Am I right to be annoyed at this? (work situation)

[Haggisman]

I'm aware this might be better suited to mumsnet, but I value my sanity, so not going anywhere near there!

In August I had to take 2 days off work at relatively short notice (2 weeks), due to my 2 year old having heart surgery (not an emergency, but we had been waiting for a slot for several months).

Due to several previous bouts of illness & hospital stays, I'd exhausted my annual leave for the year, so spoke to my team leader about it, and was candid in acknowledging that if it had to be unpaid then so be it - he said to put the request in on our HR system and he'd speak to our department director about whether it would be unpaid or not. Request was approved, and I heard nothing more about - received my full pay for the month, so figured given the circumstances they'd decided to give it to me paid.

Fast forward to today, and my line manager (not the same person as team leader above) asks me for "a chat" and tells me they "forgot" to take it out of my pay in August, so they'll be taking it out at the end of November instead.

Now I know I shouldn't be annoyed about the time being unpaid, as it's what I was expecting anyway - it's more the fact it's now 4 months later, out of the blue, and while it's not going to leave us struggling, it's still a bit of a **** move to leave us a few £££ "short" just before Christmas. Been feeling pretty ****** off about it all afternoon to be honest.

Just wondering how someone on the outside would view it - are they being bang out of order, or am I being overly sensitive and need to MTFU?

 

[Haggisman]

what's 2 days pay going to do at Christmas?

It's still over £250, sure, not the end of the world, but not exactly pocket change either.

You almost got away with it, but you didn't, it's a shame but you agreed not to be paid for the 2 days when you took them.

I'm not sure "got away with it" is the wording I'd use (makes it sound like I tried to rip them off or something), but I understand the sentiment.

MTFU mate, you owe them money, they messed up the timings, but they were flexible enough to accommodate you in the first place.

I'm not sure I'd class allowing me to take my legally entitled parental leave as being "flexible", but again I see your point.

Paid sick leave no?

Not me that was sick, my 2 year old.

Seems the general consensus is to suck it up, but file it under "reasons to keep the CV up to date" - pretty much what I was going with anyway, guess I just need to have a vent.

Edit: what annoyed me further was that about 10 mins later they sent an email out inviting people to a Christmas lunch, during work hours, with no need to make the time up...

If my line manager asks why I'm not going, I might just say it's because something's come up and I can't afford the petrol to get there

 

[Haggisman]

Jan in Accounts? Why is it her fault?

Because she should have sorted it in August

 

[Haggisman]

However, you also need to zoom out and take a wider perspective if generally the company has been/is good to you, as you need to recognise this might be down to a single person that doesn't have much empathy and/or hasn't properly considered the circumstances.

I think this is most likely the case tbh - they've been pretty understanding in the past, (although that was under a different team leader who was definitely more on the ball - to the point he basically forced me to have a week off on compassionate leave after we lost a baby a few years ago), and flexible with allowing me to bring leave forward last year after needing to spend 2 weeks with the little one in intensive care with pneumonia, so I can't really complain too much.

It's more the fact it was completely out of the blue and took me by surprise.

Cheers for the comments guys, has helped put things into perspective

 

[Haggisman]

While they are entitled to claw the money back it's not good practice to leave the employee struggling so tell them to set up a payment plan to pay it back over a few months or so.

At the very least I'd be having a chat with HR about seeing whether you can get the repayments spread over multiple months..... although I have this idea in my head that you are maybe entitled to sick time when it relates to a young child (chat with a union rep if you have one maybe). Actually it might be an idea to have a direct chat with HR over the entire topic because they might not know the full story etc....

At the end of the day, even if nothing is changed, this was an error on their part, that they've taken several months to rectify, and while you're (un)happy to pay the money back it is incredibly short notice for you to be losing 2 weeks days pay in one go.

Well 2 weeks pay missed you'd probably want it spread out a bit. 2 days, rip the plaster off imo.

Yeah, as posted, it's not going to leave us struggling, so would rather just get it out of the way, but maybe no 7900XTX birthday present for myself this year

 

[Haggisman]

Whilst it's a dick move by the company to it now. The OP was a dick too.

He noticed that the agreed deduction hadn't been taken, by his own admission and didn't query it at the time. Had he done this then it would have been sorted in July.

There was no agreed deduction, there were 6 messages between us in the whole conversation, only 2 of them with anything actually relevant:

Me: Morning
Him: Morning
Me: I need to take xyz off for reasons, possibly unpaid due to lack of any remaining leave
Him: That's fine, request through HR app, I'll speak to director and see if it will need to be unpaid.
Me: thanks
Him: np

I literally heard nothing more about it until yesterday - so yes, it's partially my fault as I should have queried it when I had full pay in August, but based on the conversation above I mistakenly assumed that the director had granted it as fully paid compassionate leave.