7am, and you had accepted the job knowing that you had this conflict, THAT would be a problem. This is a completely different situation. It was not part of original job, it falls outside your normal work hours, etc.

Do NOT quit your job. I just listed 3 possible alternatives above, and I'm sure there are more. The option you should not consider is quitting your job!

Anonymous wrote:Can you move kid drop off and do the phone call at home?

Drop-off is a 15 minute window during the call. If I had cell phone reception all the way home, I could do it, but the reception drops 10 minutes out, so there's a gap in connectivity. With all companies, unfortunately.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


But you are making it her problem by not being available for this meeting and not being able to provide a solution for your attendance. I understand wanting to keep your personal life private, but your choices are to try to appeal to her with the general details of your situation and ask to be excused, try to get the time of the meeting moved again, or simply accept that this might factor into your performance. It is unreasonable and we can all think it’s unreasonable, but most jobs are at-will so it is what it is.

Well, my plan is to quit if I can't figure out something else. I don't want to, but I can't allow personal issues to affect my coworkers.

Oh geez - if I were your boss, and you were going to quit over this, I would be really very upset that you didn't trust or respect me enough to tell me what was going on in your life to truly create an extenuating circumstance. Maybe your boss is a total jerk who won't care, but I hope not. For most bosses, it would be a real shame to lose a valuable employee this way (and guessing that if you're working this hard to figure this out, you're a conscientious and valuable employee)

Let's just say I had parents who didn't accept any kind of excuses. I've been in therapy for it. But yeah, allowing this to affect others makes me physically ill.

Quitting would probably affect them more than asking for some help accommodating the call would.

Can you move kid drop off and do the phone call at home?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


But you are making it her problem by not being available for this meeting and not being able to provide a solution for your attendance. I understand wanting to keep your personal life private, but your choices are to try to appeal to her with the general details of your situation and ask to be excused, try to get the time of the meeting moved again, or simply accept that this might factor into your performance. It is unreasonable and we can all think it’s unreasonable, but most jobs are at-will so it is what it is.

Well, my plan is to quit if I can't figure out something else. I don't want to, but I can't allow personal issues to affect my coworkers.

Oh geez - if I were your boss, and you were going to quit over this, I would be really very upset that you didn't trust or respect me enough to tell me what was going on in your life to truly create an extenuating circumstance. Maybe your boss is a total jerk who won't care, but I hope not. For most bosses, it would be a real shame to lose a valuable employee this way (and guessing that if you're working this hard to figure this out, you're a conscientious and valuable employee)

Let's just say I had parents who didn't accept any kind of excuses. I've been in therapy for it. But yeah, allowing this to affect others makes me physically ill.

Anonymous wrote:If the only way you can make it work is to take it at home and then drop the kids, then tell that to your manager. "Happy to take the call, but I'll have to do it at home before I drop the kids. That will put me into the office 30 minutes later (or whatever) than usual."

I get not wanting to talk about your personal life at work, but you could always add that you'd be happy to take it in office once DH returns from deployment the beginning of next year.

The problem is that they literally conflict. DD needs to be at school in the middle of the meeting (15 minute window).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:


But you are making it her problem by not being available for this meeting and not being able to provide a solution for your attendance. I understand wanting to keep your personal life private, but your choices are to try to appeal to her with the general details of your situation and ask to be excused, try to get the time of the meeting moved again, or simply accept that this might factor into your performance. It is unreasonable and we can all think it’s unreasonable, but most jobs are at-will so it is what it is.

Well, my plan is to quit if I can't figure out something else. I don't want to, but I can't allow personal issues to affect my coworkers.

Oh geez - if I were your boss, and you were going to quit over this, I would be really very upset that you didn't trust or respect me enough to tell me what was going on in your life to truly create an extenuating circumstance. Maybe your boss is a total jerk who won't care, but I hope not. For most bosses, it would be a real shame to lose a valuable employee this way (and guessing that if you're working this hard to figure this out, you're a conscientious and valuable employee)

If the only way you can make it work is to take it at home and then drop the kids, then tell that to your manager. "Happy to take the call, but I'll have to do it at home before I drop the kids. That will put me into the office 30 minutes later (or whatever) than usual."

I get not wanting to talk about your personal life at work, but you could always add that you'd be happy to take it in office once DH returns from deployment the beginning of next year.

Anonymous wrote:


But you are making it her problem by not being available for this meeting and not being able to provide a solution for your attendance. I understand wanting to keep your personal life private, but your choices are to try to appeal to her with the general details of your situation and ask to be excused, try to get the time of the meeting moved again, or simply accept that this might factor into your performance. It is unreasonable and we can all think it’s unreasonable, but most jobs are at-will so it is what it is.

Well, my plan is to quit if I can't figure out something else. I don't want to, but I can't allow personal issues to affect my coworkers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the youngest in the group, so no one else has conflicts. It starts at 7 am now - about 20 people. My manager says, "Just make it work." I know I'm pretty stressed with the deployment and probably missing something obvious.

