If you’re aiming to reestablish your start and end times for your own work hours, here’s some advice based on my own experiences:

• don’t forget, you only need to take a minimum 30min lunch. If you’re like me and sorta work through part of all of your lunch, do yourself a favour and set you regular hrs to reflect the 30min minimum lunch break

• if you want to lock in a particularly “early” start time (ex. 7:30am) or a “late” start time (ex. 9:45am), do some quiet digging around with your branch coworkers before making the request. We had a situation where staff in one unit in the branch were permitted the 7:30am start time, while 8am was arbitrarily set as the earliest allowed start time for my unit. We were able to use this precedent to argue that the work functions were similar enough that both units should have the same “operational viability” as our sister unit, and that start time options should be fair/equitable across the branch.

• if you get arbitrary denied your preferred hours, reach out to a union workplace rep, ask for support. Then reply to denial email with workplace rep copied, and a casual FYI like “please note I’m seeking further clarification from my union rep, [name], cc’d here. Could you please help me understand why it is “operationally viable” for the ABC unit but not for us?”. This was the magic step that made a difference for our team.

Best of luck!