Am I Being Harrassed?

Toughen up - the idea normal day to day management of a new employee constitutes 'harassment' is ludicrous.

johnsmithy wrote: »

Hello,

I have recently started a temporary role through an agency at a local firm and I wanted advice as to whether or not I have been the subject of harassment at work.

Ok, let's take a look!

On Monday, I went into work and my line manager asked me why her phone cord was tangled - I had been sat at her desk the previous Friday as that was the only free desk and her cord had become badly tangled and I did my best to untangle it. I simply said "sorry" and she said "Answer the question," which I did and she said "I don't want you to sit at my desk again." The incident did not go unnoticed and a colleague I spoke to this morning used the term 'humiliation,' which is what I was thinking.

Yea, I had visions of an unpleasant teacher telling off a naughty 6 year old when I read that.

Solution

- Say sorry for sure, but add in a bit of meat. "Ah sorry about that, I was a bit careless but I will remember to not tangle the wires in future". "You don't want me to sit at your desk? That's fine, going forward I'll sit at X desk". Then never sit at her desk again.

Whilst I was on the phone, she was criticising how I described things, saying I should refer to it as equipment, even though the message was getting through and people perfectly understood what I was talking about.

I used to work in a call center and this very same thing happened to me. I'd speak in a way which got through to the customer, but on call quality I'd get marked down for using "jargon" or not using the correct terminology.

Solution

- Use the word equipment when your boss is around

Later, when I asked her what she wanted me to do and I suggested filing, she said 'yes' but she wasn't exactly friendly.

So? She didn't do anything wrong, aside from adding a bit of a negative tone onto the answer.

Solution

- Let things like that go over your head. Really not worth worrying about other people and their manners/attitude.

As I was doing the filing, my colleague came down and said that on manifests we work on, don't put "delivery needed," but put "delivery required."

Not sure what this means? Sounds like your colleague is giving you some advice.... how is that bad in any way?

I know I need to man up perhaps but nevertheless, I am a sensitive individual and I do have mental health issues as well.

Cutting out the rest because it is fairly speculative. This part caught my eye though. You mention mental health issues, now I would hope that you are making the correct enquiries (NHS for example) with regards to that, so you are given help. For those with certain mental health issues the phrase "man up" is pretty useless, so in that respect I don't strictly think you need to do that. Just sort of give yourself the best possible chance (seek help for MH issues, let things go over your head, get uploading your CV to job sites etc)