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asking for accommodations at work
Calica
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I'm an intransigent night owl. I regularly stay awake until 1 or 2 am, and have since high school. Obviously I don't get enough sleep. I've tried going to bed earlier many times over the past 15 years, but it never sticks for more than three days. I can't think of any reason why I don't go to bed earlier - it's not that I can't sleep - but I don't. I tend to stay awake longer if I'm especially sleep-deprived. Same if I'm especially well-rested (which is why those experiments only lasted three days).
I don't know if it's because I'm not 20 anymore, or if the chronic sleep deprivation is finally reaching critical levels (or both); but between that and my depression and anxiety (at least partly genetic, but worsened by sleep deprivation), my ability to function day-to-day has been steadily deteriorating since Christmas.
Both my therapist and my doctor agree that I need to be able to sleep later in the mornings. Obviously, that means requesting a later start time at work.
I'm salaried and I don't have a strict start time, but there is a mandatory daily stand-up meeting at 9 am where all of us developers check in and tell the team what we're working on. I've been missing this meeting pretty consistently for weeks. I talked to my manager about it yesterday, before I talked to my doctor, and asked if I could stop worrying about the meeting and instead be very diligent about posting updates to the task management software we use. She (my manager) is generally awesome and knows that I have trouble getting up in time for work, but she still wants me at the meeting, which is understandable. She offered a couple of compromises. One is that I could attend the meeting remotely and come into work a little later (we usually have at least one person working from home anyway). The other is that she could move the meeting half an hour later, to 9:30. She doesn't want to move it too late, because that inconveniences everyone else.
After talking to my doctor between then and now, it's become clear that no, actually, this is a Real Issue and I need to start work ideally no earlier than 11 am for the sake of my mental and physical health. Waking up at 8:30 to call into the meeting at 9 would defeat the purpose.
My manager is kind and my job is secure. I have every advantage here, but I'm still scared to have this conversation. For one thing, I've never thought of myself as someone who would need to ask for accommodations. For another, I don't look like I'm struggling. And my brain spiders are telling me that I'm just immature and/or lazy, and therefore I don't deserve special treatment. Also, I would be embarrassed about my coworkers having to move the meeting from morning to halfway through the day.
This is probably a longer explanation than is strictly necessary; I tend to ramble when I'm nervous. Anyway, how the hell do I approach this? What can I say that doesn't make it sound like I'm still living like an irresponsible college student who can't make it to their early classes on time?
Oh, yeah, and I don't think I can even bring the topic up without crying, so that's fun :sad:
I don't know if it's because I'm not 20 anymore, or if the chronic sleep deprivation is finally reaching critical levels (or both); but between that and my depression and anxiety (at least partly genetic, but worsened by sleep deprivation), my ability to function day-to-day has been steadily deteriorating since Christmas.
Both my therapist and my doctor agree that I need to be able to sleep later in the mornings. Obviously, that means requesting a later start time at work.
I'm salaried and I don't have a strict start time, but there is a mandatory daily stand-up meeting at 9 am where all of us developers check in and tell the team what we're working on. I've been missing this meeting pretty consistently for weeks. I talked to my manager about it yesterday, before I talked to my doctor, and asked if I could stop worrying about the meeting and instead be very diligent about posting updates to the task management software we use. She (my manager) is generally awesome and knows that I have trouble getting up in time for work, but she still wants me at the meeting, which is understandable. She offered a couple of compromises. One is that I could attend the meeting remotely and come into work a little later (we usually have at least one person working from home anyway). The other is that she could move the meeting half an hour later, to 9:30. She doesn't want to move it too late, because that inconveniences everyone else.
After talking to my doctor between then and now, it's become clear that no, actually, this is a Real Issue and I need to start work ideally no earlier than 11 am for the sake of my mental and physical health. Waking up at 8:30 to call into the meeting at 9 would defeat the purpose.
My manager is kind and my job is secure. I have every advantage here, but I'm still scared to have this conversation. For one thing, I've never thought of myself as someone who would need to ask for accommodations. For another, I don't look like I'm struggling. And my brain spiders are telling me that I'm just immature and/or lazy, and therefore I don't deserve special treatment. Also, I would be embarrassed about my coworkers having to move the meeting from morning to halfway through the day.
This is probably a longer explanation than is strictly necessary; I tend to ramble when I'm nervous. Anyway, how the hell do I approach this? What can I say that doesn't make it sound like I'm still living like an irresponsible college student who can't make it to their early classes on time?
Oh, yeah, and I don't think I can even bring the topic up without crying, so that's fun :sad:
Calica on
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Any way to get a detailed note from your doc to give to your boss?
If your boss knew what was up in a real medical sense and not just 'calica has trouble getting up early' it would surely help her ability to work out a solution and maybe help you not feel so down on yourself or that you are making excuses.
I've always been a night owl since forever, my internal clock just doesn't want me asleep then no matter what. So I tried this and it really worked out.
I took the hours that I knew I would be functional no matter what I did (12-3am in my case) and shifted my schedule to make them the start of my day. I got up at 1 or 1:30 am, did my work, went to class, and then came home and crashed between 5 and 6pm. It worked really well, I fell into it almost immediately, didn't need to fight it and took no maintenance, and I was more productive than I'd ever been up to that point. The only problem is that it is not great for evening plans or social lives, so if you have one of those it's nearly impossible to keep up.
As a boss: No, there is not a doctor's note in the world that would convince me you're incapable of going to bed earlier. But it's certainly not a deal breaker if you're a good worker*.
