Bullying from Boss - Untrue Allegations Made Against Me

sangie595

We have already gone over this. I don't care what company policy says. The law says that there is a right to a trades union representative in grievance and disciplinary hearings. But this is irrelevant since you are not in a union anyway - if you had been and if they refused the right to union representation you would have an extremely good case. But it doesn't apply because you aren't in a union.

Malthusian

NeedSomHelp wrote: »

I said I needed more time and since I work late Thursday and start early Friday I had no chance to both finish grievance and collate paperwork in relation to all examples of communication with my boss.

They stated that because of this they would put the meeting back five hours to Friday afternoon to allow me have more time. However my boss has told me for those five hours I am not permitted to prepare materials for meeting.

So essentially I have been given extra time to prepare by hr but my boss won't allow me time off my core duties to use it.. Essentially I am being told I am given more time for a reason then told I cannot use it for that reason. Which seems unfair.

If it was me, as a conscientious (but unfairly maligned) employee, I would be collating the evidence in my own time. Especially when one of the accusations relates to wasting the company's time on personal matters when I should be working.

If I get kicked out of the office at 5pm so don't have access to the emails I need, I'd ask if I could export my inbox to a memory stick and collate my evidence at home. (Wouldn't be allowed in many offices, it would be at my own as I have remote access to work from home anyway.)

I can't see that it should take five hours get the evidence you need. The swearing allegation - that's just your word against his so no evidence to collate. The allegation of being on social media - well the only possible defence there is "it's a fair cop guv, but I get all my work done in the time required so otherwise I'd be staring into space or hassling a boss who we've established doesn't like me". (If you don't, then there's no defence.) The bit you need evidence for is clearly the allegation that your boss is it fault for poor communication and not you. In which case you don't want every single email he's sent you that was in any way nasty because they certainly aren't going to want to read them. Keep it succint.

And to be honest, as I mentioned, whether you are sinned against or sinning I can only see this going one way, so I would not waste my life trying to win a battle that is probably unwinnable.

NeedSomHelp

Without giving my employer away, I work for a company where my role actually involves marketing for a large online company and we offer marketing solutions to small and large businesses.

From time to time we need to do research for these businesses and sometimes company websites redirect to Facebook pages and suchlike and that is my explanation for some of the social media usage, in addition we need to research the kind of things a company does, and Linkedin is very useful for getting company profiles up and reading more about a company. again this assisted me with my work and other people are doing the very same thing and have done as long as I can remember.

In addition at the time of being accused of using social media in work, one of my family members was diagnosed as being terminally ill, and the family members reside in a different country, since I was the oldest surviving close relative of the person involved, I was directly responsible for co-coordinating a lot of the arrangements and communication within the family. Because of the international nature of this, my family members were keeping me updated via Facebook.

It's important to note that none of my work was effected by my use of social media and I hit all targets, I did not allow it to do so and simply the facebook profile open in a background tab and only clicking it if there was an indication of a new message in that window, I was not browsing it or liking anything.

Initially when I spoke to my bosses boss in relation to this incident she stated that all of our screens are watched remotely and everything can be checked and logged as to how long we were using certain things. I asked her if that is the case to get the logs out and she will see that I was barely using anything as she claimed I was using it a lot, to which she continually avoided answering. I spoke to local IT who informed me that it was not possible and would be against confidentiality reasons, surprise surprise she has now claimed she never said that;.

Also what I am not very happy with is that for a number of weeks I always communicated with my boss via email because of the fact that I did not trust him to write accurate transcripts of meeting minutes that took place in meetings where only he two of us were present and I did not trust him to represent the meeting accurately, since there have been a number of times where I have been delibrately taken out of context after such meetings or where the boss has only included parts of the meeting in the minutes that suit him, rather than the whole meeting.

For a month, my boss started sending me 400-500 word emails every time we had a conversation or meeting to summarize the meeting, and FORBADE ME from replying with more than 100 words, which clearly was not enough words to be able to point out all of the inaccuracies that he constantly represented in meeting minute, but I was threatened with HR if I replied in more than 100 words, and so was basically unable to challenge any inaccuracies.

He told me instead of replying to his 500 word emails with emails, to instead arrange a meeting. I was very much not happy about being forced into meetings to answer an email because there is the chance of someone claiming I said something I did not or claiming I didn't say something that I did. That is exactly what happened and the cynic in me suggests that he knew I previously wouldn't go into meetings on my own about certain issues and by imposing this 100 word limit he could make me, then claim I said something I didn't.

sangie595

NeedSomHelp wrote: »

Without giving my employer away, I work for a company where my role actually involves marketing for a large online company and we offer marketing solutions to small and large businesses.

From time to time we need to do research for these businesses and sometimes company websites redirect to Facebook pages and suchlike and that is my explanation for some of the social media usage, in addition we need to research the kind of things a company does, and Linkedin is very useful for getting company profiles up and reading more about a company. again this assisted me with my work and other people are doing the very same thing and have done as long as I can remember.

In addition at the time of being accused of using social media in work, one of my family members was diagnosed as being terminally ill, and the family members reside in a different country, since I was the oldest surviving close relative of the person involved, I was directly responsible for co-coordinating a lot of the arrangements and communication within the family. Because of the international nature of this, my family members were keeping me updated via Facebook.

It's important to note that none of my work was effected by my use of social media and I hit all targets, I did not allow it to do so and simply the facebook profile open in a background tab and only clicking it if there was an indication of a new message in that window, I was not browsing it or liking anything.

