The sentence that gets agreed

The two that fail

The complaint with a request attached. "The office is pointless for me most weeks — can I come in less?" Every word may be true. It gives the other person something to disagree with before they get to the request, and they will, because the first clause is a judgement about something they are responsible for.

The open question. "What do you think about the hybrid policy?" This invites a defence of the policy, which is what you will get, and afterwards it is harder to raise the specific thing you wanted.

The three that work

The observation plus the small move.

Most of the people I work with are in on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and my third day is a Thursday. I would like to make it a Monday — same three days.

A fact, then a request that changes nothing anybody is accountable for.

The proposal on behalf of the work.

Could we put the planning and the one-to-ones on the same day and all be in for it? I think we would get more out of it than we do at the moment.

The subject is the work, not the policy and not you. Nobody has to concede anything to agree.

The named constraint, stated early.

Wednesdays are difficult for me — I have a standing commitment. Any other day works. I wanted to say so before the day gets picked rather than after.

Early, specific, not a request for an exception, and it gives the other person the chance to avoid the problem instead of having to grant something.

The common structure

All three are short, concern a specific week rather than a principle, and ask for something the other person can say yes to without checking with anybody.

They also all avoid the word that causes the trouble, which is flexibility. It has been used to mean so many things that it now reads as a request for an exemption. "Which day" does not.

The one to avoid even when it is true

This is not working for me.

It is sometimes exactly the right sentence, and it is the end of a sequence rather than the start of one. Used first it produces a conversation about you; used after two quarters of specific, well-evidenced smaller requests that were tried and did not work, it produces a conversation about the arrangement.

The order matters more than the content.

Three more that work, for different situations

When you have a record and want to use it.

Last quarter seventeen of my thirty-one useful office hours were on Wednesdays, and I am in Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Could the Thursday become a Monday?

The number is doing the work and the request is still trivial.

When the problem is the room, not the day.

Could we book a room for the Wednesday call? I have been taking it in the corridor and I think I am contributing less than I would be at home.

Specific, about the quality of the meeting rather than your comfort, and it names a cost that falls on everybody.

When somebody else is struggling and you are not.

My journey is twenty-five minutes. I think some people here are at well over an hour and I am not sure we have ever compared.

This is the most useful sentence on the page and it can only be said by somebody at the short end. It makes the spread visible without requiring anybody at the far end to volunteer themselves.

Why the wording carries so much

Because the request is small and the filter is not.

Every question about office arrangements is sorted, at least briefly, against the question of whether the person wants to be there less. A small request phrased loosely gets sorted into that category and answered as though it were a large one.

The forms that work all share one property: within the first clause, they make clear that nothing is being reduced. Everything after that is heard on its merits.