CopperBrompton
Bicycle: a means of transport between cake-stops
- Location
- London
Sounds like ultimately you're onto a winner here, anyway. Best of luck with it.
Just a rallying post..support needed
- Thread starter ttcycle
- Start date
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WeeE
New Member
- Location
- Glasgow in Scotland
I went through being harrassed to the extent of a completely invented disciplinary (though my boss never could decide what I was accused of and kept re-inventing!).
1. It can take months. If you're gonna be tense/miserable at work for months, having a drink at the end of the day to unwind is NOT a good idea. I decided to not drink alcohol at all, and I'm glad I did. (Actually, it took so long that I kinda lost the taste for it.)
2. My friend inadvertently gave me the best mantra possibleto cope with malevolence & schadenfreude: "cheery and indifferent!"
3. If you have one or two people you can unload to about it, it makes a big difference. (Also makes work "mates" who suddenly become friendly & try to elicit your confidences/strategy look that much more transparent.) It's worth actually asking someone close to you if you can "vent" the latest development whenever it happens; kind of formalising it, asking permission, makes it far easier to keep the whole thing in its box: instead of saving it all up and then exploding, you let off a bit of steam, they buck you up, you get onto normal conversation and "real life" much more quickly and easily. If you can laugh about stepping back" through the looking glass" it helps you step through it!
4. It's among the most stressful of life events (and other stresses come at random on top of it) Getting through it without a whiff of clinical depression &/or anxiety would be quite an achievement. See your doctor if you haven't already. Nipping it in the bud is far more effective than tackling it once it's begun to overwhelm you.
1. It can take months. If you're gonna be tense/miserable at work for months, having a drink at the end of the day to unwind is NOT a good idea. I decided to not drink alcohol at all, and I'm glad I did. (Actually, it took so long that I kinda lost the taste for it.)
2. My friend inadvertently gave me the best mantra possibleto cope with malevolence & schadenfreude: "cheery and indifferent!"
3. If you have one or two people you can unload to about it, it makes a big difference. (Also makes work "mates" who suddenly become friendly & try to elicit your confidences/strategy look that much more transparent.) It's worth actually asking someone close to you if you can "vent" the latest development whenever it happens; kind of formalising it, asking permission, makes it far easier to keep the whole thing in its box: instead of saving it all up and then exploding, you let off a bit of steam, they buck you up, you get onto normal conversation and "real life" much more quickly and easily. If you can laugh about stepping back" through the looking glass" it helps you step through it!
4. It's among the most stressful of life events (and other stresses come at random on top of it) Getting through it without a whiff of clinical depression &/or anxiety would be quite an achievement. See your doctor if you haven't already. Nipping it in the bud is far more effective than tackling it once it's begun to overwhelm you.
WeeE
New Member
- Location
- Glasgow in Scotland
Oh - and if you haven't already complained about the company dragging things out (in the hope that you'll be forced back to work even if not fit) then make sure your complaints about time-scale are noted at every official encounter.
I sympathise with the company doctor thing: a close relative of mine became terminally ill and died (a short illness, before a full diagnosis could be made) while this stuff was going on: my boss, under te guise of sympathy, started pumping my workmates for information about how long he'd been ill / how long I knew - obviously preparing to put forward that (instead of herself) as the source of stress.
The value of the company doctor's report is that to a tribunal, it is what it is: they don't get to "interpret" it to a tribunal. Any twisting they do at the moment is just hot air - an attempt to work on you.
Cheery and indifferent!
I sympathise with the company doctor thing: a close relative of mine became terminally ill and died (a short illness, before a full diagnosis could be made) while this stuff was going on: my boss, under te guise of sympathy, started pumping my workmates for information about how long he'd been ill / how long I knew - obviously preparing to put forward that (instead of herself) as the source of stress.
The value of the company doctor's report is that to a tribunal, it is what it is: they don't get to "interpret" it to a tribunal. Any twisting they do at the moment is just hot air - an attempt to work on you.
Cheery and indifferent!
WeeE
New Member
- Location
- Glasgow in Scotland
Life isn't the same - but after the nightmare, there IS life!
Whenever you feel anything's being twisted, don't feel you have to counter it point by point: it's YOUR grievance, and they're only looking for ammo or probing for weak points.
Instead, just comment casually about how a tribunal's going to see it differently. Let them know you've already decided how far you're taking it.
Andstart figuring out how much you're prepared to accept as an out-of-court settlement - not forgetting any retraining for new career, pension, lawyer fees etc.
Whenever you feel anything's being twisted, don't feel you have to counter it point by point: it's YOUR grievance, and they're only looking for ammo or probing for weak points.
Instead, just comment casually about how a tribunal's going to see it differently. Let them know you've already decided how far you're taking it.
Andstart figuring out how much you're prepared to accept as an out-of-court settlement - not forgetting any retraining for new career, pension, lawyer fees etc.
