Work

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So it turns out that my company has funded another five counselling sessions.

I decided on Friday afternoon that come Monday morning I’d just hand in my notice and be done with the ridiculous situation, but over the weekend I softened a bit and decided to just write an email to HR lady expressing my ‘surprise’ at support being withdrawn without discussion.

So we had a meeting. HR explained that The Boss had just decided to withdraw funding and that was that. Reasons stated were brexit, currency devaluation, and the fact we have a lot of costs in external currencies. I wasn’t very impressed with this, as you can imagine.

But HR lady and I had a long chat about mental health and how I was doing (answer: not great). She is actually quite good at this stuff; she has recently completed a qualification in mental health and has struggled with it herself – she told me she had been on anti-depressants for a few years because she was suicidal. She offered to go back to The Boss and ask again.

Which she did. And then five more sessions opened up.

So on the one hand, I’m grateful for that. On the other, it just seems ridiculous to me that The Boss caused resentment over such a trivial amount of money. The company lost far more than £150 between my time, HR lady’s time, and The Boss’s time just discussing the matter. The brexit argument was hard to sympathise with; I didn’t benefit when the currency was stronger, and there are plenty of other local companies who don’t have high costs in foreign currencies, so it’s unclear why I should accept that.

So I don’t know how I feel. I was close to quitting, and now I regard this as a temporary counter-offer. But it still damages trust, which is hard to rebuild. The last year at work seems to have been a sequence of people damaging my trust and then being surprised when that causes problems.

94d

I’m still struggling with job seeking. I am getting so much low-effort spam from recruiters that it’s overwhelming. I am getting emails from recruitment agencies saying “thank you for your application, please phone me on this number” when I haven’t submitted any applications, and “I tried to phone you but couldn’t get through” when they don’t even have my phone number. I’m not dealing with recruiters who are dishonest right from the start, but separating spammers from possible leads is energy and time consuming, which is demotivating.

I don’t get it. If there’s a strong market for my skills then make it easy for me. If there isn’t, then why are you spamming me?

I did get one from an in-house recruiter which looked a bit more promising but the location isn’t great.

Weight

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I received the letter summarising the gastroenterology appointment…

The main thing he noted is that I’ve lost 10% of my weight over the past year. Some people would be happy with this, but I’m at the other end of that scale, and it’s a bit concerning.

He noted that I’d asked him about anti-depressants and speculated that maybe it was dietary due to my depression (I didn’t explain they were for anxiety, not depression, but that’s probably not important).

Actually I don’t think my diet is restricted at all. I think I eat a ridiculous amount and my body just refuses to hold on to much of it. I think if most people ate the amount I eat, they’d become morbidly obese quite quickly. I eat three large meals a day, I eat quite a lot between meals and I still feel hungry all the time. I am very active, but even so… there are faster people than me at Parkrun with more air resistance.

My anxiety does give me what seems to be medically termed “GI distress” though, so maybe that affects digestion.

Anyway, he has asked my GP to refer me to a dietitian, which I think could be educational.

I think, realistically, my weight is verging on unhealthy and might be affecting how I feel in general now. My BMI is hovering around 19.

Unsent letters

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To: HR Lady
CC: My boss (and yours)

Dear HR lady,

My counsellor has informed me that the company has decided against funding additional sessions, and that you would speak to me about this matter this week. I am disappointed that you have not done this, and have instead allowed a third party to deliver news to me which should have come directly from the company.

I was extremely surprised by the decision to discontinue funding counselling. In May, you wrote that my mental health and well-being was important to the company and that you would review whether I needed further support after the 5 sessions were consumed. The decision not to continue was made without consulting me, so I am therefore extremely disappointed that the company no longer considers my mental health and well-being important.

Furthermore, I have received no explanation or communication in general regarding your cancellation of the ‘late June’ follow-up meeting, which we had scheduled. I consider it a recurring problem that the company is not communicating with me to an acceptable standard on matters of professional importance.

About six months ago I would have sent this without too much deliberation.

Now…

I have a growing suspicion she might be a bit autistic. But I can’t take on responsibility for her mental health as well as my own, on the basis of a vague suspicion.

Knowing when to walk away

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HR lady was not at work today so nobody has yet spoken to me about things. My counsellor informed me she had stated she would speak to me “later this week”, which would now be surprising as she is extremely rarely in the office on Fridays. It’s not impossible, but it’s not likely.

I actually think it’s somewhat unlikely that she’ll successfully speak to me on the first day she is in the office anyway – I think she’ll try to arrange a meeting around the time I’m leaving (because that’s her style) and this time I’ll reject it and tell her to fit it into my working hours instead.

