The Work Thread 2 - Get back to work!

[Dual]

The email recording our phone call and my concerns is done and sent. I spent over an hour on it but at least it's done. Pretty proud of it to be honest and gives me a little boost to stand up for myself.

Might have to put the agency on hold if this means I can continue working from home but I'll definitely have to get a new job before going back as my name is now mud and they've burned all bridges with me.

Sounds like you work for a bunch of nutters, so you definitely need to record discussions in writing.

I can't quite remember, did you say you don't have an independent HR department as it's quite a small company?

Can you sign up to a union if you've not done so already?

That's correct about HR. I will look into a union soon as it definitely looks more and more like a necessity.

How long have you worked for them?

Just under 2 years.

I'll look at connecting ACAS later. Already been reading their website for info.

Edit - In a queue for ACAS now

I would get back on with the agency tbh. Under 2 years served means its in their favour.

[Zilnad]

The email recording our phone call and my concerns is done and sent. I spent over an hour on it but at least it's done. Pretty proud of it to be honest and gives me a little boost to stand up for myself.

Might have to put the agency on hold if this means I can continue working from home but I'll definitely have to get a new job before going back as my name is now mud and they've burned all bridges with me.

Sounds like you work for a bunch of nutters, so you definitely need to record discussions in writing.

I can't quite remember, did you say you don't have an independent HR department as it's quite a small company?

Can you sign up to a union if you've not done so already?

That's correct about HR. I will look into a union soon as it definitely looks more and more like a necessity.

How long have you worked for them?

Just under 2 years.

I'll look at connecting ACAS later. Already been reading their website for info.

Edit - In a queue for ACAS now

I would get back on with the agency tbh. Under 2 years served means its in their favour.

In what way? I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere. So they could force me into work because I've been there less than two years? Honestly though, if this issue with work drags on, I could quite easily see October creeping up on me which would make it 2 years.

ACAS basically just said I'd taken all the correct steps now and that I can only wait for a response from the employer. Of course, they strongly advised me to resolve the issue directly with the employer but I don't know if that'll happen.

[Dual]

The email recording our phone call and my concerns is done and sent. I spent over an hour on it but at least it's done. Pretty proud of it to be honest and gives me a little boost to stand up for myself.

Might have to put the agency on hold if this means I can continue working from home but I'll definitely have to get a new job before going back as my name is now mud and they've burned all bridges with me.

Sounds like you work for a bunch of nutters, so you definitely need to record discussions in writing.

I can't quite remember, did you say you don't have an independent HR department as it's quite a small company?

Can you sign up to a union if you've not done so already?

That's correct about HR. I will look into a union soon as it definitely looks more and more like a necessity.

How long have you worked for them?

Just under 2 years.

I'll look at connecting ACAS later. Already been reading their website for info.

Edit - In a queue for ACAS now

I would get back on with the agency tbh. Under 2 years served means its in their favour.

In what way? I haven't seen that mentioned anywhere. So they could force me into work because I've been there less than two years? Honestly though, if this issue with work drags on, I could quite easily see October creeping up on me which would make it 2 years.

ACAS basically just said I'd taken all the correct steps now and that I can only wait for a response from the employer. Of course, they strongly advised me to resolve the issue directly with the employer but I don't know if that'll happen.

It's easier for an employer to make someone redundant if they've worked for them for less than 2 years.

[Zilnad]

Ah okay, thanks man. I'm literally the only finance staff member so I don't see how they could reasonably make me redundant but they clearly aren't reasonable people.

We live in such a strawberry floated up world.

[LewisD]

There's been an email to all employees this afternoon.

I pretty much stopped paying attention after the first sentence

Dear team member,

On 4th July 1776, 13 American colonies claimed their independence from England, which eventually lead to the formation of the United States. Drafted by Thomas Jefferson, a lawyer from Virginia (and later President of the United States), the Declaration of Independence included these lines: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and have certain unalienable rights, among them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”. More than 240 years later, Americans continue to celebrate the historic event of Independence day.

Closer to home, 4th July now takes on its own meaning for us with significant easing of lockdown restrictions as many additional business sectors reopen and the economy gets a much needed boost in terms of restarting........ *Snip*

[Dual]

[Squinty]

A further work email.

Good morning. Good morning. In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world, and you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. Mankind. That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom. Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution… but from annihilation. We're fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day when the world declared in one voice: We will not go quietly into the night! We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

[Victor Mildew]

I can fly. I'm pilot.

[Cuttooth]

Anyone had a crisis in confidence on interviews before? For years I've been really well prepared and able to answer questions with good examples of experience but for the past year I'm basically babbling away to relatively easy things.

