Remote working dilemma

amother

Mon, Sep 13 2021, 12:39 pm

I've been working somewhere for several years now and the nature of my job is that I am "contract-bound" but my job description is different from most of the employees we are a small unit of the "bigger contract"--so basically we're bound by the overall rules of the bigger contract, except that we're not because of the nature of our duties. Ex. We don't clock-in and while they need to alert HR about absences, I learned kind of by accident pre-Covid that if I'm not NEEDED by anyone then they don't seem to care/notice if I'm at work or not *as long as I get my work done by the deadlines* which has worked well for yom tov. We don't get anything in terms of maternity leave so I try not to use my PTO. MOST of what I do can be done from anywhere whether it be my office or my bedroom. I have several offices and even though I have a "Schedule" of when to be where, it's a known thing that I am flexible and I generally try to accommodate everyone else. I get my emails on my phone so I'm always on-top of what I need to be doing and if an email comes in after my official hours I get on it--within reason. It's also been helpful because I'm almost at the end of my first trimester and I've had a hard time staying at my desk, wearing a mask all day etc. I don't want to be "dishonest" there's just no other way to do this job and be frum--but the bottomline is I have done every actual responsibility and I am a salaried employee paid to do "the job", not paid by the hour/day.

During Covid SOME staff got special permission to work remotely even once we went back in-person but when I asked about coming in-person despite us not NEEDING to be in the building (as I had complications with care of my dependents) I was told "rules are rules" so THAT is why I needed to be in the building.

But I've used this loophole when we've had simchos out-of-town or my kid/myself have had appointments.

Now we have a situation that I asked about last year to work remotely for a short period of time and the basic answer I got was "no, because rules are rules"--but I have found out since then that there ARE some employees working remotely because "that's where they are located", it's like if I don't ask, you wouldn't know the difference if I was in a building or not, but if I ask I don't want to jeopardize risking my safety net for yom tov, but I just can't afford to take off the amount of days I need and not get paid--also I have deadlines that need to be met and I CAN do the work I just would be somewhere else.

I want to ask if I can work remotely "like those other people" because bottom line is my specialty is such that they still need me more than I *need* them and there are companies that do "remote work" l'chatchila in my field I just chose to remain loyal because I know that they are short-staffed in my field.

torquoise

Mon, Sep 13 2021, 5:09 pm

Wow you sound like an extremely thoughtful and devoted employee. You've been super patient with a not-so-fair situation.
Leaf's advice is spot on.
Is there someone in the company that you feel is more understanding, workable? Might hear you out?
I hear that you're not sure if you should even ask the question. Maybe it would be better to just be strong and rigid and say I'm working from home and that's that. It's hard for you to predict what will happen - it's for sure hard for others outside the situation to predict.
If someone on imamother knows of a legal loophole for you to work from home, that would be nice.

amother

Wed, Sep 15 2021, 11:20 am

It's like if it was just a single day or two, I wouldn't even bother asking, like one day I had a meeting that got pushed off beyond my control and I had already committed to going to a wedding out of town and I was going to "take off" but the meeting had to happen that day so I set up shop at a rest stop, held the meeting and no one cared.

But this would be like a week-plus, so I don't feel comfortable doing it and I don't like that they are likely to tell me just to take leave when it would be in neither of our best interests but since "the whole group" can't do it that's why "I can't"--but I'm like I know for a fact that a staff member is working from a different state because they were desperate.

amother

Taupe

Wed, Sep 15 2021, 11:52 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

It doesn’t hurt to ask but they might say no.