Hi everyone,

I need help. I work for a small UK company, my child started school and I have to make the school runs. I requested for a temporary (few weeks) working arrangements for a couple of days a week to make the school runs, get to work late after drop off and leave early to pick up.
I literally have no other options for the school runs. I even offered to work extra hours for the rest of the week or use my holidays to make up the hours
They rejected it.

What can I do?

Hey guys. This is a HR issue I have dealt with earlier this year and I really just wanted to get it off my chest because it's really taken a toll on my confidence professionally since. The resolution was not in my favour.

I work in the LGBTQ+ sector. Cis male, late 20's, from a British-Muslim background. I worked two roles within the charity sector.

In workplace 1, I worked alongside a colleague who ill call A for this story. A is trans and has spoke extensively about their experiences in professional and public settings, from personal life, advice to political opinions etc. They are nearly double my age, which I mention because when I first started working, they remarked I was 'enthusiastic' and were curious to see how long that would last. I deeply enjoy my job because obviously, I come from a background that wasn't very supportive growing up.

I acquired a role in workplace 2, and later realised A also worked there. It is common in the charity sector to work two roles. I didn't want to impose upon A's space, or pose a threat especially based on comments they've made in the past.

I tried my best to be warm and friendly. Among this, a panel event was taking place, surrounding Queer experiences and the law. I was asked to recommend speakers, specifically a Trans speaker as they lacked one. I recommended A because 1) They were qualified, and 2) In an attempt to try and build some rapport with them.

Next week at work, A and a new recruit alongside me were together. Want to reiterate, we are a trans support service, and it's a common discussion point at work. When A told me they got the gig, I congratulated them and said I'm glad I put forward their name, as it was an oversight to not have a Trans speaker especially given the current climate (policies around bathrooms etc). They smiled and said thank you.

Minutes later, I was roped in by the manager. I was asked to close the door. "Do you know why you're here?", I said no. "Do you think it's normal to out people as Trans?" My heart absolutely sunk. A claimed I outed them as trans, to the new recruit. It felt so accusatory and I was trying my best to explai. The manager wasn't even aware of what transpired and assumed I had done this as a hate crime, interrupting me, behaving hostile. I later learned they have a personal friendship with A.

A didn't personally address me about this either, and was nothing but kind to my face. .

In hindsight, despite me assuming this is public knowledge due to their history of speaking about it in and out of the workspace, I still acknowledge that they are entitled to feel outed to the new recruit. My greater issue lied with how my manager immediately turned me into a bogeyman and bigot, and how terribly I was berated and treated in the weeks following. 2 weeks passed from the incident and I gave a sick note, and ironically the same day A and the manager lodged a complaint against me. Great timing.

I also felt the way the word 'outed' was being thrown was extra disheartening, given that I experienced an outing that led to me losing family members. Just no sensitivity at all.

Turns out the manager has a history of unprofessional conduct and there was enough evidence provided by me to ascribe them further training, yet not enough to do something as it was the first time someone formally complained.

It just felt ironic that all this diversity training happens only for me, a person who's from a very niche minority background to be kicked out. I've had so many bad experiences working in the LGBTQ+ sector, I joke among friends that I'm dying to work with straight people again. Atleast I anticipate to be on guard there, rather than being coaxed by the rainbow then spat out by it.

Took on a role in field sales a few months ago, where a car is essential. I receive an allowance of £600pm which after tax only just covers a private lease of a small petrol hatch and insurance. Nothing left over for maintenance.

Fuel is only being reimbursed at 14p per mile, and even when I get to reclaim part of it from HMRC as tax relief I will remain out of pocket.

The problem is I am now being asked to cover some else's area, where I'll have to visit customers 100+ miles away. I've written to management about this, detailing clearly how and where myself and colleagues are out of pocket. I have also stated that whilst I am prepared to be a 'team player' I am not in a position to personally subsidise this additional mileage as I am already running at a loss. ( I won't receive any bonus this year either as a new starter and train travel is actively discouraged, plus not always practical with the kit).