Initially when I spoke to my bosses boss in relation to this incident she stated that all of our screens are watched remotely and everything can be checked and logged as to how long we were using certain things. I asked her if that is the case to get the logs out and she will see that I was barely using anything as she claimed I was using it a lot, to which she continually avoided answering. I spoke to local IT who informed me that it was not possible and would be against confidentiality reasons, surprise surprise she has now claimed she never said that;.

Also what I am not very happy with is that for a number of weeks I always communicated with my boss via email because of the fact that I did not trust him to write accurate transcripts of meeting minutes that took place in meetings where only he two of us were present and I did not trust him to represent the meeting accurately, since there have been a number of times where I have been delibrately taken out of context after such meetings or where the boss has only included parts of the meeting in the minutes that suit him, rather than the whole meeting.

For a month, my boss started sending me 400-500 word emails every time we had a conversation or meeting to summarize the meeting, and FORBADE ME from replying with more than 100 words, which clearly was not enough words to be able to point out all of the inaccuracies that he constantly represented in meeting minute, but I was threatened with HR if I replied in more than 100 words, and so was basically unable to challenge any inaccuracies.

He told me instead of replying to his 500 word emails with emails, to instead arrange a meeting. I was very much not happy about being forced into meetings to answer an email because there is the chance of someone claiming I said something I did not or claiming I didn't say something that I did. That is exactly what happened and the cynic in me suggests that he knew I previously wouldn't go into meetings on my own about certain issues and by imposing this 100 word limit he could make me, then claim I said something I didn't.

I am going to give you some advice. You would be well advised to listen carefully to it.

When you get to the investigation meeting, say as little as possible. Don't start filling in gaps. Because you have tendency to admit to things that reinforce the case! We have, on this thread, gone from glancing at your phone once to being on a social networking site in the background constantly waiting for new messages. Be clear. There are no good reasons for conducting personal business in work time. And it appears the employers case is correct on this matter. Your boss send you communicate by email. I'd put that in the category of a poor standard of communication. Add that to your previous complaints which were not upheld, and that's another point that the employer appears to be correct on. The standard of communication between you and your boss is poor. And I have already told you, it isn't a leap for the employer to believe you used inappropriate language.

The more you elaborate the stor, the more you say things that suggest that the case against you has credence. There's no right to " take the fifth", but I suggest that you stick to basic facts and don't start talking at length. You are probably going to hang yourself if you do.

Undervalued

NeedSomHelp wrote: »

Company policy states both have right to colleague only

Both Sangie and I have correctly explained the legal position regarding this. They cannot lawfully refuse an accredited trades union representative regardless of their "policy".

I have also explained how it is sometimes possible to be represented by an accredited trades union representative without actually being a member of a union.

There are a very few exceptional situations where their may be a legal right to somebody other than a colleague or trades union representative but nothing you have posted would suggest they are relevant here.

Any of this only applies to a formal disciplinary or grievance hearing. There is no right to be accompanied by anybody at an investigation.

NeedSomHelp

Little update on this.

We had the investigation meeting and investigation report was issued, and I took a few exceptions to a few things there, which were taken out of context or purely stating I said something I didn't. Also in the investigation report write-up it stated content of some email chains, however it was very selective, for example there was one email chain where my boss jumped to the wrong conclusion, I corrected him and we solved that particular issue, however the investigation report only mentioned the initial email, and the clarification was missed out, there were lots of little bits in that report, which I was very unhappy with.

Disciplinary took place last week in front of two people who have never been involved in the case before who I've never met before and they dropped the allegation of swearing at my boss because they did not feel there was enough to back it up. However they felt that my reaction to the so called swearing allegation from my boss was not good enough, therefore they have moved this part of the swearing allegation into the first allegation about communications.

However my bosses deputy last week made a comment about social media, stating that when VIP's are in the office, we must keep social media usage down to a minimum, which appeared to contradict the point that they are trying to make in the disciplinary that any usage can be considered serious misconduct and they claimed that they could track all usage and I asked them to do so since they would see my usage was very little and only during the family situation but they have declined to do so.

So basically now it's down to communication with my boss and use of social media, I will be issued with outcome on Tuesday last thing, which looks a little ominous and the funny thing my boss is suddenly being really nice to me and he is now reviewing the quality of my work and giving me very high scores despite the fact I am not doing my work any different?

It makes me think that he knows he has got me out the door perhaps so doesn't need to resort to that kind of tactic anymore?

xxtadaz

So what did they say in the end?

Malthusian

NeedSomHelp wrote: »

However my bosses deputy last week made a comment about social media, stating that when VIP's are in the office, we must keep social media usage down to a minimum, which appeared to contradict the point that they are trying to make in the disciplinary that any usage can be considered serious misconduct

No contradiction there. Being on social media or any other personal business during work hours can be considered serious misconduct in any office. But many employers choose not to treat it as serious misconduct providing the employees get their work done as required and don't take the mick. Using social media in front of senior management or clients or whoever VIPs are is taking the mick.

It makes me think that he knows he has got me out the door perhaps so doesn't need to resort to that kind of tactic anymore?

I think you are very probably right.

Guest101

Malthusian wrote: »

No contradiction there. Being on social media or any other personal business during work hours can be considered serious misconduct in any office. But many employers choose not to treat it as serious misconduct providing the employees get their work done as required and don't take the mick. Using social media in front of senior management or clients or whoever VIPs are is taking the mick.



I think you are very probably right.

Unless it's your job (marketing, customer service, PR, Comms etc.)

Andypandyboy

They probably cited this thread!