Can a company legally tell you that to not attend a meeting as it's schedule outside your normal contracted working hours is not an acceptable excuse?
I regularly work past my normal 7.5 hours a day so it's not like I am opposed to overtime and only work my contracted hours, staying late is becoming the norm for me at the moment, but I have one day a week where I volunteer for a charity organisation and like to leave on time that day to do that.
I can be a bit flexible on occasion if given enough warning to plan alternative arrangements and stay maybe an hour later than my finish time, but anything later mean missing the evening. My boss is fully aware of my volunteering activties as were my old teams but I've recently been moved to work with new teams who I am finding unreasonable in more ways than this one.
I was schedule a meeting an hour and a half after my finish time for half hour which would mean I'd be leaving two hours after my scheduled finish time and I rejected it telling the team I couldn't attend as it was well outside my working hours.
My evening plans should not have to be explained as far as I am concerned.
The next day I got a snotty response saying that as this is a regular meeting, but only occurs once a month that not attending because it was outside my working hours was not an acceptable excuse.
Is that fair and is that even legal?
Of course they seem to like telling me I am not acceptable, as giving me 15 minutes to do a job and when I say I need more time to complete it - is not acceptable to them either!
I feel like this team is going to be bad for me and I don't know what to do about it.
Advice would be welcome as I did like my job before I got moved to these people!
I regularly work past my normal 7.5 hours a day so it's not like I am opposed to overtime and only work my contracted hours, staying late is becoming the norm for me at the moment, but I have one day a week where I volunteer for a charity organisation and like to leave on time that day to do that.
I can be a bit flexible on occasion if given enough warning to plan alternative arrangements and stay maybe an hour later than my finish time, but anything later mean missing the evening. My boss is fully aware of my volunteering activties as were my old teams but I've recently been moved to work with new teams who I am finding unreasonable in more ways than this one.
I was schedule a meeting an hour and a half after my finish time for half hour which would mean I'd be leaving two hours after my scheduled finish time and I rejected it telling the team I couldn't attend as it was well outside my working hours.
My evening plans should not have to be explained as far as I am concerned.
The next day I got a snotty response saying that as this is a regular meeting, but only occurs once a month that not attending because it was outside my working hours was not an acceptable excuse.
Is that fair and is that even legal?
Of course they seem to like telling me I am not acceptable, as giving me 15 minutes to do a job and when I say I need more time to complete it - is not acceptable to them either!
I feel like this team is going to be bad for me and I don't know what to do about it.
Advice would be welcome as I did like my job before I got moved to these people!