humiliated by boss

ohreally

Occ Health *usually* have 3 grades (not including A&C), Occ health nurse,occ health consultant and a health and saftey officer,make sure you speak with an appropriate person for your needs.If you wish the meeting can be on an informal basis and your case notes need not reflect the full nature of the events (if you choose). Be aware though that occ health won't be able to solve your issues for you they will give general advice with tea and sympathy

Melusine

I understand the store did have a union rep until about a year ago, when that person left. Of 150 members of staff, there were about a dozen in the union, and they've all left now. I'm told many staff are too scared to join in case it singles them out.

ohreally

Melusine wrote:

He thought it would be a good idea to join the union and asked who the rep was. He was told the branch did not have one. He asked how he joined the union, and was told no-one in store knew. Management refuse to tell him. How and where does he go to find out?

http://www.tuc.org.uk/tuc/unions_main.cfm

http://66.102.9.104/custom?q=cache:ZD2KzWZCVGQJ:www.unison.org.uk/acrobat/13375.pdf+&=en&ie=UTF-8

dag_2

ohreally says:

Be aware though that occ health won't be able to solve your issues for you they will give general advice with tea and sympathy

Yeah, thanks, I thought that might be the case - but I figure that's no worse than having a chinwag with a colleague at the pub after hours. And on the plus side, my boss is less likely to accuse me of gossiping if I only talk to occ health. But either way, I definitely need to talk through the whole thing with someone.

On the minus side, my boss is more likely to accuse me of malingering - but given that my sickness absence record has been totally clean so far, that doesn't really worry me. Naturally I've thought about what will happen if I take time off sick as a result of bullying.

But it's no substitute for talking to a union rep. Occ health won't go to "high noon" meetings with me, but a union rep will. However, union reps are only volunteers, I don't want to waste their time talking about it when I'm not yet ready to take action.

If I feel that occ health aren't treating me with respect, and are behaving like they think I'm a malingerer, then I will talk to a union rep, and maybe an outside organisation too, like citizens advice or samaritans, or someone from my local church.

melusine says

Of 150 members of staff, there were about a dozen in the union, and they've all left now. I'm told many staff are too scared to join in case it singles them out.

That is a pity. But I think the best bet is to follow one of ohreally's links, and join a relevant union with a nearby branch, preferably which still has recognition at other stores or distribution centres close to your son's store. These stores don't necessarily need to be from the same chain - for example, if your son works at a branch of Marks and Spencer which doesn't recognise a union, but the branch is close to a branch of Morrisons which does recognise a union, I'd suggest joining the union that the Morrisons recognises.

I'd suggest Usdaw would be the best bet but it could be any union really.

bluey_2

Dag,

I don't normally contribute to these sort of topics as they are not the easiest sort of areas to give advice, especially not knowing both parties etc.

I was a Line Manager in a big organisation with quite a few staff. I'm not sure what your boss would do exactly, but I know in my position it was hard to please everyone all of the time - and I made mistakes, upsetting people on (rare!) ocassions. Thankfully my team and I had an agreement that 1: I would never raise negative matters about them in front of the team and 2: If they had any issues they could discuss them with me privately at any time.
They also did the same to/for me.

The employer I was with had a strict non bullying policy, equal ops policy and diversity policy.

Does your manager have a deputy? You should be able to talk to them if it has got past the point of feeling comfortable with your line manager. They should mediate between you both - and if your manager has any respect you shoould find that the approach via the deputy will not be taken badly and maybe even appreciated.

Another thing you mentioned was end of year appraisal. Your manager also has a manager, who in turn is your superior manager. When it comes to a problem like yours they should be more than prepared to deal with it as a matter of urgency - if the situation worsens and ends up in a tribunal situation they will be dragged in to account for what they did to resolve t he problem.

I do hope that you get the situation sorted. I would strongly advise you talking to a union rep, but you have to get the time away from your desk to do so - and I presume it's your manager you have to clear it with? Is there a employee health/stress/advice line set up by your trust - someone mention IIP, so there is a good possibility there is one.

You need to get sorted out as it sounds, to me, that you are now on the defensive when your manager approaches which will do you no good personally, just stress you out.

You say that you don't want to use union reps as they are volunteers and don't want to waste their time. They have time allocated and are paid for it, so you are not wasting anything. It's what they are there for - to give advice and help prevent the escalation of situations that are affecting the staff of their employer. The Union is not just there to fight an employer, but to ensure that what happens in the workplace is correct and lawful. Any decent employer will work alongside Union reps as they are great sources of information.

