Bullied at Work help please

ferrett100

Hello, I am new here and have been reading posts for the last few days and would really appreciate some advice.
I am a manager of a small company and have been for three years - I am an intelligent, professional person who has upped the reputation of the company and worked extremely hard to get where I am.
The owner of the company has always been brash and loud and has always behaved inappropriately amongst female colleagues, but because I was gaining my qualifications and building up my own CV, I rarely said anything - now and then I would 'snap' and email him that it was inappropriate and making my job difficult - particulalry when he started an affair with a junior member of staff that I needed to discipline (and was told not to, that it was my fault for not communicating properly with her!?!).
I work a 50-70 hour week with a combination of work place and home work and in my free time to keep up with the workload as he kept sacking my various admin help for 'trumped up' issues under gross misconduct - so most of my working time has been doing the job of two people - this was also raised in a two emails with him when I reached the end of my tether. His response to that was to invite me out for dinner, away from work to discuss and put things right - silly me! He had booked a room, asked me to stay the night and did not discuss work. Needless to say, I had my meal and left with no work issues discussed.
Two months ago he announced that his son would be coming on board to help him run the company. I must admit, I felt there was some light at the end of the tunnel and surely two people could not be the same? How wrong was I?
Son took an instant dislike to me, told me I was no longer going to run the company as I had been and subjected me to a three hour barrage of what was wrong with me - namely I was not fit to run the company, I was stressed and over emotional and I was too weak with people - the more he pushed, the more upset I became and hence proved his point - I was an emotional, incapable woman.

The son told me that he would be taking over a lot of my role, namely staff management to tackle absence. Like any company, we did have some absence but nothing major, and what there was, was caused by others being under stress and morale being low and a couple of workers being pregnant.
I was a minute taker at the son's meetings and it was traumatic for me and for my staff member - he bullied and harrassed a valued employee already suffering stress and he interrogated another about a trumped up charge of breaking into the company building one night (a computer had been left switched on! - something the boss does himself and I believe he had done again) - they had been looking for a reason to get rid of this young lady) - another worker was pregnant and because I was on annual leave, I was not part of that meeting. After my leave she came to me and said he bullied her, would not let her speak and made it plain that he had little respect for her. She has been on sick leave ever since and has no intention of returning after her baby is born.

I have been accused of being 'wishy washy and weak' (I treat my staff with respect and dignity at all times - I feel there is no need to bully people, even at difficult meetings and have dismissed people with no tears or trauma in my three years there) - I have been told I am hormonal, need a good sh*g, suffering mental illness, - all said with a little laugh but not taken by me as funny.
Now I have snapped.
My Gp has signed me off for 4 weeks with depression and anxiety, I am on medication for the first time in my life and I have been offered another job.
I dont know which way to go now - do I resign whilst on the sick note and risk no wages at the end of this month (they do stop money and although I would get it eventually after ACAS became involved, it wouldnt help me to live in the interim whilst I fight for it), do I wait until the last day of sick note, resign with no notice and start new job or do I inform them of why I am off sick - I have kept a log of events - some are dated and some are events that sprang to mind that I wrote down - the log was never meant to tbe seen by anyone, it wasa cathartic exercise for me but does detail his/their coments, the traumatic meetings, the exhaustive workload ect ect. I have this horrible feeling that they will 'cook something up' between them to discredit me whilst I am on sick, as they have done with others.
Sorry for the long post - once I get started..................
I'm not sure if I have the energy to fight this anywhere, despite suffering financial detriment through loss of earnings, possible dent in my CV/references as I'm sure they will have nothing good to say if I leave whilst raising allegations and I also have to start a new job (less pay, less responsibility due to not being to cope at the moment but need an income) - My GP has advised to resign due to my health - I am insulin dependent so even more important to avoid strss and upset, I have chest pains, migraines, memory loss ad I am just plain exhausted from the hours and stress.
My GP has also said that if they require a longer notice period (no idea here as I never had a contract given) then he will continue to sign me off - but if thats the case, I would lose the current job offer, due to start in three weeks now.
Oh what a mess............thank you for any sense you can make of this.

Sambucus_Nigra

Ok. Deep breaths.

Well done on the new job. Seriously - you were undergoing all that and have managed to secure yourself another job so that needs a big pat on the back.

Personally, I would resign a week before the start of the new job, have that last week off sick and start the new job with my head held high. Do your references still have to come through, and does the new job know that you are signed off sick and the issues that you have at the old job?

Meanwhile I would get legal advice about constructive dismissal, and think long and hard about whether I could cope with taking things down that route. For me, I am happy to never look back but you might want to go down that route.

ferrett100

Thank you. From what I know, constructive dismissal is very hard to prove and whn it concerns bullying, even more so for the victim, who already has serious confidence issues as a result of it all and still suffering the stress of it. I have been trying to find a local employment law specialist that offers a free initial consultation but no joy so far - it would also take them three days to read by 30 page log of events!
I am also concerned that they will make up some 'nasty charge' against me whilst I am sick, as I do feel that they wish to get rid of me now - other colleagues have had theft charges made up so as they can dismiss under gross misconduct, As we work in the care industry (haha) the threat of being referred to ISA (independent safeguarding authority) puts everyone off form making waves with the company so they slink away quietly, grateful that they can still work with vulnerable people - and usually by that time, they, like me, are so stressed and depressed, they cannot imagine doing anything about it all.
As my new job is also in the same industry, I will bump into this pair at many events in the future and the thought of that fills me with dread if I have taken action against them. They are very fond of saying that they can afford the best barristers, have never lost a tribunals and are generally using 'bully boy' tactics to scare people.
Giving a week's notice may not be enough if there is an implied contract - I think legally I have to give one week for each year of service - making it three weeks, which means I have to do it now.
By giving notice now, also offers some protection against any trumped up charges they may chose to invent -
I think I just want out but part of me, the person that put blood, sweat and tears into the place for three years, that treated everyone with respect, feels increadibly wronged to just simply walk away.

Sambucus_Nigra

ferrett100 wrote: »

I think I just want out but part of me, the person that put blood, sweat and tears into the place for three years, that treated everyone with respect, feels increadibly wronged to just simply walk away.

Pfft - that's nothing. I walked away from one company after 14 years, and karma has a way of dealing with these people. Sometimes, you just have to not look back.

Good luck with whatever you do

ceridwen

With the way they have treated you - you are perfectly morally entitled to leave them with no notice whatsoever.

My only question re the "not giving them any notice at all" scenario is whether it could impact negatively on you in any way, eg:
- them being able to get away with not paying you some due salary
OR
- the new firm receiving a bad reference about you and changing their minds about employing you as a consequence.

So - you need to work out whether there would be any "consequences" if you didnt give notice. If you can manage to do so without "consequences" - then think "blow them" and do that.

If there would be "consequences" - then I guess you would be stuck with giving a minimum amount of notice to them.

I can see how some people might try to interpret some of the things you say "in a different light" to bullying - but THE thing that everyone would agree was totally "out of order" was the assumption that you would spend the night with this awful man. That was totally unforgiveable in anyone's book.

So - do take on this new job and hope it goes well with you and you can put this awful man behind you and forget about him. The one "positive" point is you will be much better able to spot people like him in advance of them being able to cause you any trouble in future.

After an encounter or two with people like him - one recognises when the first inklings of what they were like surfaced in your mind - but were rationalised out of existence by you and you won't ignore such inklings in future. Most of us do it at some point - ie have some sort of inkling that a person is "trouble" without necessarily being able to put our finger on why - so we go ahead and just treat the situation as normal and tell ourselves that that person couldnt really be a potential source of trouble for us. But then they are - and we call ourselves an idiot for not having listened to our "inklings".

In future though - you will recognise when you get that sort of feeling again about someone and will act on it that time and everything will be okay - because you did.

So - dont blame yourself in any way. Many of us have "been there, done that".

Good luck in the future and take care.

ceridwen

Cross-posted with you O.P.

Just seen your comment re "trumped up charges" and if you get away now then you should be able to avoid that.

In that case - because of the risk of these charges - and the fact you would have to "defend your character" if they do that - and there will always be some people who believe "character-slayers" - then leave and leave right NOW - even if you lose money for that notice period.

SarEl

ferrett100 wrote: »

I think legally I have to give one week for each year of service - making it three weeks, which means I have to do it now.
.

No you don't. This provision is for the employer - the employee is always one week in the absence of a contractual notice of more.

But otherwise I agree. Constructive dismissal is hard to win and given you have another job already then your award would be minimal even if you did. It isn't worth the months of continuing to live with this (because you do if you are fighting a case) plus the stress of the actual case, for what is likley at best to be almost nothing, and in all probabaility will be nothing. Not the advice that perhaps some people will like - but it is the most realistic advice I could give you knowing how these cases work.

ferrett100

Thank you everyone for your sound advice.
As much as I would like to inform them of exactly why I am leaving their miserable excuse for a 'care organisation', I have decided to resign with dignity and my head held high. I know I am better than them and hopefully, fingers crossed, the next employer will be better and will apreciate my skills, qualifications and above all else, my integrity.
Does anyone know, if I resign now with three weeks left to run on my sick note if they are allowed to not pay it and dismiss me immediately - the next pay is due in the bank Friday and I am tempted to wait until then and then send resignation - however, waiting for another three days for some concoted disciplinary relating to my performance or ability, or worse, a gross misconduct charge has me on edge.
Having read many posts, on here and elsewhere, it is amazing me that there are so many bad employers out there.

SarEl

Yes, you can still be dismissed whilst on sick leave. They couldn't easily dismiss you without pay (or not lawfully anyway) but you are back to, do you want the stress of a fight to get paid? Your call. A salary can still be recalled from the bank even after it has been paid (not up on this and how it happens, but I have read it has happened to people here! It's banking rules etc). But I would certainly be tempted to say nothing until at least Friday - and I might still wait and give one week anyway. And being me and used to dismal employers - that's assuming you get paid on Friday anyway.

But there actually aren't all that many bad employers. (a) not every employer that an employee complains about is a bad employer - there is such a thing as bad employees too! and (b) for some strange reason people rarely seem to pop along to say that they have a great employer and they can't find anything to complain about