Is there a Q&A component to this 9AM standup, or can you just prerecord your sitrep?
Can they record the meeting so you can review it? (via your company video/tele conferencing system)
*(Because judging you for staying up late would one hell of a card for me to play. I used to roll in at 10 or 11 pretty frequently.)
Since you're already consistently missing this meeting take it upon yourself to have drawn up, at the end of each day, all the issues outstanding, what's been compelted, what you plan to work on the next day, your understood prioritization, and whatever else you would contribute to the next days meeting. Having that available to your management or the meeting runner would anyways mitigate your absence.
A problem arises when meetings are interactive enough (and projects develop with sufficient fluidity) that your live contributions may be needed to inform general development (or other people's priorities) and vice versa.
We have weekly operations/engineering meetings at 9AM. Part of it is no doubt "everybody has their butt in a seat onsite and ready to work at 9", but part of it is also to make everyone more accountable.
I've got a friend whose team has crazy schedules, some guys come in at 7am, some come in at 2pm. So they do stand-up after lunch, around 2pm. We do it at 10am here, and we often reschedule to later in the afternoon if someone has a meeting or is tied up otherwise. I know devs can be a weird and picky bunch, but given the brief nature of standup, it really shouldn't be an inconvenience to move it to another time. It's 5 minutes, with no preparation required. I would press the rescheduling option if I were in your shoes. Not being flexible isn't very Agile™ :P
Barring resistance to that and your ability to fall back asleep, Enc's suggestion of waking up for 5 or 10 minutes, doing stand up, and heading back to sleep for another hour or two isn't too bad.
I say this not to be negative, but because a lot of people think accommodation means "the company has to let me do my job the way the doctor says I should." It's better to know that it's more of a negotiation at this point.
Yeah, as a manager the other accommodations I've seen have been involved with serious medical conditions after many months or years of struggle to make existing conditions work. If you haven't tried a sleep study or committed to changing your habits for more than 3 days, there's not a ton of room that says "this needs to be accommodated" if you have not exhausted treatment alternatives.
My dentist noticed I was grinding my teeth, and asked me if I snored and was generally tired all the time, and when I said yes he told me to talk to my doctor about sleep apnea. Which it turned out I had, but was only properly diagnosed with after a full sleep study. And that was my dentist. Who referred me to my GP. Who referred me to the lab.
I'm looking into a sleep study. I did ask my doctor about that, and she said she'd provide a referral if I wanted one, but she thinks it's more to do with depression, anxiety, and lack of sleep all feeding into each other in a vicious cycle. That said, I don't need a referral, apparently, so I'll call tonight (when their office is open) and find out if I can just ask for an appointment or what.
Re: starting my "day" at night: the problem, as I've experienced it, isn't really about when I'm awake, but when I'm most sleepy. I don't experience insomnia at night, but my body "wants" to be asleep between about 4 and 11 am regardless.
What is frustrating about hearing this is, if you take for granted that the cycle is true, one of the only ways to break it is to alleviate one of the links. If your lack of sleep has a biological or behavioral cause that can be identified and addressed, then that would go a long ways towards allowing you to manage the other issues.
Not having a sleep lab done but asking your work to accommodate your situation, possibly to the detriment of your career and even employment (and hence medical coverage), feels somewhat irresponsible (on the part of your doctors, not on you). That being said they are actual doctors and they are much more familiar with your situation, so I could be talking out of my ass here.
Aside from a mild inconvenience is there any reason why the meeting has to be in the morning and not in the afternoon? What do you as an employee get out of these meetings, and what does your co-workers get from you from these meetings? How can you get/give the same value from the meeting without attending? is it mission critical that you be there every day? or is the company just micro-managing you? Finding a way to make this work sounds like your biggest challenge, so finding a way to work around this is your main concern.
OP, all the best with the sleep study. I firmly believe that the best course of action is to improve your sleeping habits now, so that they won't be a problem for other issues later on (I highly doubt this will be the last time you'd need to ask for accommodations, unless you somehow stay in the same job with the same understanding boss for the duration).
http://www.sleephealthfoundation.org.au/pdfs/Delayed-Sleep-Phase-Syndrome.pdf
Definitely get a sleep study done. The information gathered is often essential in diagnosing a sleep disorder, if one is present, or can be used to help distinguish whether sleep problems potentially stem from behavioural factors.
Please shoot me a PM if you add me so I know to add you back.
It's an important meeting depending on the team and the tasking. The value comes from everyone discussing what they're doing together in a highly regulated and very short conversation. It's sort of mission critical that everyone be there and you can't really miss it and still get/give value. There's no real reason for it to be morning and not afternoon. Probably slightly more people on average prefer it in the morning for focus reasons.
In software development, morning standup meetings are usually better because they set the tone for the day and they let everyone know up front what people are working on or if they have any issues that need to be resolved ASAP. It's as simple as knowing whether or not you should take 30 minutes before lunch to talk about something and being able to plan accordingly. As opposed to the end of the day when you can't do anything about it until tomorrow and you're too tired or locked into your task that you don't want to be distracted. But this is a guide and not a hard rule - on global teams, it might be impossible to designate a "morning" meeting, for example.
That being said it really doesn't matter what justification the workplace has for their meetings as long as they think it is important to have those meetings at that time. The OP seems to have already pushed up against the limits of how far this meeting can be moved (or questioned whether it needs to exist or whether her presence is absolutely required). At this point, debating the merits of the meeting itself are not really relevant.