Work-Related Stress Issue

Fluffi

crystalbristols wrote: »

I agreed to do this because I wanted to help and I thought I would be allowed to do this extra and unpaid work at my own gentle pace as and when I had time to do so.

Always confirm your managers expectations around time scales and delivery - what you think is reasonable and their idea of reasonable could be quite different!

crystalbristols wrote: »

The straw to break this camel's back occurred recently when she either intentionally or oblivious to the fact undermined me in front of my colleagues by telling me and them in a loud voice in a busy main office area that I looked 'bewildered’.

Regardless of your personal history ... to me saying someone looks bewildered is no different to saying something looks confused. I don't honestly see how saying that someone looked confused was particularly undermining or harmful.

crystalbristols wrote: »

I was then called by her (I didn't take the call) to say she was sorry I was unwell, but could I contact her to discuss covering my work. My colleagues later agreed with me in their feeling I should not have been asked to call back to talk about work - particularly in the context of why I was ill in the first place.

I disagree ... even when sick unless you are physically unable to talk then you have a duty to make your work is handed over for someone else to do in your absence... especially if you know you are going to be off for more than a day. If I was unexpectedly ill I'd expect my manager to call me at home so that they could efficiently reassign my work and avoid my colleagues having to repeat any of my work.

crystalbristols wrote: »

Is it reasonable for me to ask to be changed to a different team and does my employer have a duty to do this, or are they perfectly in their rights to insist I stay on the team I am already?

Yes you can ask but there is no duty or legal obligation to keep employees with with the managers that suit them. If everyone had to like their manager and could change team on a whim, running a business would be an impossible nightmare. Otherwise you'd never be able to promote a good manager for fear of their team wanting them back if they didn't like the replacement ... then a good manager would only be able to achieve career progression through resignation!

crystalbristols wrote: »

Also, I wondered what are my rights (if any) over being off sick in the context of getting through my six month probationary period, but having less than a year's service with the company? Can they just get rid of the problem by just getting rid of me?

Probably ... and your employer could frame it as a performance issue rather than a sickness issue (even if the real problem is the sick leave) if necessary to avoid any future disability claims.

crystalbristols

Fluffi wrote: »

"Regardless of your personal history ... to me saying someone looks bewildered is no different to saying something looks confused. I don't honestly see how saying that someone looked confused was particularly undermining or harmful."

To you, the remark may well seem not particularly undermining or harmful, but to me, it does. You may be a person who hasn't suffered from the massive and disempowering loss of confidence mental health breakdown brings and cannot see how a get-over-it joke to one person can create a major loss of self-esteem and loss of function in somebody else. I consider myself to be a disabled person under the definition given in the DDA, if my impairment was a physical one, I was a wheelchair user and someone at work made a jokey ‘Hello, Ironside’ remark, should I have just laughed that one off, too? It’s not about the intent of a personal remark made, it’s about how the recipient reacts to it and I feel that a manager with the appropriate interpersonal skills should follow that rule to the letter in order to get the best out of one of their staff. I don’t want a personal remarks-type, banterish relationship with my line manager. It’s not in my contract to have one imposed upon me and nor should it be.

I am meant to be working in what is promoted a caring working environment where treating co-workers and service users with dignity and respect is key - one where all the valuing diversity boxes are trumpeted regularly and publicly as being ticked and where a Dignity at Work policy is in place. I think these organisational core values sit particularly uncomfortably alongside in an in-house situation, where, in a very public manner, an ultimately well-judged but poorly acted upon perception about the way in which one of your staff members presents themselves is made.

A colleague witnessing what was said later came up to me unprompted and told me she thought what was said to me was inappropriate, unprofessional and personal, so it wasn't just me having a hissy-fit reaction to it. The true measure of things would have been if I'd gone into the home of one my clients suffering from a dementia-related illness and flippantly told them that they looked bewildered. I wouldn't have done this because my role would have been to try build-up their self-worth and not attempt to demolish it in one hit. Though, if I had have said such a thing, I'd probably have been marched off the top of the corporate building if the person had been able to remember to rightly complain.

On the point about contacting my manager to verbally discuss covering workload, no, I disagree. I stuck rigidly to the terms and conditions of my contract by informing my employer of the nature of my absence, the anticipated length of it and submitted my diary sheet of appointments to her for the following week, showing the times and dates of client meetings needing to be covered. I didn’t feel further obliged, when suffering from work-related stress, to speak with her direct – particularly so when I had already previously raised the issue of my working relationship with her being poor and one that was making me ill.

Thanks to everybody posting advice on this issue. My gut-feeling isn't good. I don't feel well enough to return to work and in a sense, the longer I am away, the harder it will be to go back. I do not want to work for the manager I speak of again. The easy option for my employer is to get rid of me because I’ve been in the role for less than twelve months and I am more than expecting this to ultimately be the outcome. Whether I can use the DDA to help me, I don't know. In a sense, I don’t want the additional aggro of trying. The onus of using the DDA to fight inequality for disabled people was put very much in the disabled person’s court when the Act was drawn up and many disabled people haven’t the fight or the will to do this. I was five years out of the paid workplace with previous mental health problems back in the late 1990s onwards. I genuinely thought at that time I could never work again. I eventually got my chance to come back to the workplace by working for a disabled people’s organisation, where my impairment was embraced and valued and not shunned and ridiculed. Having been back into the non-disabled workplace for the last two years or so, I have seen the same old ignorance and stereotyping of people suffering with their mental health and it shows despite all the politically correct language used corporately, the ‘shop floor’ attitudes have changed very little overall.

jazzyman01

I understand how you feel, but I can assure you that the law does protect you. I successfully helped my friend to claim for DDA through tribunal and she had only been employed in her role for 6 months. Of that six months she had been off sick for 2.5 in two stints - both related to stress/depression which had been clearly documented to her employers before they employed her. Despite this they overloaded her with work. She returned after a short time with the agreed understanding the workload would be addressed. It was not and she subsequently went sick again.