OP
OP
ttcycle
Cycling Excusiast
WeeE said:I sympathise with the company doctor thing: a close relative of mine became terminally ill and died (a short illness, before a full diagnosis could be made) while this stuff was going on: my boss, under te guise of sympathy, started pumping my workmates for information about how long he'd been ill / how long I knew - obviously preparing to put forward that (instead of herself) as the source of stress.
Oh yes, they're trying this one on too but in a different context however because of the employer they need to tread carefully to not be at odds with the anti discrimination line they take as an organisation. It's one of the reasons they're famous for what they do. It's why they sent me to occupational health - however the report states that other sources of stress are minimal but due to the workplace situation. Don't think they were expecting that one at all.
joolsybools
Well-Known Member
- Location
- Scotland
Hang on in there and feel free to vent on here if you need to (discretely!). Hopefully you'll start to see the light at the end of the tunnel soon.
WeeE
New Member
- Location
- Glasgow in Scotland
Excellent. The company doctor in my case read out their referral letter to me - which basically implied (falsely) that I'd got disciplined and immediately took a sickie in repsonse; that was line one. Line two basically told him what to diagnose.
The guy was simultaneously insulted and reminded of his Hippocratic oath, I think!
The 2nd-in-charge of personnel even phoned me up at home once to pump me about my grievance strategy - and then claimed in writing that I had "been given counselling by a manager". Great fun asking him on the record at the next grievance meeting to what did this comment about counselling refer, and who was it that claimed to have given it?
Another thing that scared them was an out-of-the-blue formal request (using online form, sent to another bit of Personnel) for my legal right to full disclosure of any records/communications about me. They pretended they didn't get the form, then after the 40-day limit was up, pretended it wasn't specific enough. I said I'd complain to the ombudsman. So - on the very final grievance meeting, the head of personnel actually brought hard-copy of my stripped-down personnel file to give me. And their evident weeks of panic over this, of course, prevented my boss from being able to add any more vague "matter of fact" references to my non-existant "bad record". It also meant personnel had to "remind" everyone to purge all records (email archives etc) with personal information (i.e. gossip.) and let them know that I knew they had to put whatever cards they had on the table, or they had none.
Actually, there was almost nothing in my denuded personnel file at all, except the last thing in it before the sick notes: my performance bonus.
My life still hasn't settled on a new course (I thought it had, then came the crash) but it feels like my life again. The greatest thing afterwards is this feeling that you've struggled and taken the reins instead of letting someone else push you to the side of your own life. Part-way through, I also experienced ("realised" is just too weak & cerebral) experienced that other people only have the authority over you that you permit. You have to actually hand them authority over you.
At some point in those endless meetings - maybe the one where my supervisor's boss's boss's opposite number in the other division (one down from board-member) from London was going full-steam at me across the table, as though this was a dressing-down isntead of my grievance meeting, and the head of personnel still in full stealth mode...
I hope that, like me, one day you'll find yourself talking to your boss's boss's boss or whatever without the slightest concern about any difference in status: you suddenly see they're actually quite stressed, clueless people who, because you haven't caved as expected, have no other strategy than to keep on repeating the same irrelevant twisty rubbish. "Twisting it for whose benefit?" you think, because a tribunal interprets records for itself, and will make them answer the points they keep avoiding by going off on a twisty one.
This twistiness is all about just dismaying you and putting you off by psyching you out. Which is great, because it displays how weak a case they have.
And having seen that, it becomes amusing to see what they try to twist next. In my case, literally hours of my grievance was spent trying to get me to "agree" (a.k.a. admit) that some vague, unnamed thing about my "attitude"(!) in response to harrassment was "unreasonable" - and this was in my grievance meeting, lol!
My union bloke was rubbish at paperwork, but great in meetings. He'd look a bit nonplussed and say in an off-the-cuff, reasonable-bloke tone, "Well, WeeE can't very well discuss something that no-one's able to describe to her,
and "attitude" isn't a disciplinary offence. Is it?" And then briskly, "But anyway, in relation to her grievance, you wanted to say....um....?" (Lots of umming and paper-flicking.)
By the look of them, the sentence, "Well, a tribunal will be helpful in clarifying that issue", is also quite startling to people like this, and seems to be something of a conversation-stopper.
Amazingly childish, mischievous things help, when you're dealing with essentially immature people (such as bullies) - like accidentally forgetting my (award-winning employment-lawyer-firm) pen and seeing my boss clock the company livery on it. ("God, she's already been seeing a lawyer?!")
Bullies are not always cowards, but they always have other weaknesses that go with it - laziness, immaturity, the need to impress, or whatever. And it's all information; the tactics they use to bully tell you a lot about what THEY fear. I've never been very socially skilled or perceptive, but it was fascinating for the insights that it laid out there on the table - insights into other people and myself. You do learn a lot.
If you're off work, everyone else including your boss is busier than ever. In any case, you are ALWAYS better-prepared than they are.
Anyway, ramble, ramble, ramble. Remember that your boss is probably very scared, and your boss's boss is wishing this nightmare would go away. As hard as it was, thinking of it as a game (like the Aztec ball-game!) and myself as a restrained, righteous, wising-up, resilient, determined, always-learning player, that helped a lot.