[Green Gecko]

To be honest, I'm not sure it makes a huge difference if you have an HR department. For me it took them weeks to respond to anything by way of complaint. I was cut off payroll automatically for being given 0 hours for too long (even though I accepted hours and received no reply) by the time they actually replied to anything, and so there was no job left to hold onto.

The only thing that worked was writing a letter to the chancellor and vice chancellor of the university, the head of marketing, and several other people, then I got a phone call arranged with assistant head of HR for a couple of thousand people where I stated my grievances and got a formal apology. Obviously by that point I wasn't interested in working with them anyway. The manager in question left a couple of years later, replaced by the single member of staff that was kept on before he joined the university to replace the rest of their original team in its entirety - besides me and about 1 other person who actually did the work.

Ultimately it was all the result of a cost-cutting exercise anyway. Don't take a job where you are the one or two staff workforce replacing a formally larger department that is already considered disposable (I mean, in this case, exhibitions are kind of an important part of promoting the work of an art school with 5 campuses, but, whatever), something I actually knew about as I handed in my CV to that original department, and in retrospect was a bad idea. I mean, they already fired a bunch of people who had been working there for 6+ years, they weren't going to give a strawberry float about one or two zero hours contracts.

I don't think any employer gives a strawberry float about job retention anymore. One bullshit reason (or indeed no reason at all) with nobody having access to a free employment tribunal anymore, and you're out. It doesn't even matter if you are good at your job, you just have to be managed by a thundercunt with an HR department that moves at a snails pace. And don't get me wrong, I tried multiple times to assuage my concerns largely revolving around my own weaknesses (which showed great contrition and fortitude, in my opinion) before I realised I wasn't the weak one, my manager was simply crap at his job and wasn't supporting his staff by, y'know, providing them extremely basic 5 or so bullet point lists of the work needing to be completed that day or week, preferring that people just figure it out themselves once they arrive in the foyer, which was ridiculous. I didn't even have any kind of office or base of work, it was all on foot - no mobile phone, not even a strawberry floating official e-mail address - I was sent all my work to my personal Gmail account. You couldn't make this gooseberry fool up it was so poorly done.

[Memento Mori]

Anyone had a crisis in confidence on interviews before? For years I've been really well prepared and able to answer questions with good examples of experience but for the past year I'm basically babbling away to relatively easy things.

A few years ago I was applying for this job I really wanted. After going through the online massive form and then acing the assessment day stage I had a phone interview. Which is incidentally the first and only phone interview I've ever had. I'd prepared more for the phone interview than I ever have for any job interview before or since.

The interviewer asks me the first question, "What do we do?" and my mind goes completely blank. I can barely manage to string a coherent sentence together. It was the biggest car-crash of an interview I've ever had. Surprisingly I didn't get the job.

[Oblomov Boblomov]

To be honest, I'm not sure it makes a huge difference if you have an HR department. For me it took them weeks to respond to anything by way of complaint. I was cut off payroll automatically for being given 0 hours for too long (even though I accepted hours and received no reply) by the time they actually replied to anything, and so there was no job left to hold onto.

The only thing that worked was writing a letter to the chancellor and vice chancellor of the university, the head of marketing, and several other people, then I got a phone call arranged with assistant head of HR for a couple of thousand people where I stated my grievances and got a formal apology. Obviously by that point I wasn't interested in working with them anyway. The manager in question left a couple of years later, replaced by the single member of staff that was kept on before he joined the university to replace the rest of their original team in its entirety - besides me and about 1 other person who actually did the work.

Ultimately it was all the result of a cost-cutting exercise anyway. Don't take a job where you are the one or two staff workforce replacing a formally larger department that is already considered disposable (I mean, in this case, exhibitions are kind of an important part of promoting the work of an art school with 5 campuses, but, whatever), something I actually knew about as I handed in my CV to that original department, and in retrospect was a bad idea. I mean, they already fired a bunch of people who had been working there for 6+ years, they weren't going to give a strawberry float about one or two zero hours contracts.

I don't think any employer gives a strawberry float about job retention anymore. One bullshit reason (or indeed no reason at all) with nobody having access to a free employment tribunal anymore, and you're out. It doesn't even matter if you are good at your job, you just have to be managed by a thundercunt with an HR department that moves at a snails pace. And don't get me wrong, I tried multiple times to assuage my concerns largely revolving around my own weaknesses (which showed great contrition and fortitude, in my opinion) before I realised I wasn't the weak one, my manager was simply crap at his job and wasn't supporting his staff by, y'know, providing them extremely basic 5 or so bullet point lists of the work needing to be completed that day or week, preferring that people just figure it out themselves once they arrive in the foyer, which was ridiculous. I didn't even have any kind of office or base of work, it was all on foot - no mobile phone, not even a strawberry floating official e-mail address - I was sent all my work to my personal Gmail account. You couldn't make this gooseberry fool up it was so poorly done.