Your manager is telling you to do whatever you need to do to make it work. If that means talking the call in a public place, etc. sounds like you have been given tacit permission.

There are some legalities with that. That's definitely not what she meant.

I assumed it was relevant since you mentioned it...? As in that’s the kind of accommodation that would be helpful. I understand you are stressed and have a lot of reasons why it won’t work. Can you work with her on a way it -could- work instead? Managers like solutions, not to be told of problems and expected to fix them.

Oh, I never presented this as a problem. I declined the meeting thinking it was a one time change and got jumped on for it. She doesn't even know DH is deployed and that this is causing issues.

So tell her that your DH is deployed and you are struggling to make this time work? Ask if perhaps you could be exempted from this call. I don’t know what else anyone can tell you since you haven’t even appealed it to her yet.

I keep my personal life separate. It's not her problems, or anyone else's.

But you are making it her problem by not being available for this meeting and not being able to provide a solution for your attendance. I understand wanting to keep your personal life private, but your choices are to try to appeal to her with the general details of your situation and ask to be excused, try to get the time of the meeting moved again, or simply accept that this might factor into your performance. It is unreasonable and we can all think it’s unreasonable, but most jobs are at-will so it is what it is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the youngest in the group, so no one else has conflicts. It starts at 7 am now - about 20 people. My manager says, "Just make it work." I know I'm pretty stressed with the deployment and probably missing something obvious.

Your manager is telling you to do whatever you need to do to make it work. If that means talking the call in a public place, etc. sounds like you have been given tacit permission.

There are some legalities with that. That's definitely not what she meant.

I assumed it was relevant since you mentioned it...? As in that’s the kind of accommodation that would be helpful. I understand you are stressed and have a lot of reasons why it won’t work. Can you work with her on a way it -could- work instead? Managers like solutions, not to be told of problems and expected to fix them.

Oh, I never presented this as a problem. I declined the meeting thinking it was a one time change and got jumped on for it. She doesn't even know DH is deployed and that this is causing issues.

So tell her that your DH is deployed and you are struggling to make this time work? Ask if perhaps you could be exempted from this call. I don’t know what else anyone can tell you since you haven’t even appealed it to her yet.

I keep my personal life separate. It's not her problems, or anyone else's.

Ugh - that's just terrible.

That said a few ideas to maybe?
- Try different mobile providers? Stinks, but a different one might work better (I couldn't get my personal Verizon to work in the mountains in West Virginia, but my work AT&T mobile was fine) so you can take the call en route
- Can you take the call at home and do drop-off late? (school or a teacher might by sympathetic, and I would think work would be since you're taking an early morning call?)
- If you don't have a 'land line' at home - fake one! If you have Internet - Ooma VOIP has been great for us...

Hang in there - honestly sounds totally discriminatory, but that's the US

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm the youngest in the group, so no one else has conflicts. It starts at 7 am now - about 20 people. My manager says, "Just make it work." I know I'm pretty stressed with the deployment and probably missing something obvious.

Your manager is telling you to do whatever you need to do to make it work. If that means talking the call in a public place, etc. sounds like you have been given tacit permission.

There are some legalities with that. That's definitely not what she meant.

I assumed it was relevant since you mentioned it...? As in that’s the kind of accommodation that would be helpful. I understand you are stressed and have a lot of reasons why it won’t work. Can you work with her on a way it -could- work instead? Managers like solutions, not to be told of problems and expected to fix them.

Oh, I never presented this as a problem. I declined the meeting thinking it was a one time change and got jumped on for it. She doesn't even know DH is deployed and that this is causing issues.

So tell her that your DH is deployed and you are struggling to make this time work? Ask if perhaps you could be exempted from this call. I don’t know what else anyone can tell you since you haven’t even appealed it to her yet.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I usually have the times I am not available (including mornings and evenings before and after work) blocked off on my calendar. If anyone wants to add a meeting, it will get automatically rejected, because it's a conflict. So people can just move things around until they find a time that works for everyone, or they can have the meeting without me. I don't need to explain to anyone why I am not at work at 7AM. Once in a blue moon when we have a big project due, sure. Regularly, forget about it. I'd rather change jobs.

Ha, tell that to people in most jobs. I regularly get called to 7-7:30 meetings even though they’re outside my normal working hours (and the core hours of our federal agency). I’d be laughed at if I had your attitude.

+1

Anonymous wrote:I usually have the times I am not available (including mornings and evenings before and after work) blocked off on my calendar. If anyone wants to add a meeting, it will get automatically rejected, because it's a conflict. So people can just move things around until they find a time that works for everyone, or they can have the meeting without me. I don't need to explain to anyone why I am not at work at 7AM. Once in a blue moon when we have a big project due, sure. Regularly, forget about it. I'd rather change jobs.

Ha, tell that to people in most jobs. I regularly get called to 7-7:30 meetings even though they’re outside my normal working hours (and the core hours of our federal agency). I’d be laughed at if I had your attitude.