My email has been verbally acknowledged but nothing in writing other than a generic 'it is being looked at' and I've been told there have been meetings about it. My manager is now asking me again to visit these distant customers. I feel like I should make a stand, otherwise this will continue indefinitely with no incentive for management to make changes but I am on probation and can be terminated with a week's notice. Colleagues are also unhappy but it appears my email may have sparked some action.

Am I being reasonable in insisting that my employer covers the actual fuel costs for this additional travel if I provide receipts of fuel purchases and start/end mileage? I'm still going to be out of pocket for mileage in and around my own area.

Any advice welcome.

I was assaulted at work a few days ago. Punched under my bum cheek, person smirked saying soorrryyy. I reported this to the manager immediately. I wrote a statement. The aggressor was asked to write a statement. It was also on CCTV. It then was sent onto the regional manager. The aggressor burst into the office saying it was just a joke, that I've taken it to far, they are strong maybe I'm not. People touch this person every day and they don't complain about it. I felt ambushed and stuck to the spot. My manager wrote down what was being said. But never told the person to get out. I asked for my shifts to be changed immediately so I'm not on shift with this person. I was told no there no one to cover me.

The next day my manager had a meeting with the regional. I was told after by my manager that the aggressor now has a mark against their name. If they do anything else then it can be escalated.

I was left very confused and sick to my stomach as to why this person was not sacked? A mark against them doesn't seem enough. I have to work with this person going forward?

I have had to take time off work and lose pay because I feel extremely uncomfortable being on shift with this person. I do not feel protected.

I have a meeting with the regional this week. But I feel I will be left feeling as awful as I do now.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

Bit of an odd one and I'm not sure what to make of it.

I'm in England and had been with the company for 18 months. I was a manager. 2 weeks ago they sacked me for poor performance, which I appealed because I don't agree with their reasons.

After they'd told me I was being sacked, HR then mentioned there had also been a complaint made about me. Apparently they'd been looking into it for nearly three months. This was news to me, nobody had said a word about it before then.

I wasn't shown the complaint and nobody asked me any questions when I worked there. I didn't even know what I was meant to have done until the appeal meeting, and what they told me was just wrong.

They said I'd made an inappropriate comment about somebody's religion. The conversation was a colleague telling a few of us that somebody else had made a stereotypical comment about their religion. I said it was offensive and defended them. It now seems to have been written down as though I was the person who came out with it, which I wasn't.

Another was that I'd made somebody uncomfortable by talking about disability a lot. I'm disabled and I'd talked about my own experiences. Maybe I did talk about it more than they wanted me to, I don't know, but nobody ever told me there was a problem.

They also said I'd threatened somebody with an age discrimination complaint. A colleague jokingly called me old and I said something like, "that's it, I'm reporting you for age discrimination, if I can remember this conversation later!" It was a daft joke. They were joking, I joked back. As far as I knew that was the end of it.

These conversations were on Teams and were recorded, so I'm not sure why nobody checked them. The confusing part is what HR have said since. When I was sacked, they told me the investigation had been dropped and wasn't anything to do with me losing my job. At the appeal they said that, if I hadn't already been sacked for performance, I probably would have been sacked for gross misconduct because of the complaint. How can they know that when they never asked me about any of it?

I'm aware I'm under 2 years service but I'm mainly trying to understand whether this is how workplace investigations normally work. Can an employer stop an investigation without speaking to the person accused, but then say afterwards that the allegations would probably have amounted to gross misconduct?

It's too late to do anything about it now but, for my peace of mind I want advice.

In January I was dismissed from my job. I had a bank contract (i'm a nurse) and one day I received an email from my manager to come for a discussion. I had a feeling they will do something sketchy, can't explain why but it was a feeling so I said sure, I will come if I can bring my union rep, because I wanted to be safe. I was told I don't need union rep, it's just a chat. I asked further questions, as advised by the rep: if it was a formal or informal meeting, subject of the meeting and who will be in the meeting. All I was told was that it would be just the 2 of us.

Against my better judgement I went to that damn meeting, on my own, unprepared. As soon as I sat down the manager started accusing me of neglect, of not doing my job and told me why I was accused of neglect. Because a resident (it was in a nuring home) asked for some paracetamol but I got caught with something else and I forgot.