She felt like you that there was no point in putting in a claim but with a little persuasion she did. They settled out of court. I think this had a positive affect on my friend who realised that people did recognise she had an illness, it was not put on and just as real as any other illness.

instaunt

First, let me point out that I'm generally unsympathetic to these threads because I own my company and am working 8am to 11pm most days and have been doing for 9+ years whilst my employees work 9-5 five days a week and whinge that they don't get enough holidays - so I'm not specifically targeting this poster.

crystalbristols wrote: »

My current manager and my employer are aware that I have suffered previous mental health issues prior to working for them, resulting in me at one point not being able to work for a number of years with anxiety and depression and that I need to manage my mental health on a day by day/week by week basis in order to get by. My manager was also aware of my background before she decided to say very publicly I looked bewildered. Yes, to some people, I guess, a perfectly innocent and jokey remark to make, but not very funny for me to hear with my employment history.

If they are aware of your mental health issues and still gave you a job then you should count yourself lucky. The fact that anyone took a chance on you whilst knowing you were a liability is great and you should not expect better treatment that the rest of the staff there.

Employees in wheelchairs should expect ramps, employees with brain damage should expect lesser responsibilities, employees with RSI (real RSI, not a-bit-of-a-twinge at the end of the day) should have that type of work removed from their schedule and re-assigned.

People who get stressed out easily should not expect to be offered and paid for a job where everyone else has to put up with stress but they feel they should not. Work is stressful and asking your employer to think like a psychiatrist us unreasonable ...

crystalbristols

instaunt wrote: »

If they are aware of your mental health issues and still gave you a job then you should count yourself lucky. The fact that anyone took a chance on you whilst knowing you were a liability is great and you should not expect better treatment that the rest of the staff there.

So in your rough and tough, cope with it all regardless workplace, no doubt a potential employee presenting themselves to you with a past history of mental health difficulties would be very swiftly be shown the door, or would not have been allowed to walk through it in the first place.

You equate the word liability with the words mental health issues. The quote used perfectly sums up the problems anybody wanting to get back on their feet again after a mental breakdown faces from many potential employers out there. If they breakdown again, then it's their fault and no duty of care is placed upon their employers because they gave a liability a chance. Perhaps it's better for people not to try to get back to work after suffering mental ill health and just to claim benefits for the rest of their lives, but no doubt you wouldn't want that either, so just give carry on giving out ramps to wheelchair users and no work to' mentals' and you'll be fine.

mrbilbs

...I own my company and am working 8am to 11pm most days and have been doing for 9+ years whilst my employees work 9-5 five days a week and whinge that they don't get enough holidays - so I'm not specifically targeting this poster.

...you should count yourself lucky. The fact that anyone took a chance on you whilst knowing you were a liability...

Blimey - caring employer - if your working from 8am to 11pm for 9 years you need a rest or close up shop :rotfl:

bettybelle

instaunt wrote: »

People who get stressed out easily should not expect to be offered and paid for a job where everyone else has to put up with stress but they feel they should not. Work is stressful and asking your employer to think like a psychiatrist us unreasonable ...

This is so wrong. Yet again, someone implying that an individual with mental illness problems is in some way 'weaker' than their colleagues. With all respect, that is not a helpful attitude at all. I hope you never suffer from mental illness. But I suppose you will say you would carry on regardless since you are obviously so much stronger than all the weaklings out there.

No, employers shouldn't have to think like a psychiatrist. But when they have been forewarned of the problem then they should think twice about offering the job to someone, shouldn't they? Rather that than give them the job then complain when the person couldn't cope.

If I'd been told how much stress was involved in my current post, I wouldn't have accepted the job and would've stayed where I was. So it works both ways.

Oldernotwiser

Snow_White wrote: »

crystalbristols wrote: »

Even if they do, it doesn't make it right.

It may not be right but it is normal.

I do think that people need to take some responsibility for their own well being. If you have suffered from stress related problems in the past then it seems foolish to take a job like this, where stress is a normal part of the job. It's akin to someone with a bad back taking a job which involves a lot of heavy lifting and then complaining because their back can't take it.

I also think that describing someone as looking bewildered is nothing to object to; it's not a pejorative term and I'm unable to see how someone would know that the OP would take offence at this.

Willsnarf1983

bettybelle wrote: »

This is so wrong. Yet again, someone implying that an individual with mental illness problems is in some way 'weaker' than their colleagues. With all respect, that is not a helpful attitude at all. I hope you never suffer from mental illness. But I suppose you will say you would carry on regardless since you are obviously so much stronger than all the weaklings out there.

No, employers shouldn't have to think like a psychiatrist. But when they have been forewarned of the problem then they should think twice about offering the job to someone, shouldn't they? Rather that than give them the job then complain when the person couldn't cope.

If I'd been told how much stress was involved in my current post, I wouldn't have accepted the job and would've stayed where I was. So it works both ways.

On the flip side the person with the mental health problem really should be taking into account what jobs they are fit to do, its the same with someone who has a heart problem....their hardly going to apply for heavy manuel work are they as they know they are putting themselves at risk.

Will

Zazen999

Plus; the person with the stress is:
a - putting themselves into a more stressful situation which makes them worse
b - by going on long term sick; putting their colleagues at risk of stress by leaving them to pick up the additional work.