Commuting to different work sites
Discussion
Hi all, I'll try to be as concise as possible, would appreciate any advice.
I live 60-75 mins from work (hour in the morning, just over in the evening). My manager wants me to train at a site an additional 15 minutes away to cover when needed, making it a 90 minute journey, and therefore three hours commute per day.
There are a number of people in my department who live locally to the main work site who have yet to be trained at the secondary site. If they went to the secondary site their journey time would be approx 15 minutes each way rather than 5-10 minutes. I believe these people should be trained before I am as the inconvenience to their commute is significantly less.
My contract says I am based at the main site but may be required to work cross site as needed.
Is it possible to reason that others in the department on the same contract terms should be trained first and that as the person who lives furthest away, I should in effect be the very last resort for sending cover to the secondary site? Or is my only option to argue out of principle?
Thanks
I live 60-75 mins from work (hour in the morning, just over in the evening). My manager wants me to train at a site an additional 15 minutes away to cover when needed, making it a 90 minute journey, and therefore three hours commute per day.
There are a number of people in my department who live locally to the main work site who have yet to be trained at the secondary site. If they went to the secondary site their journey time would be approx 15 minutes each way rather than 5-10 minutes. I believe these people should be trained before I am as the inconvenience to their commute is significantly less.
My contract says I am based at the main site but may be required to work cross site as needed.
Is it possible to reason that others in the department on the same contract terms should be trained first and that as the person who lives furthest away, I should in effect be the very last resort for sending cover to the secondary site? Or is my only option to argue out of principle?
Thanks
desolate said:
You also have the option to cheerfully agree rather than argue out of principle.
I can't see what principle you can base your argument on.
The principle is that my commute would be three hours and their commute would be 30 minutes.I can't see what principle you can base your argument on.
Don't get me wrong, I'm expecting I will have no leg to stand on, but hope someone might have something I can work with.
Thanks for the replies.
Yes, it is something that everyone will be required to do, but our place has a history of not treating everybody equally in that respect. Once there's enough people available to cover at short notice, I suspect that'll be it. Due to long term sickness and booked annual leave there's about 10 days a month that need covering at the secondary site.
It won't improve my career. To be clear, I'm a radiographer, and this 'secondary site' is just a community hospital with a small x-ray department. I can do the job, it's just that under IR(ME)R I need to have formal training on equipment I've not used before. Once I've had that I can be sent there any time, any day, and because I'm the first one going, I have a fear I'll be one of the only ones going there.
I think I'll have to just speak to my manager about it to clear up what the plan is. Contractually I don't have a leg to stand on but hopefully some common sense can be used. If everyone needs to be trained 'just in case' but in reality I'd only be sent if there was nobody else, then I don't really have a problem with that. The trouble is over the last few weeks I've heard a number of people who could go over there saying they're going to refuse for x and y reason. If they get away with it because they have a little cry (tip if you end up in the NHS: practice your crying and you get whatever you want), and I end up going over a lot more than I feel I should, then I'll be a bit upset.
I just feel I spend enough time in the car as it is. I don't moan about it and never mention it at work. Like someone said, it's my choice to live far away, but an appreciation of what 3 hours in a car in the day, on top of the 2 hours/6 days a week I do as it is would be welcome. Given there are at least 10 others who haven't been trained who could get over to the secondary site in 15 minutes I don't personally see how I'm being unreasonable, despite what my contract says. I am very flexible in what weekends and nights I am rota'd where as there are plenty of people who can't do x shift on y day for z reason. I just don't want to be sat in the car any longer than I am already when there are other staff who will be barely affected by it.
Yes, it is something that everyone will be required to do, but our place has a history of not treating everybody equally in that respect. Once there's enough people available to cover at short notice, I suspect that'll be it. Due to long term sickness and booked annual leave there's about 10 days a month that need covering at the secondary site.
It won't improve my career. To be clear, I'm a radiographer, and this 'secondary site' is just a community hospital with a small x-ray department. I can do the job, it's just that under IR(ME)R I need to have formal training on equipment I've not used before. Once I've had that I can be sent there any time, any day, and because I'm the first one going, I have a fear I'll be one of the only ones going there.
I think I'll have to just speak to my manager about it to clear up what the plan is. Contractually I don't have a leg to stand on but hopefully some common sense can be used. If everyone needs to be trained 'just in case' but in reality I'd only be sent if there was nobody else, then I don't really have a problem with that. The trouble is over the last few weeks I've heard a number of people who could go over there saying they're going to refuse for x and y reason. If they get away with it because they have a little cry (tip if you end up in the NHS: practice your crying and you get whatever you want), and I end up going over a lot more than I feel I should, then I'll be a bit upset.
I just feel I spend enough time in the car as it is. I don't moan about it and never mention it at work. Like someone said, it's my choice to live far away, but an appreciation of what 3 hours in a car in the day, on top of the 2 hours/6 days a week I do as it is would be welcome. Given there are at least 10 others who haven't been trained who could get over to the secondary site in 15 minutes I don't personally see how I'm being unreasonable, despite what my contract says. I am very flexible in what weekends and nights I am rota'd where as there are plenty of people who can't do x shift on y day for z reason. I just don't want to be sat in the car any longer than I am already when there are other staff who will be barely affected by it.
The training is just one half day. I know all the systems other than the x-ray tube itself. It will be self-explanatory but legally I have to be signed off on it to use it unsupervised.
I will be able to claim mileage at a favourable rate but it's more the time I'm spent in a car that I'm bothered about.
Business insurance cover has been on for a while now.
I wouldn't need to check in to the main site first, I would just go straight to and from the second site (but I can still claim excess mileage - I will have to drive past the main site to get there so that'll be easy to work out).
I have also been told I'd be able to start late/leave early so that my leaving home/getting home time is unchanged. This is great except patients will be waiting from the time the department opens and there are clinics running in the afternoons that I shouldn't be abandoning early. I guess if it starts getting a bit messy I can refer any complaints to the boss who told me to leave early and perhaps I won't be rota'd there anyway.
I'll roll with it and see what happens. If I find people are refusing to go then I'll kick up a stink. It'd be a bit silly to get a gross misconduct mark on my record for something that hasn't happened yet.
I will be able to claim mileage at a favourable rate but it's more the time I'm spent in a car that I'm bothered about.
Business insurance cover has been on for a while now.
I wouldn't need to check in to the main site first, I would just go straight to and from the second site (but I can still claim excess mileage - I will have to drive past the main site to get there so that'll be easy to work out).
I have also been told I'd be able to start late/leave early so that my leaving home/getting home time is unchanged. This is great except patients will be waiting from the time the department opens and there are clinics running in the afternoons that I shouldn't be abandoning early. I guess if it starts getting a bit messy I can refer any complaints to the boss who told me to leave early and perhaps I won't be rota'd there anyway.
I'll roll with it and see what happens. If I find people are refusing to go then I'll kick up a stink. It'd be a bit silly to get a gross misconduct mark on my record for something that hasn't happened yet.
FWIW, I played the game and went over without arguing anything. My manager understands that it's silly to send me there when it's so far away and quite literally everyone else in the department lives closer. So in reality it won't be a big thing in my work life. I'm also helped by the fact I work in a few different areas and I think generally they would prefer me to be at the main site, where I can rotate and fill in where needed, rather than in another site 10 miles away doing nothing but the really basic stuff you do when you just leave uni.
Appreciate all the comments though.
Appreciate all the comments though.
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