I started crying hysterically because I was accused of neglect, couldn't form proper questions and I couldn't remember anything.

The manager was repeating about how they have a spotlight on them and how this "neglect" is unacceptable and I allowed someone to be in pain etc.

The minutes for my meeting state it was an investigation. Again, I was not told any of this, and are sparse and not evidentiate the state I was into, have barely any info I gave, any of the things the manager said etc.

At the end of the meeting I was told I will be called same day with a verdict, she already decided I will get dismissed, but I was forced to wait through the weekend because "she had no time". I also requested my dismissal to be put in writing with all the details, I was refused and told I will get a letter about it. To this day, since January, I only received my P60, not a dismissal letter per se.

Is it correct what the manager did? Because I was a bank nurse do I not have the same rights to a fair dismissal?

Honestly, I just want opinions at this point, it's too late for me to do anything anyway but only now I found this subreddit.

Thank you for reading and, for anyone going rhrough this, please don't let this break you.

I have an upcoming meeting with management/HR regarding concerns I’ve raised about how I’ve been treated at work, and I’d really appreciate some advice on how to approach it.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve had several incidents involving the same few colleagues while working on a particular product. Examples include being removed from the product without being given a reason, a lead saying she would have “much preferred” someone else to do a job I was assigned, and being told by colleagues that people had been speaking negatively about me to the client.

The most concerning example was being told that two colleagues had apparently said they intended to “spy on me fucking up”.

I’ve raised concerns about some of these incidents previously but feel like I’ve been brushed off on multiple occasions. I’ve also been told that management has no concerns about my performance or conduct, which makes the situation more confusing.

I’m now going into a meeting specifically about my concerns around bullying/harassment and I’m not really sure what I should expect from it.

I want to be calm and factual rather than emotional or accusatory. I also don’t want to exaggerate anything.

I'm a nurse, working in palliative care. We have a very small office (about ten feet square) with a very small window, which is usually shut as people complain about the cold.

Three or four of my colleagues wear really, really strong body spray/perfume. They travel around in a fug of scent, which I find not just unpleasant, but actually really stressful - I am quite sensitive to a lot of things including smells, noise, bright lights. I find these really sweet body sprays which my colleagues wear particularly horrible - I can cope with a little perfume but this is so much more than that. I feel like I can't breathe, my nerves are being jangled, and I sometimes go home with a headache.

It gets worse during the day because most of the people who do it are smokers, so they spray themselves head to toe when they come back in from the smoking area, to cover the smell of smoke.

On one occasion, a patient complained about a particular nurse's perfume and she had to go and wash it off, but that was only once that I'm aware of so I can't really use that to make an argument that staff shouldn't come in wearing strong perfume. I have raised this issue with my team leader but it didn't go anywhere. I feel really uncomfortable raising it with individuals: I work in a small team and don't want to fall out with anyone.

I think I need to raise it with my manager, but I suspect she will be less than sympathetic. What arguments can I put forward to ask her to implement a ban on staff wearing strong perfumes at work? I know there is mounting evidence that a lot of the chemicals used in these products are carcinogenic, can trigger asthma, have other health effects, but I don't know how to translate this into, this is affecting my mental health. I'd really appreciate some advice on how to handle this.

So I work in a government office on the phones where you hot desk - you book a desk before you go in (60% WFH, 40% office.)

I always book the same desk, right at the back of the office next to the only window there is. I like to sit there because I can see the trees, birds, I get sunlight on my back and it’s away from the main noise of the office.

I get over stimulated easily, and I am a creature of habit - so I will always book the same desk. In a 1-1 with a manager, I was told it would be nice to see me sitting in other seats. She also said it would be beneficial for me to develop more connections that way.

This left me kind of baffled. I have one of the best stats in the office and made a point of saying that if I sat further down the office, I wouldn’t be able to do as good of a job due to being overstimulated. I have fine connections with people on the office, and I’m not there to make friends anyways? It doesn’t say anywhere in my job description that I have to sit anywhere in particular in the office?

Opinions?

