The office I work at started operating an ‘agile’ working policy last month, whereby employees work a couple of pre-agreed days in the office, a couple at home. Working only a 4-day week means I only need to go in on Thursday. Though as you can imagine, after working from home since March 2020, this transition was tough for me, but I’ve started to get used it. But now things appear to have changed...
When agile working was first floated, my boss at the time said it would be very flexible, and even though it was important to show your face now and again, you could work some weeks solely from home if you needed to focus on a particularly demanding or time-precious job. One such job has just appeared in my schedule for Thursday. But after asking my current boss (the boss of my previous boss, who’s since left), he says I have to come in the office, stipulating that I must attend at least one day a week, no exceptions. Though I don’t like switching my Thursday routine, I would do it, but it’s now Wednesday and I don’t work Friday!
I’ve tried to make the case that working in the office on this particular job would be harder and probably result in a poor result, because of the noise and distractions. He knows about my diagnosis, so why is he suddenly being so inflexible? Is there anything I can say or do about it? It’s not just the immediate situation I’m concerned about, it’s the ongoing uncertainty and inflexibility.
Sorry about the length of the post! Any advice welcome. By the way, I’m a copywriter at an advertising agency - probably why it’s so wordy :-)
