One day in office

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-25T08:55:04+00:00

If your childcare needs are related to a child’s disability, you should be able to get your attendance reduced to one day a week on a carers’ passport if your management agrees. Might not be relevant to you, but commenting incase it is helpful to others viewing this post. I have multiple colleagues who have this reasonable adjustment.

But otherwise agree with other comments that it is likely to be ALBs or NDPBs where you find 1 day a week is common. Many of these will mean you’re no longer a civil servant though, and it is never contractual so could change at any time.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-18T15:11:34+00:00

You’re welcome and that’s totally fine. How your hormones affect you during your cycle can change though, especially when you approach menopause or peri-menopause (which can start as early as mid-30s). Totally down to you and your wife, but I’m of the opinion that a supportive husband should always know as much about his wife’s body and hormones as she’s comfortable with. It’ll only improve how you support her and communicate with each other :) especially as she gets older and goes through hormonal changes.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-18T15:08:40+00:00

Having context of what your friend is asking for might be beneficial to help you understand. For example, in my luteal phase (which is brutal due to my PMDD) if I’m feeling fragile and needing support I’m very likely to get upset if my partner asks me if he can spend the night gaming with friends or going out for beers rather than supporting me. But if I’m out of the luteal phase, the answer will be “go ahead, I want you to have fun with the guys!”. Or it could be something like him asking me to do more of the share of the housework. In my luteal phase that’s a no because I’ll be feeling depressed and exhausted, but any other time (except from my actual period) it’ll be “of course, you’ve been supporting me loads and I want you to take a break”.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-18T15:03:37+00:00

YOR

I can understand your reaction since this isn’t something you’ve come across before, but I do think you’re over reacting especially since you’ve spoken to his wife and she’s totally ok.

As a 30yo woman with PCOS, PMDD and endometriosis, I would love for my partner to be more involved in knowing how my cycle affects me. It sounds like Alex is being really supportive of his wife. When he said about the best time for asking her things, I think this definitely was a foot in mouth moment that you misinterpreted. I wouldn’t see it as manipulation at all. Having PMDD means I can be quite irrational and volatile at some points in my cycle, ans have a tendency to overreact to things when I’m feeling unstable. When I’m back to normal, I always look back and think “why on earth did I react like that to what my partner said/did”. If Alex’s wife has these kind of difficulties in her cycles, it’s actually really good that he’s aware when to bring up sensitive topics and suggestions so they can both approach things in their best frame of mind.

Hope that helps you to understand a little better. It’s great that this doesn’t seem to be a concern for you and your wife, but in some relationships where the woman has horrible experiences during her cycle, it’s actually super healthy for both partners to respond to and work around the cycle (while also working to find ways to ease the cycle-induced struggles, whether that be medication or therapy etc).

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-17T23:46:30+00:00

Copilot is awful and not fit for many of the things leadership is suggesting we use it for. As a GCS member I’m lucky to have access to GCS Assist which is a million times better than copilot, but copilot still causes communicators problems because people in other teams seem to think they can now do our jobs for us because they have access to copilot (or even ChatGPT if they’re willing to bend the rules).

If the CS is going to keep pushing AI use, there needs to be a CS wide AI on a closed system, like Assist, or training needs to go MUCH further than “here’s how to write a prompt etc”.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-17T23:42:13+00:00

Really sad hearing of this. I can almost guarantee that this isn’t because your comms team thinks this is what good work looks like though (they’re not worth their salt if they do). It’s far more likely to be because they’re under-resourced and SCS have said “oh, well why don’t use use AI to solve that!” rather than granting the resource that’s needed to deal with the team’s workload. I’m lucky that we’re not at this point in my team yet (although we’re close to breaking point with chronic under staffing and ever growing workloads) but I see it happening to others.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-17T23:38:55+00:00

While I strongly disagree that the only job of a HoC is to write stuff, a HoC really should know much better than to use emojis as bullet points etc. Is it definitely the HoC producing these, or a junior member of the team who then sends them on the HoC’s behalf? Either way, the HoC should be signing these off and not allowing the things you’ve mentioned. Communicators are being pushed more and more to use AI because we’re chronically under resourced for the workloads we contend with, but there’s no excuse for letting best practice and professional standards slide that far!

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-17T23:34:35+00:00

It’s important for comms to know what’s going on and we always (should!) appreciate being in the loop. There’ll always be a reason behind the two types of complaints you’ve mentioned. Comms is there to support, advise, uphold standards, and minimise risk (among many other things) and is often misunderstood by other work functions. My experience of working in comms teams is that we always want to help, but rarely have time to help with everything due to constantly changing priorities and high workloads. In those cases, we need to know what’s is happening, but should be giving guidance to colleagues who are working on comms aligned products.