Courage, mon brave! Cheery and indifferent!
The guy was simultaneously insulted and reminded of his Hippocratic oath, I think!
The 2nd-in-charge of personnel even phoned me up at home once to pump me about my grievance strategy - and then claimed in writing that I had "been given counselling by a manager". Great fun asking him on the record at the next grievance meeting to what did this comment about counselling refer, and who was it that claimed to have given it?
Another thing that scared them was an out-of-the-blue formal request (using online form, sent to another bit of Personnel) for my legal right to full disclosure of any records/communications about me. They pretended they didn't get the form, then after the 40-day limit was up, pretended it wasn't specific enough. I said I'd complain to the ombudsman. So - on the very final grievance meeting, the head of personnel actually brought hard-copy of my stripped-down personnel file to give me. And their evident weeks of panic over this, of course, prevented my boss from being able to add any more vague "matter of fact" references to my non-existant "bad record". It also meant personnel had to "remind" everyone to purge all records (email archives etc) with personal information (i.e. gossip.) and let them know that I knew they had to put whatever cards they had on the table, or they had none.
Actually, there was almost nothing in my denuded personnel file at all, except the last thing in it before the sick notes: my performance bonus.
My life still hasn't settled on a new course (I thought it had, then came the crash) but it feels like my life again. The greatest thing afterwards is this feeling that you've struggled and taken the reins instead of letting someone else push you to the side of your own life. Part-way through, I also experienced ("realised" is just too weak & cerebral) experienced that other people only have the authority over you that you permit. You have to actually hand them authority over you.
At some point in those endless meetings - maybe the one where my supervisor's boss's boss's opposite number in the other division (one down from board-member) from London was going full-steam at me across the table, as though this was a dressing-down isntead of my grievance meeting, and the head of personnel still in full stealth mode...
I hope that, like me, one day you'll find yourself talking to your boss's boss's boss or whatever without the slightest concern about any difference in status: you suddenly see they're actually quite stressed, clueless people who, because you haven't caved as expected, have no other strategy than to keep on repeating the same irrelevant twisty rubbish. "Twisting it for whose benefit?" you think, because a tribunal interprets records for itself, and will make them answer the points they keep avoiding by going off on a twisty one.
This twistiness is all about just dismaying you and putting you off by psyching you out. Which is great, because it displays how weak a case they have.
And having seen that, it becomes amusing to see what they try to twist next. In my case, literally hours of my grievance was spent trying to get me to "agree" (a.k.a. admit) that some vague, unnamed thing about my "attitude"(!) in response to harrassment was "unreasonable" - and this was in my grievance meeting, lol!
My union bloke was rubbish at paperwork, but great in meetings. He'd look a bit nonplussed and say in an off-the-cuff, reasonable-bloke tone, "Well, WeeE can't very well discuss something that no-one's able to describe to her,
and "attitude" isn't a disciplinary offence. Is it?" And then briskly, "But anyway, in relation to her grievance, you wanted to say....um....?" (Lots of umming and paper-flicking.)By the look of them, the sentence, "Well, a tribunal will be helpful in clarifying that issue", is also quite startling to people like this, and seems to be something of a conversation-stopper.
Amazingly childish, mischievous things help, when you're dealing with essentially immature people (such as bullies) - like accidentally forgetting my (award-winning employment-lawyer-firm) pen and seeing my boss clock the company livery on it. ("God, she's already been seeing a lawyer?!")
Bullies are not always cowards, but they always have other weaknesses that go with it - laziness, immaturity, the need to impress, or whatever. And it's all information; the tactics they use to bully tell you a lot about what THEY fear. I've never been very socially skilled or perceptive, but it was fascinating for the insights that it laid out there on the table - insights into other people and myself. You do learn a lot.
If you're off work, everyone else including your boss is busier than ever. In any case, you are ALWAYS better-prepared than they are.
Anyway, ramble, ramble, ramble. Remember that your boss is probably very scared, and your boss's boss is wishing this nightmare would go away. As hard as it was, thinking of it as a game (like the Aztec ball-game!) and myself as a restrained, righteous, wising-up, resilient, determined, always-learning player, that helped a lot.
Courage, mon brave! Cheery and indifferent!
jonny jeez
Legendary Member
- Location
- Chislehurst, Kent, UK
WeeE said:
I disagree.
WeeE
New Member
- Location
- Glasgow in Scotland
jonny jeez said:
Lol - you haven't met me. I have to work out basic social stuff by numbers: like being "musical" but croaky, tone-deaf, off-key and all thumbs.
WeeE
New Member
- Location
- Glasgow in Scotland
Ooh, my first ever PM today 
Er... just need to work out how to PM-reply....!!
Er... just need to work out how to PM-reply....!!WeeE
New Member
- Location
- Glasgow in Scotland
ttcycle said:
I have this trick of using my feet to pedal - easy!
jonny jeez
Legendary Member
- Location
- Chislehurst, Kent, UK
WeeE said:
so....just like the rest of us then...welcome to the club.