Why would employers not give a strawberry float about job retention? I consider losing a good member of staff just about the absolute worst thing that can happen, for all sorts of reasons not just business-related! It's a massive, massive ball ache. Not giving a strawberry float about retaining staff is entirely counterproductive and wouldn't even make sense if the managers were evil fascist robot monsters who only cared about getting work done.

Also HR departments are renowned by stereotype for being gooseberry fool and slow, but even the shittiest, slowest ones should be (by the simple nature of their existence within the framework of the organisation) able to hold managers and employees to account with extreme ease. Unless somewhere is substantially corrupt, having an HR department should absolutely be a powerful protector of human rights/employment law etc in the face of unfair treatment, unfair/constructive dismissal and all sorts.

[Cuttooth]

Anyone had a crisis in confidence on interviews before? For years I've been really well prepared and able to answer questions with good examples of experience but for the past year I'm basically babbling away to relatively easy things.

A few years ago I was applying for this job I really wanted. After going through the online massive form and then acing the assessment day stage I had a phone interview. Which is incidentally the first and only phone interview I've ever had. I'd prepared more for the phone interview than I ever have for any job interview before or since.

The interviewer asks me the first question, "What do we do?" and my mind goes completely blank. I can barely manage to string a coherent sentence together. It was the biggest car-crash of an interview I've ever had. Surprisingly I didn't get the job.

This is for three different internal positions over the space of a year, the first one I think the interview went well but ultimately I didn't have the specific experience required, which was fine they made the right call. A couple of months later I applied for a direct promotion to the role I'm currently in but don't like and just absolutely floundered.

I think that's affected the interview I had today for a promotion into a different team for a role that should be nailed on perfectly for me (to the point the manager had a quiet word with me to let me know the role had come up) but again I couldn't describe the examples I had already rehearsed.

I reckon it being done over Teams made it a bit weird but honestly I thought it might actually help me going into it. I think I'm a bit broken.

[That's not a growth]

Edit: @ob

I have the audiobook of the president of Pixar (Ed Catmul - it's really interesting if you're interested in tech and business and Pixar) and he mentioned there are companies and CEOs that brag about staff turn over, that it's something they strive for. They want to burn through fresh people people, get the best out of them while they're willing to give their all to a company (before they have a family etc), then move into the next batch of gullible fools.

[Rocsteady]

Edit: @ob

I have the audiobook of the president of Pixar (Ed Catmul - it's really interesting if you're interested in tech and business and Pixar) and he mentioned there are companies and CEOs that brag about staff turn over, that it's something they strive for. They want to burn through fresh people people, get the best out of them while they're willing to give their all to a company (before they have a family etc), then move into the next batch of gullible fools.

That can't be the norm though. I agree with Ob, job retention is seen as hugely important everywhere I've been. If nothing else, it reflects terribly on the organisation and existing personnel if everyone keeps leaving.

[That's not a growth]

I agree, it's probably not the norm, but at the same time he was taking about massive American companies (something like EA or Intel sized) so it does mean it's possible to be very successful with this mindset.

[Rocsteady]

Anyone had a crisis in confidence on interviews before? For years I've been really well prepared and able to answer questions with good examples of experience but for the past year I'm basically babbling away to relatively easy things.

A few years ago I was applying for this job I really wanted. After going through the online massive form and then acing the assessment day stage I had a phone interview. Which is incidentally the first and only phone interview I've ever had. I'd prepared more for the phone interview than I ever have for any job interview before or since.

The interviewer asks me the first question, "What do we do?" and my mind goes completely blank. I can barely manage to string a coherent sentence together. It was the biggest car-crash of an interview I've ever had. Surprisingly I didn't get the job.

I remember having a phone interview while hungover in the back of a bus travelling through the Croatian countryside with mates. Was so rough that I was struggling to speak properly, am amazed they didn't just end it after the first question when I couldn't remember what they did.

[Green Gecko]

Unfortunately my experience is largely the opposite in certain sectors - job turnover and burn out are extremely common and hiring managers know this well enough to give up on them the moment there is any sign of struggle either managing them or their performance.

In my case when you are probably more skilled than your manager, it creates a great deal of ire because they refuse to give you agency and then complain when you do take on agency to make sensible decisions or recommendations, because you don't have the power to act on what you know is best.

Case in point: Hmm let's use a strawberry floating orbital sander to remove some gunk off a wall, rather than chemicals, because it's faster. No, it will cake the entire lower floor of this building in toxic dust requiring everyone to wear an FFP2 mask. I don't recommend doing this. Response?