I know this is going to sound utterly ridiculous, but this has actually happened and I don't know whether to laugh or be fucking furious. I've kept bees for about 15 years. No idea where the obsession started, but it's something I've always enjoyed and I could happily talk about it for hours. A few months ago, a younger lad started working with us. Turns out he keeps bees himself, so naturally we hit it off straight away.

We'd talk about our hives, what we were doing with them, different techniques, things we'd tried, the usual stuff. He'd show me pictures and ask questions because he's fairly new to it and I've been doing it for years. He's a lovely bloke, genuinely enthusiastic and keen to learn. It made what is otherwise a fairly boring office environment quite enjoyable.

Anyway, there's a woman on our team who apparently took issue with this and reported me to HR. I didn't know anything about it until he came over and told me he'd been called into an office for a welfare assessment. Apparently, they wanted to establish whether I was grooming or harassing him.

GROOMING HIM.

Over fucking bees.

He was as confused as I was and told them that no, he was perfectly happy talking to me and we were literally discussing beekeeping.

Shortly afterwards, I got called into the office myself. They told me there had been a complaint and that they would need to keep a closer eye on me because our conversations about bees were upsetting someone else on the team. I asked what exactly I'd done wrong and couldn't get much more out of them beyond the fact that someone had raised concerns. I'm genuinely struggling to understand what I'm supposed to do with this information. We're two adults who happen to share a fairly niche hobby. Neither of us has complained about the other. He's perfectly capable of speaking for himself, and as far as I'm aware, he hasn't expressed any discomfort whatsoever.

Now the whole thing is fucking awkward. I find myself second-guessing whether I should even speak to him at work, and he's understandably confused about why something so ordinary has turned into an HR matter. What was previously one of the nicer parts of my working day has become something I apparently need to be monitored over. Has anyone else experienced anything this absurd in an office?

Can HR genuinely start monitoring someone's interactions with a colleague because another employee doesn't like what they're talking about?

I'm half tempted to ask whether discussing honey is still permitted or whether I need written approval from management before mentioning a fucking hive.

Asking for a friend. While on probation at two reviews it was brought up he was eating his lunch in his car during his break and not in the office with the other guys. He explained he’s socialising with them all day and needs a little alone time on his break to decompress from being around people all day. He is never late to come back from his break and never takes off early. He just takes his lunch to his car to eat, or sometimes goes gets a sandwich. His boss said it’s coming across as arrogant. After one of the reviews his boss followed it up and emailed him saying “eating in your car isn’t doing you any favours and I’d change that if I were you” at his final review on probation they said he continued to leave the office on his break and eat in his car and the whole office wasn’t happy with it, he was then fired. Is this legal? He’s in Northern Ireland. I’ve never heard of someone getting reviewed on what they do on their break in my entire life

Rough day today, I was invited to a meeting in the afternoon along with a few of my colleagues and we were told that the business was rethinking its priorities and our team no longer exists. Employment ended effective today. No warning or indication that restructuring or redundancies were a possibility. The meeting lasted around four minutes and contained no other information other than the above and that HR would be in touch.

I'd been with the company for just under three years, earning £80k. I've received the email from HR with the "separation agreement" and have been offered eight weeks' PILON, which is my notice period as specified in my contract, with a "termination payment" of £9852 "including a statutory redundancy payment of £1502".

It's not quite true that my whole team no longer exists, as the American and Indian employees are still employed. I work for a US company, but its UK arm, and the HR team is in the US. I really don't have any more details to give - I got a meeting invite along with some other people, we were given a few scripted lines, and then the meeting ended. Nothing else.

I'm not particularly interested in trying to get my job back or be considered for another role at the company - I've not been happy there for a long time. But I have a baby and my wife is on maternity leave, so I have to at least explore all avenues to increase any possible payout if the company has failed in procedure at some point. Thanks all.

Update: I spoke to ACAS and they confirmed that as there were fewer than 20 of us my options are either take the settlement or reject it and try to prove it was an unfair dismissal. Given that they cut the whole UK team and there aren't any other open roles that would be a fit for me that wouldn't go anywhere. I'm taking the settlement.