Keith Houchen Posted July 21, 2021 Share Posted July 21, 2021 Keep a journal of everything. Dates and times of when you asked questions and the replies. Keep emails, times of phone calls etc. If your line manager is blaming your mental health then they’re shit at their job. Should they try and discipline you, having a record of all the times you’ve approached them and the replies you got will go a long way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members SpiritOfTheForest Posted July 22, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted July 22, 2021 This past academic year, I was teaching Cambridge exam classes for the first time (I'm an English teacher). The never having done it before aside, I was a little worried because Covid has made things very different in the classroom. I wasn't allowed to have any contact with their books and so I couldn't do marking or even see their written work for myself, as would have been in the case in previous years. The exam has four parts testing the four skills in English - Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening - and I had been a bit worried about how the writing would go. The results finally came back today and I was delighted to discover that all of my students, bar one boy who failed the reading but did well on the rest, have passed! I'm absolutely delighted with them and proud of them, along with myself for managing it all okay, for a job very well done. They're a terrific group and now they all have shiny new certificates from Cambridge! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MPDTT Posted July 22, 2021 Share Posted July 22, 2021 On 7/21/2021 at 8:52 AM, Keith Houchen said: Keep a journal of everything. Dates and times of when you asked questions and the replies. Keep emails, times of phone calls etc. If your line manager is blaming your mental health then they’re shit at their job. Should they try and discipline you, having a record of all the times you’ve approached them and the replies you got will go a long way. Keith is right - document everything. Memory is a poor custodian of fact. I'd also like to state that if you are clinically diagnosed with depression then you have extra protection under the Equality Act 2010. If your manager is throwing your disability back in your face to discredit you or bully you, consider taking legal advice......you could have a strong claim for disability discrimination under the Equality Act and those claims are uncapped (unlike constructive dismissal claims that are capped at roughly £90k or 1 years pay - whichever is the lower - and usually get settled out of court). It's those uncapped claims that us HR professionals would lose sleep over - they can be VERY costly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paid Members Surf Digby Posted July 23, 2021 Paid Members Share Posted July 23, 2021 In the past colleagues who filled in our yearly "annoymous" survey got taken to one side and spoken to about the comments they left, and now they moan about how few people fill it in. This morning I was met with a text message from our central emergency communications whatever saying how there's been a major outage and very few systems are working. I log in and find all of todays schedule abandoned, and they're using MS Teams to discuss workarounds. Fair enough. We then get an email from one of the managers with a method of logging into a basic version of the system that will at least allow us to review the outstanding tasks, and we can then call the suppliers and leave notes, etc. Kind of like coming out of Windows 10 and doing it through 3.1 . Not ideal but at least we can do something. I've just been called on my mobile instead of my direct line by my manager, checking everything's working for me now, as the systems have been back up for almost an hour. I point out I've had no email, and people were still discussing issues in Teams less than ten minutes ago, and apparently he put the announcement out through fucking WhatsApp. I don't have WhatsApp on my phone because I never use it, and it's also not an official way that the company communicates. Considering he knows that there's other members of the team that don't use WhatsApp, why on Earth would he not just send a group email, or put it in Teams? Especially as he's been using Teams all morning (he's literally typing right now!), everyone can see it, and we had an email from the big manager last week saying how all communication must be through fucking Teams!!! I want to kick things and throw stuff about, but I'm working at home so I can't even throw a tantrum properly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vamp Posted July 23, 2021 Share Posted July 23, 2021 The other quirk of the survey is it asks for names, but not positions. So you could filter the results by individuals, but not by position in the team. Which means, unless you're putting the results to someone's name and looking them up, it's useless at telling you what people are experiencing at a different level. Apparently 50 people have replied so far (which is less than the union survey). So I guess other people don't see a problem with it, or are braver than me, or believe it's annonymous or just aren't saying anything too controversial. HR's response is "look, we know its not perfect, but we've said it's anonymous (even though they've actively taken steps to make people identifiable) and its too late to do anything about it." They also said they're using the knowledge to find out about aims and "how this is a good place to work." So they've already spoiled the results! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patiirc Posted July 23, 2021 Share Posted July 23, 2021 1 hour ago, Vamp said: The other quirk of the survey is it asks for names, but not positions. So you could filter the results by individuals, but not by position in the team. Which means, unless you're putting the results to someone's name and looking them up, it's useless at telling you what people are experiencing at a different level. Apparently 50 people have replied so far (which is less than the union survey). So I guess other people don't see a problem with it, or are braver than me, or believe it's annonymous or just aren't saying anything too controversial. HR's response is "look, we know its not perfect, but we've said it's anonymous (even though they've actively taken steps to make people identifiable) and its too late to do anything about it." They also said they're using the knowledge to find out about aims and "how this is a good place to work." So they've already spoiled the results! Did someone say breach.. 👀 👀 I'd be having that out with your Information Governance Officer, and Subject Access Requesting around the legality of processing that data. If it is truly anonymous gdpr doesnt apply. If it isn't anonymous, then hello shit show as it's your right to have your info about you. Worth doing for any correspondence about you from HR to manage and those others involved should do the same. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sonny Mustang Posted July 23, 2021 Share Posted July 23, 2021 Went back to the office Tuesday for the first time since March 2020. It was totally optional, but I was fed up of lounging around the house day after day and am more productive in ‘workspace’. In a building that once held 1000 people (across 4 floors) I counted 5 people on my floor. Hello Executive level parking space and a private gym for Ms Sonny! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted July 24, 2021 Awards Moderator Share Posted July 24, 2021 My workplace seem to have relented the tiniest bit on “everything is NORMAL again now” which is good, even if it’s just delaying the inevitable “why are our incomes not like normal” in a month’s time. Had a couple of interviews this week so maybe one of those will go somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted July 24, 2021 Awards Moderator Share Posted July 24, 2021 (edited) Forget that, they both sent rejection emails this morning. Shit. Shit shit shit. Edited July 24, 2021 by HarmonicGenerator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Blog Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 2 minutes ago, HarmonicGenerator said: Forget that, they both sent rejection emails this morning. Shit. Sorry to hear that mate. Keep your head up and something will come around. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted July 24, 2021 Awards Moderator Share Posted July 24, 2021 (edited) 1 minute ago, Joe Blog said: Sorry to hear that mate. Keep your head up and something will come around. This is the immediate post-rejection depression talking but I don't think it ever will. One of those rejections was a job I was completely qualified for. I hit every criteria they were looking for, and the feedback I got was that I didn't have enough management experience despite me having had ten years' management experience in a much bigger organisation than they were. How am I supposed to take that?! Shit. Edited July 24, 2021 by HarmonicGenerator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Chest Rockwell Posted July 24, 2021 Moderators Share Posted July 24, 2021 When was the last time you did interviews? Could just be a bit rusty? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awards Moderator HarmonicGenerator Posted July 24, 2021 Awards Moderator Share Posted July 24, 2021 (edited) 10 minutes ago, Chest Rockwell said: When was the last time you did interviews? Could just be a bit rusty? It was a few months ago, but for the last of these ones I did some practice interviews beforehand to make sure I wasn't, and I'd had one the day before which I knew I wasn't great at, so wanted to do everything I could to make sure I was at my best for this last one and avoided where I felt I'd gone wrong the previous day. Still wasn't enough. This one was just to get through to a second interview and I couldn't even get that far! Edited July 24, 2021 by HarmonicGenerator Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keith Houchen Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 There is also the possibility that they were going through the motions and already had their mind made up on who they wanted before the interview stage. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe Blog Posted July 24, 2021 Share Posted July 24, 2021 10 minutes ago, Keith Houchen said: There is also the possibility that they were going through the motions and already had their mind made up on who they wanted before the interview stage. Yeah I thought this when the 10 year experience was mentioned. Very much 'no homers' club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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