Just strawberry floating Do It. Not My Problem. I was threatened with my job suggesting this was a bad idea and a proper bollocking, leaving me red in the face and sweating constantly while operating a power sander for the subequent hour to remove a few sticky pads off a wall. It was and still is one of the most insane things I've ever been told to do. The long serving caretaker came in later on while I was still there on overtime sweeping up the dust, immediately noticed the walls were dimpled. "Yeah, that's because I was told to powersand the entire fuckign wall to remove some sticky pads." "Oh, this guy seems like he has a rocket up his arse, what a banana split."

He (the caretaker) was right.

The next day, all the cleaning staff had to seal off the building and clean the lower floor top to bottom, which cost several hours on several salaries. That was within a week of starting this job and the manager never stopped insisting on stupid things, because nobody could tell him, "hey, this is a terrible idea. We are not going to do it."

Shortly after this, my colleague - a guy with 10x my experience and at that time working 4 days a week at the Royal College of Art, quit because the same manager spoke poorly to him. Whereas I carried on dealing with this banana split for a year.

In my case I simply felt my old manager was never held to account for anything, because he was given a massive amount of responsibility for multiple sites, paid extremely well (about £25 per hour), had a single PA to do all the organisation for him (who was simultaneously the PA for a head of school as well, so she had two jobs on the same hours she was previously working) and literally everyone else who worked under him was on zero hours or additional non-contracted hours i..e extra work/overtime, whenever required outside of their normal departments e.g. graphic designer designs a sign but doesn't work for this department in any official capacity. When you have a huge gulf in general "power"/status like this between manager and ground/grunt/floor workers (only students were beneath me), crap like discussed in this thread is inevitable. Managers think it's cool to be rude, disrespectful and even violent and nobody does anything about it. Even the equipment used didn't belong to the department but the school of graphic art - and was purchased at the request of this manager on their budget instead of his department's, and housed in a room intended for student (not professional use) - meaning students constantly strawberry floated up the equipment because nobody was paid to maintain it or tutor them on how to use it (because literally nobody had this as their job. Yet somehow this was my fault, despite being there about 18 hours a month sometimes).

He oven spoke behind colleagues' backs and took the piss out of them once they were out of earshot / not in the room (senior members of staff like senior lecturers, professors etc) while cosying up to department heads that he was jokey with. He once even said, "c'mon now this isn't the Tate Britain, it's [organisation I work for]" as if to suggest the work wasn't all that important and quality standards didn't matter. This was a school founded in 1856 with a rich history, so it had pedigree. Afterall, I chose to spend 4 years studying there. This attitude while being paid twice as much as me on a salary. I wasn't comfortable with behaviour like that long before I was cut off by payroll because they "lost" my confirmation to come in to complete some work i.e. my manager offered me work and then ignored it as a way to get rid of me, while replacing me with someone else that they liked.

Sometimes if a shitty manager has been employed into a situation where they basically can make gooseberry fool up as they go along because nobody is able to criticise their output, they can then blame zero hours "employees" if it doesn't work as if by magic because there simply aren't enough staff to execute the mysterious/vague/outright missing work demands, who are never asked how long a task will actually take to complete, and whose hours aren't even confirmed until a matter of days before they show up to complete *insert mystery tasks here*. I ended up replacing a team of 5 permanent members of staff. So, the entire department was set up to fail placing a single employee at the helm of 5 different sites with no way near enough bodies to execute the work.

I mean, this is a guy in an arts university who couldn't even be bothered to format a word document and stuck with Calibiri every time, written in about 30 seconds with formatting errors and spelling mistakes. (Their "PA" designed all the official documents like invites and catalogues, since she had been doing the same job for the previous 6 years. And she took a pay cut!!)

To be fair, some of the actual technical managers who were there for about 10-15+ years were disappointed when I refused to apply for a similar job based on my experience not being worth the massive commute involved. I knew them long before this total bell end showed up as I actually studied there and respected my place of work. It was the same guy who suggested that my ex-manager might not only be a crappy guy, but was bullying me, advise I wish I took up sooner before I wasted my time turning down other possible work because I was loyal to this place of work despite being managed by a total arsehole.

Sadly, sometimes the only thing you can do about terrible management is just leave, or keep applying to other jobs once its become apparent this workplace is toxic. Afterall, there's no requirement to stay just as much as there's no requirement for an employer to keep you for some bullshit reason.

[Memento Mori]

On a conference call just now the overall boss of my division namechecked everyone on my team for their hard work apart from me. There are three people on my team.

This is the same guy who was supposed to arrange a 1 to 1 meeting with me a few weeks ago and never did.

So out of the blue this guy has just sent me an invite for a catchup call in two weeks. Two months after he was supposed to.



Hmm.

[Cuttooth]

Subject: Getting to know each other!