Greetings! First post after much time reading and learning from this great subreddit. Wanted to get some feedback.
So I work at a place that produces ceramics. Cool job—better environment than I’ve had in previous work situations but still we are creating objects that are sold at a mark up in order to generate profit. It’s a small but growing company of about 15-20 people. The majority of decisions and marching orders are issued by the founder who comes off as pretty laid back, even smoking weed sometimes on the loading dock and buying cheap beers for the team to enjoy at the end of a workday here and there.
The company is basically divided into those who create the actual objects and those in administration. I’ve noticed that admin staff seem to have a lot more flexibility in being present at the work studio. As an example, our business manager/HR person, who is also the founders brother, is present for maybe 2-3days out of the week.
TLDR: It feels like there are two classes of workers.
It’s been eating away at me a little that this is unfair treatment. Granted admin staff is working from home and unlike their work, mine can only be done at the workplace. Still the lack of flexibility is frustrating.
I had a review about a month ago where I asked if it was possible to have every other Friday off to recuperate- tough job: repetitive activity, heavy lifting, standing 7 hours a day. I’m a tough fella but the work really knocks me out come end of week. The response to my request was that I could not have such a benefit.
Look I know working from home is work but something not talked about is how being able to work from home is an unfairly distributed benefit. Little oversight and the ability to shut work off for a moment or two. Those moments add up to real time. The work I do is physical and creates value so why is it so difficult to get a similar type of benefit for those who must work on site. At the end of the day I feel like being well rested only adds to productivity.
I guess the question is how to make such a concept attractive to higher ups. And personally I think we all work to make the company great so how do we open the conversation up to employee ownership. Employees at my job don’t grumble about any of this so I also feel like I am complaining or ungrateful or something.
Some tips or ideas would be helpful. thanks!