One last thing - before you attend your appraisal check out the conditions your manager should follow to complete it. With my employer an end of year review could not be used to criticise the staff member unless they were already undergoing disciplinary action or were aware that the subject would be brought up. A manager should manage every day, not wait until they talk to you at your review. If your manager has a problem with you, you should be aware what it is, when it occured and have either a training programme in place to prevent whatever it was happening again - or be undergoing monitoring/ disciplining/ grievance procedures. Your end of year review is not the place to discuss a request you made in May!

I do wish you all the best and hope you get the situation sorted.

Nile

Wise words from bluey............I wish you were my boss.

Dumyat

have to say that I found myself in a similar situation at work (nhs) The behaviour not only affected me but the rest of the department. After 18 months of trying to improve the sitation and disciplinary action being taken on my boss....I left.

It has to be said unless you steal or hit someone you have a job for life in the nhs.

dag_2

Very constructive words from bluey - thanks for that.

A quick update - There was a quarrel today. I was doing a presentation which my manager - the one I've been having problems with - was assessing. She was asking questions through it which I didn't know all the answers to - which was fine - but she was criticising me for not knowing them. She was also criticising me for not having asked her about these things in the previous two weeks that I was preparing for it! I said this was unreasonable, because in many cases, I didn't know that I had to know about the things she was asking me. I had actually been asking the other colleague who had only started a few months before me.

Then she asked - why was I relying on the advice of someone who hadn't been there much longer than me, when I should be asking the manager? And then I had to say it - my level colleague is far far more approachable than my manager.

She didn't like that. She was trying to tell me off about it, but failing miserably. I told her that I'm seeing occupational health about it.

Unfortunately, I still wasn't able to be very specific about the things she said that had offended me. Still - not to worry. The problems haven't gone away, but at least now they're starting to come out into the open.

Thankfully my team and I had an agreement that 1: I would never raise negative matters about them in front of the team and 2: If they had any issues they could discuss them with me privately at any time.
They also did the same to/for me.

I strongly wish we had that rule too, and I have suggested it on several occasions. But still no joy. My boss was actually trying to put me on the spot about the problems I was having today, in front of another colleague. I wanted to be able to speak with her privately about it - for her sake as much as mine - because I didn't want to be accused of embarrassing her.

Still - she also said she thinks I don't respect her. The implication that she might like me to respect her is a huge step forward.

Does your manager have a deputy? You should be able to talk to them if it has got past the point of feeling comfortable with your line manager. They should mediate between you both - and if your manager has any respect you shoould find that the approach via the deputy will not be taken badly and maybe even appreciated.

Unfortunately, there's no deputy. The nearest thing to that is a union rep - though, so far, I've only communicated with the union rep by email, answering machine messages, and one unplanned inbound phone call on a Sunday evening. I haven't yet been able to arrange a time to speak with a union rep.

Another thing you mentioned was end of year appraisal. Your manager also has a manager, who in turn is your superior manager. When it comes to a problem like yours they should be more than prepared to deal with it as a matter of urgency - if the situation worsens and ends up in a tribunal situation they will be dragged in to account for what they did to resolve t he problem.

Very good point - thanks for that.

I do hope that you get the situation sorted. I would strongly advise you talking to a union rep, but you have to get the time away from your desk to do so - and I presume it's your manager you have to clear it with?

That shouldn't be a problem. I told her before going to occy health, but I didn't tell her what it was about. Now she knows - and she realises there's a problem. I think it would look very bad on her account if she tried to stop me taking active steps to solve it.

With my employer an end of year review could not be used to criticise the staff member unless they were already undergoing disciplinary action or were aware that the subject would be brought up.

Our appraisals have the same rules. So the appraisal no longer worries me.

My biggest worry is that now she knows how serious I am about it, she is that much more likely to invoke formal disciplinary and/or capability procedures - so that she gets my mud to stick before I get hers to stick. Given that I haven't actually spoken face to face with a union rep yet, that thought worries me.

dogrose says:

It has to be said unless you steal or hit someone you have a job for life in the nhs.

That would be a good thing - however, I don't consider it a job for life if it's so stressful and unhealthy, that I think I can't solve the problem unless I leave.

Still - there are worse things that could happen than me quitting the job. But I think it's a long way off yet.

Thanks again for all the help.

ohreally

dag wrote:

I haven't actually spoken face to face with a union rep yet,

It's paramount that your interests are protected so please make the step to contact your union. Try and do a little digging and find the correct person to get on your side as in all walks of life not all reps will have the same capabilities. I don't know which department you work in but you haven't mentioned a department rep - is there one?

loopy_lass

i once suggested to a higher grade colleague that she may benefit from some extra training in the social & personal skills department as i felt her manner was rather pert & unnacceptable, not to mention unprofessional... adding that some people have off days but she seems to making a profession out of it, and maybe she could also benefit from some councelling as she appeared to have some unresolved issues from her past.....:beer:

all said in a very calm, caring & professional manner i may add...... pmsl... :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: