‘I stopped coming into the office’: HR never approves employee’s Work From Home requests, he stops coming in anyway

Author image for Ben Weiss
Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Nov 4, 2024 2:00 PM EST

It's always amusing when employers seem to go out of their way to make it seem like going into the office matters to them… and then as it turns out, they don't even have the bandwidth to monitor their so-called policies properly.

Here, we have a company that kept ramping up their "return to work" policies to more and more mandatory days in the office. Now, this employee had been a hardworking member of the team for several years and had actually seen a boost in productivity with the hybrid and remote schedules. When he submitted a doctor's note to stay working from home for two more months, the note was never approved because HR kept delaying the approval committee's meetings. So why should the Redditor have to suffer because of HR's incompetence? He ended up choosing to stay home anyway and when those two months were up, he submitted another doctor's note and the cycle continued.

Keep scrolling below for the full story and for the best reactions from folks in the comments section. For more, check out this post about a micromanager who gave a barista a hard time for having a family emergency.

Advertisement
  • 01
    "I am sooo much more productive at home"
    via Annie Spratt (Unsplash+)
  • 02
    I stopped coming into the office and... nothing happened Well there's actually some context but that's the gist. Long story short, I work for a very large company. Several thousand employees all across the country. I
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 03
    was 100% in office for years, including any OT. Then in March 2020 they told us to stop coming into the office... and work went on. Everybody got their jobs done from home.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 04
    Then RTO happened in March 2022, three days a week. Then they went to 4 days a week a few months ago. It . I have a nice home office. My chair is more comfortable. I have windows and sunlight. My monitors are much
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 05
    bigger. I can have music or videos in the background, and I am soooo much more productive at home. But I only worked from home one day a week, plus OT. So in total, up to 30 hours a week from home, and 32 hours in office. Not bad.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 06
    But sometime in December I started to get headaches on days I was in the office. They really started to affect my work performance. I didn't realize how bad it got until I went on vacation
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 07
    for 2 weeks and felt better. It was like waking up from a dream. So when I got back, I went to the doctor and asked them to write me out. They did for two weeks.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 08
    It took a few days for my headache to go away. And then I was free. But here's the crazy part. I sent the medical accommodation to HR, and they said they'll review and approve it. And they just never got back to me! I followed up daily
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 09
    until they said they have a committee that meets once a week to approve these requests. And I guess they just haven't been meeting? When my two weeks were up, I got another note for a month. Submitted that one and again, zero movement. My plan is to get them for three months at a time going forward.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 10
    So officially, I am cleared to WFH until the committee approves me working from home. Bureaucracy at its finest! So technically, I am not approved to WFH, but I gave my
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 11
    management an excuse and stopped showing up. Nobody is questioning it. Honestly I could. have made something up and nobody would care. I just got lost in the cracks. Wild.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 12
    The affects of being back at home are massive. I've lost about 15 pounds this month. I'm eating better, I have time to take long walks. My relationship with my wife improved. I get to play with the kids. I'm sleeping much better
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 13
    as well, and without meds! Almost no snoring which makes my wife happy. And most importantly, I haven't had a headache in almost a month. A feel like a new man.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 14
    2201 Rammus2201 - 2 days ago What difference does WFH really make to corporations? We see that the result is obviously nothing. The Earth doesn't stop turning and the sun will still rise.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 15
    HelpQuestion101. 2 days ago It's all about control and the useless middle manager class needs to walk around the office to make themselves look busy and important
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 16
    Lucky__Flamingo. 2 days ago Middle managers aren't the ones designing the policy. We're stuck enforcing policies
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 17
    we may disagree with. OP gave their immediate supervisor a fig leaf. The fact that nobody is rushing them back is evidence of passive noncompliance at the supervisor level. Don't make waves and rejoice.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 18
    mrsisaak 1 day ago Yesterday I received an e-mail entitled "Badge Report Review". I'm like, "○ is this?". Turns out my employer is running reports on when we enter the building. Who knew? My employer is considered "One of the best places to work". This me off. We were not told this is happening and my "report" indicated that I was only in the office 52% of the time when it's supposed to be 60%.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 19
    Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmm, I was out of town for a week for a WORK CONFERENCE, there was an out-of- office WORK GATHERING and I took some PAID TIME OFF which, last I heard, is an OK thing to do. So if you can't run this reported CORRECTLY,
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 20
    ● are you running it at all? BTW, we were mandated to be in the office on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays (despite workers previously finding a 3 day/week schedule that worked for them) only for my managers to schedules meetings on Mondays and Fridays so I was in the office WAY MORE than 60%. It just infuriates me. Why not run a report of how much work we've gotten done whether in or out of the office??????
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 21
    gotrdjrr78 2 days ago Somewhat similar situation. I have an ADA accommodation that was to be renewed or made permanent. The original HR contact vanished. Mgt claimed my WFH exemption was set to expire, which was news to me. Connected with new HR contact, but
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 22
    she wasn't clear on what I needed to do next. Since I didn't receive clear instructions, I pinged her to follow up, but crickets. She's still working for the company. I'll reach out often enough to demonstrate that we're "engaged in a collaborative process," but I'm otherwise not going to give it much thought.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 23
    Shoot_2_Thrill OP 2 days ago Yeah I'm the senior member of our team and do more work then the rest combined. So they really don't want to lose me. On top of that, they are risking a legal mess if they refuse a valid medical accommodation. So it seems like they are ok with just leaving the situation as-is.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 24
    But the limbo is crazy. HR honestly just drags a company down. Those are the ones who set the RTO - but get this: They made themselves exempt! The entire company was back 3 days a week except for them. CEO stepped in a year later and made them RTO too lol.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill
  • 25
    What do those idiots do all day? I've never gotten a response from them on anything in the past. But for the first time, it works out in my favor.
    via Shoot_2_Thrill

Want More? Follow Us and Add Us as a Preferred Source on Google.

Tags

workplace-stories work stories toxic-workplace job work reddit thread Reddit company job interview interview toxic-work-environment
Scroll Down For The Next Article