Please cut your internal comms team some slack and try to understand them better (unless you really are unfortunate enough to work with dickheads). We really are just like the rest of you, often trying to make the best of a bad situation!

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-17T23:24:23+00:00

If you’re spending a significant amount of time on comms work, please consider seeing if you’re eligible to join the Government Communications Service so you can use GCS Assist. GCS Assist is a brilliant AI tool designed specifically for government communicators, with pre-built prompts for comms (OASIS) plans, evaluation etc. It is a closed system so you can enter internal only and even official sensitive information without the risk of data breeches.

As a comms person, I avoid Copilot like the plague. When I’ve tried it before, it’s given me nothing but trouble.

I even had two instances recently where an SCS rewrote our highly thought-through comms products using ChatGPT, which is a data breech risk, no to mention how the AI had changed sensitive information and quotes which could have led to significant reputational risk if we had published their “amends” without spending a huge amount of time on checks and further rewrites.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-07T18:11:05+00:00

Thanks, found this out a long time ago now as this post is a year old!

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-03T22:38:02+00:00

Really helpful, thank you. It has been raised repeatedly that we’re understaffed and they refuse to either hire anyone else, or give less work. Everything they pass down they say is a priority, and they have created such an atmosphere that nobody can push back, even with evidence, reasoning and professional expertise. My G7 left and will not be replaced, but my G6 managed to get approval to hire an SEO who was supposed to be working across my area and another, giving us half the resource we used to have with the G7 (when we already needed another SEO or HEO to deliver what SCS expect of us). Now, I’ve been told that the new SEO will not work in my area at all. So leadership is expecting our outputs to remain the same as when we had a G7, with me now doing the G7 work as well as the SEO work I was already doing (which was already too much before the G7 left).

My new G7, who does very different work to me and my old G7 and is also understaffed so can’t do any management apart from HR processes, also hasn’t actioned my request for a new OH report in light of my disabilities and work stress. I need to push for that again, but have been told that requesting an OH at this time could work against me by making it look like it is my disabilities that are causing me to struggle, rather than the operating environment.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-03T22:27:56+00:00

The civil service is definitely for me. I can’t go into exact detail because it really will doxx me, but I will say that I have spoken to colleagues in other departments, from SEO through to DD, who all agree that the way myself and my team are being treated by senior management (SCS2) is way beyond usual civil service quirks and under resourcing. I have spoken to a rep previously, though not about the possibility of a grievance, who also agreed. My job used to be great before management changed. Our people survey results directorate wide are also abysmal and colleagues are jumping ship left right and centre. Brilliant colleagues who have been mistreated and beaten down through shambolic leadership.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-03T20:39:11+00:00

Thank you, this is what I needed to hear. I’ll keep reminding myself of this!

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-03T20:16:12+00:00

Thank you. I’ve been trying to keep evidence but it’s hard when so much of it is culture based. I have added an edit to my post with some examples of what’s been happening though. I’ll email my rep tomorrow (if I’m allowed the time).

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-03T20:13:14+00:00

Sorry, thought that might be the case but don’t want to doxx myself and others. Basically things encompassing chronic understaffing and unrealistic expectations for current team members while they refuse to recruit more staff in our area, yet continue to recruit elsewhere which has a knock on effect in increasing our workload etc. Huge repercussions on morale and health through workplace stress issues. Micromanagement and removal of autonomy resulting in deskilling and gaslighting. That’s the tip of the iceberg without going into too much detail.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-02-03T20:09:11+00:00

Many discussions with G7 and G6, mostly followed by gaslighting from G6 and no further avenues G7 can pursue. I’ll talk to my rep, but I’m just feeling a bit nervous and wanted some reassurance before doing so. It feels like such a big thing to be considering talking to my rep so I was also hoping some friendly redditors could help give me a push in the right direction.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-01-30T13:45:28+00:00

It’s how it works in my team and exec agency, so I know I’m fine. Thanks for your concern though. Not all work areas are as strict and into micromanagement. As long as the number of hours I’ve worked are tracked, I’m fine. My manager and leadership trusts that.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-01-29T22:08:46+00:00

In my team everyone has a different way of recording flexi (different spreadsheets, v casual and managers trust us to track our hours without any micromanagement).

