What a year it is turning out to be already, and we are less than one month in. When psychic friends told me that this would a year of major clearing for all, they were clearly not joking!
Back in October last year, I was offered a new job. It was only after I got my CRB that they informed me I would need to undertake what amounted to induction training prior to handing in my notice at my existing job - something that was clearly not possible. After several weeks of going backwards and forwards, trying to speak to various people on this (including my Union, who backed me up), the new company said that the training would be put back to January. I wasn't for obvious reasons happy with this, so I wrote to both the home itself and their Head Office expressing my concerns and asking them to come up with a solution. Neither of them responded.
Early in January, I received a message from them on my mobile phone, asking me if I could do the training on 3 separate days in January not one was suitable. I rang the home and predictably no one was there, so I emailed them again telling them where to go, and of course asking for a read receipt. I was sorry that it came to this, but I clearly could not work for a company that did this, and continually mucked me without having the courtesy to even respond to my emails. It may not have been perfect where I am, but I was and am not about to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. I get the feeling that with this lot, it would have more like a furnace.
After a day or so, I received an email from the woman at the Head Office of this company that I was going to work for, acknowledging receipt of the one I sent to her. It stated that she had forwarded a copy of my emails to their Operations Manager, who she said, would be in touch with the home concerned to investigate their procedures with regard to mandatory training. It is obviously too late for me, and it is clear that I have made the right choice. If this means that things there change and it stops this from happening to even one more person, then I will consider that all that time and aggravation was not such a waste after all. The interesting thing is, I have since heard from a friend who was also to go there, that the Home Manager is leaving. I can't help wondering if this has anything to do with my correspondence.
Given the stress of this situation and other things that have since happened, it is just as well that I now have a week off. Coran and I have booked a few nights near Amesbury in Wiltshire, not far from Stonehenge. I had the idea to ring them to arrange a private access visit to go into the Stones themselves at sunrise. It has been a good ten years since the last time we did this, and it will be very different in the middle of winter.
I have come to the conclusion though, if I did not already know this, that my boss has questionable parentage after shouting at me in front of 2 of my colleagues and stating that I am the most antagonistic person she has ever met, and that she will be grateful when she leaves to be made redundant in 12 weeks time as she will no longer have to see me. My crime was to ask her for a second handwritten copy of the notes from a meeting the previous day, as the first copy that I had been given could not be read as half the words were on the edge of the page and had not been copied correctly. The only reason I asked for this in the first place as because during that meeting the previous day I believe that she may have been indicating that she had asked another member of staff to "test me" by asking me to undertake certain tasks and then report back to her as to whether or not I done them. Of course when challenged she disputed this, which is why I asked for those notes - not a typewritten copy, as this can be altered, but a photocopy of the handwritten original.
Needless to say, I contacted the Union and am awaiting a call back on Monday, when my Rep returns from holiday. I do not feel at this moment in time that I want to let the matter rest, as it is not the first time she has shouted at me like this, and enough is enough. It is time for me to take more positive action, whether she is going or not, as I know if I do not this will only happen again. The reason I felt forced to leave my last job was because of similar behaviour from the Director there, and I am very much aware that from a universal standpoint, this is the reason it is happening here - because I did not deal with the situation properly when it happened, choosing instead to walk away. I will of course act on any advice that the Union offer me, but it seems that it may be time for a formal grievance. No one likes to do this, and it will take much courage and strength, but I feel I been left with very little choice.
The Head Housekeeper, whom I have discovered this week is almost as bad (I have a pretty good idea hat she has been relaying information that I told her in confidence on to the boss), is also to be made redundant. She had an interview for another job today on Thursday. What neither of them realise is that I also had an interview at the same place on Friday, for the same job. You could say that she led me to it, as she and the Receptionist (who is almost as bad as she has also passed things on and had a go at me for not coming to work due to the floods over Christmas), were sitting in the Managers office a few weeks ago while I did the hoovering looking at jobs online. I asked them what site they were looking at and went home and looked it up myself where I found this job.
Initially I felt a bit guilty about this, as I knew that she had also applied, and that this job would be ideal for her requirements, being so close to home, but after this I do not feel guilty at all, as she has proven beyond doubt that she is more than capable of stabbing me in the back. I have a friend who used to work there, so know a bit about the place already, but I consider what I think was a very good interview, so it's fingers crossed.
In the meantime, I have spent much of this weekend, which was supposed to be time off work, bringing my work diary up to date, detailing all that has gone on there since I started just over a year ago. They do not know that I have been doing this, and will have the shock of their lives if and when they find out, for it goes into considerable detail about who said what and when, and perhaps more to the point, how it made me feel. If I am to prove that this does indeed constitute bullying, then this is every bit as important as the other details.
It seems to me though, that the sooner I can get out of here the better. At least I have another seven days off to mull things over. There is nothing like a change of scenery to clear your mind.
