I have ongoing issues outside of work which are out of my control and now affecting my performance at work. My elderly mother often becomes ill and must go to the hospital. She has carers that call when she is ill, but as I am her only family member they contact me whenever there is an incident. Unfortunately this very often while I am at work, and she has nine hospital admissions over the last 18 months. Also my husband has just been made redundant and diagnosed with depression.
Initially my employers were understanding but are now monitoring my every move in the work place which is adding to the pressure I am already under.
They called a meeting with me to discuss their concerns and when I mentioned my mother they just looked at me as if to say 'so what' and made no reply, which made me feel as if I was making excuses.
My question is should they take issues outside of work into consideration?
Thanks to all for your replies. To answer some of the questions -
I am based in the UK.
I went part time a number of years to help my mum, when her health started to fail, which was fine, but, her health has gone down hill very quickly over the last two years with numerous health issues.
She now has carers but there have been endless concerns with them, to name a few switching off the electricity at the sockets - including the fridge, not being able to use the key safe and saying that's it's broken when it isn't, not heating her meals up correctly - I could go on and on and on. Anyway I have sort to it out.
She has the district nurses coming in on a regular basis and I have to check / chase them as it's different ones each time and the last one doesn't bother to follow up what the last one has done.
There are other agencies I have to check and chase, but these are the most consistent headaches and I don't want to bore you all with it all.
The point is that my employers were fully aware of my situation and were supportive up until a month ago, but now don't want to know and suddenly deem it as an excuse rather than - hey she has been dealing with this for the last two years and she has always come to work and we've had had no reason for concern, maybe it's now affecting her performance -
Also I have been working at the company for over 30 years with no issues.
I don't think I'm being unreasonable?
I'm obviously dispensable as we all are - when required.