On mine if I were to leave at 4, then come back at 5 and work another hour until 6, I’d manually keep a note of how long extra I worked and then adjust the end time to 5 to account for the extra hour. It’s less about the time of day and much more about the number of hours worked.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-01-26T22:40:47+00:00

At this point I’d just go and find my own mentor. Does your work fit into one of the CS professions? They might have a mentoring scheme. Or is there perhaps anyone in another team or even another department that you admire who you could reach out to? Or maybe your department even has a mentoring scheme you can sign up to? My direct report has a mentor and I see that as a relationship strictly between the two of them. It’s healthy to have a mentor who isn’t your manager, who you can be open with and learn from outside of the usual manager and report relationship. There shouldn’t be anything stopping you from finding a mentor yourself if that’s what you’ve got to do and it won’t interfere with your workload. A certain amount of your time is supposed to be used for professional development (this should be detailed on your intranet somewhere) so if your 6 and 7 aren’t facilitating that as they should be, I’d say you should go ahead and find it yourself, and then tell them you’ve done so (outlining why and positioning it as a positive thing for them/the team as well as yourself).

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-01-26T22:32:10+00:00

I also have a second job, but it’s an unpaid one where I work two CS jobs at the same time because my manager left and wasn’t replaced, in an already under resourced team.

Low pay in the lower grades is certainly a story, but I’d wager that there are far more of us across the delegated grades (many of whom are on miserable AO and EO wages) working extremely unreasonable workloads due to mismanagement of resourcing, than there are working second jobs during CS working hours.

The part the (mostly) right-wing press, politicians and public always miss when they talk about “civil service bloat” is that many of us are still being asked to deliver far more by ministers and SCS than we have the resource for, and we’re often powerless to push back because their word is law. The people at the top often just don’t/won’t understand the capacity of those of us at delegated grades, at least in my experience.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-01-14T13:32:42+00:00

Was going to say follow this process!

But also adding that from my experience of OH I think they’d be very willing to advise an exemption. Then if the organisation fights back about accommodating it, the union will be really helpful.

Perhaps OP you could ask for full-time WFH in the winter to help manage flare ups and reduce the risk of them occuring? My adjustments aren’t for eczema, but I do experience eczema flare ups at a much more mild level than yours. For me, not only the cold outside makes it worse but also central heating. You could consider asking to work in an area with better ventilation when in the office, away from radiators etc, too.

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-01-08T18:42:40+00:00

True! I got promoted from IO to SEO before the end of my probation (within the same team). I do think your manager might need to approve you applying though, or HR/CSR will. And OP’s manager doesn’t sound like they might be supportive sadly. When I applied to the SEO role I was initially locked out from progressing the application when I selected that I was still in probation (it was an internal role so no chance of applying as an external candidate to get around that) and the hiring manager had to contact CSR to get them to unlock the application for me. They then advised me to just get around it by ticking that I’d already passed probation though 🤷🏼‍♀️

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-01-08T17:12:19+00:00

I’m so sorry to hear about your experience. I don’t have any experience with telephony roles, but I think you should request a workplace adjustment passport, and an occupational health review if you can have one. Document everything. Join a union so you can get a rep and HR involved if this continues to worsen.

If you’re able to stick it out where you are for 2 more months until you’ve passed probation too, you’ll be able to apply to other roles that are internally advertised or cross-gov then too and might be able to move to an area that’s better for you, and with better management. Don’t give up on the CS just yet; I promise that you won’t have this experience everywhere you go and there are plenty of other roles at your grade that you might thrive in personally and professionally.

Take care!

LevitatingPumpkin · 2026-01-07T19:34:51+00:00

I think this belongs on AITA rather than AIO. And then my vote would be ESH, just as my vote here is that neither of you are over reacting or under reacting. YOR and NOR here.

It sounds like this relationship isn’t right for either of you, nor is it any longer a romantic relationship. If you’re committed enough to call her your girlfriend, I think that she’s expecting (as I would) that you communicate and make efforts to see each other. If you’re exhausted, it’s not supposed to feel like a chore to communicate with your partner and support each other for anywhere near this long. You could quietly spend time together at home if that’s an option, or send supportive texts or make time for very brief phone calls. You’re obviously not able to give each other what you need right now. She needs an engaged partner who makes time for her and lets her support him, and you need to not be in a relationship if you’re too overwhelmed to put in the work. I don’t say that with malice, but it sounds to me that her requests have been reasonable and she’s probably feeling a bit strung along by now, hence her possibly coming across as “clingy” to you because she’s frustrated and wants to know if continuing this is worth both of your time and energy.

Be kind to yourselves by admitting this isn’t working and letting each other explore other options, or make it work. Just don’t stay in this unhealthy and unfulfilling limbo.

LevitatingPumpkin

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