I have been thinking about things.

I am torn, but something that keeps coming up in my mind is that I quit my previous job after less than a year because I was frustrated by poor management which didn’t treat me very respectfully in a professional capacity.

At no point since have I ever thought “I wish I hadn’t quit that shitty job”, or “if only I’d stuck it out for another six months”.

I quit and my life improved. It felt risky and scary at the time, but with hindsight it’s obvious that there was no way my life could have improved without quitting, because it wasn’t under my control. Only the company had the power to fix it, and they weren’t interested.

And so once again, here we are.

Apparently though it’s emotionally easier to quit a job after 7 months than 7 years.

Events

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I have learnt today that my employer will not be paying for any more counselling sessions. I learnt this because my counsellor texted me to let me know. I am extremely unimpressed that the company let her deliver the news instead of communicating with me directly. She said that she asked if I had been informed, and HR lady replied that she intended to speak to me later this week.

I’m disappointed but not surprised by the whole thing.

I asked my counsellor to forward me the first email that she received from my employer. I vaguely remembered she read it out to me at the time, and it seemed nice and supportive. The meat of it reads:

We very much care about [my] wellbeing and mental health and we are
aware that the is going through a difficult phase at the
current moment and we would like to support [me] as much as we can.

We would like to pay for 5 counselling sessions for him to start with
and review this at a later date to see if [I] needs further support from
the company.

I will be printing a copy of this email tomorrow morning and I will be asking what prompted the change in company policy. I will express surprise and disappointment and see where that gets me.

Unevents

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Hmmm so…

Once again, nothing has happened. HR lady was in the office today and yesterday but has not spoken to me. I saw my counsellor this evening (and had to pay for it myself(!)) who agrees the situation is bizarre.

I was talking over the whole thing with my counsellor and I said that if they do withdraw the paid counselling sessions, I’m going to find it very hard not to hand in my notice shortly afterwards. The money is trivial, but the message matters. They aren’t supporting me in any other way and I don’t feel valued. Over the past four months, literally the only support they’ve given me is five sessions of counselling.

HR lady was put in charge of my situation back in February after I complained about it to my boss. I objected to the formality that her involvement would imply, but it wasn’t the first complaint I’d made and he told me, in his words “if you left right now you could take me to court for unfair dismissal which would cost me a shit load of money, so I have to do this properly and protect the company”.

I get that. But what I really can’t get my head around now is that HR lady is adding fuel to that fire. I’ve asked for a meeting and been declined, I have had one meeting cancelled without explanation or any communication whatsoever, and HR lady goes out for lunch with Becky. All of this gives me grounds for constructive dismissal (not unfair dismissal, apparently my boss doesn’t know the difference).

Boss probably doesn’t realise HR is making such a mess of this, and my counsellor raised the possibility I could go back to my boss and let him know all of this.

I’m reluctant because it’s all politics and stress. If he looks at this and is as alarmed as he should be, HR lady might find herself on the receiving end of some kind of disciplinary action. It would be her fault, but she would probably blame me. I don’t need more enemies. But the flip side to this is that I am protecting HR lady at my own expense, and that’s kind of dumb.

Weekend

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Having thought over the interview from last week more, the chances of me accepting if offered are quite slim. The company has just been acquired, so it was announced a few days before the interview. I asked them about this and they said it was business as usual, but…  that department could disappear very quickly, so it’s hard to justify at the moment, particularly as the job isn’t very appealing except as an alternative to my current workplace.

The weekend was mostly good. I went to a guitar shop with someone from work yesterday afternoon, which was fun. It’s unusual for me to do things with people outside of work because I get a lot of social anxiety, but I found it quite easy to do this for whatever reason. I’ve been in the market for a new guitar for a while anyway and I needed to go and try a few so it made sense. I crossed off a couple of possibilities, one of which I was really disappointed about – the Ibanez JEM 77p BFP. It looks beautiful, but it just doesn’t feel like a £1300 guitar.

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Once again though, I am expecting THE chat with HR lady to happen this week. The reason I expect it to happen imminently is that my counsellor texted me to tell me that she’d informed HR lady that I’d use the last session of paid counselling, and HR lady replied to say she would have to discuss whether they wish to proceed further. I’d like to think that might involve me, but who knows.

I don’t know how to approach any meeting with her anymore and I’m pretty stressed about it at the moment. I don’t feel supported by the company at all. I am not really greatly interested in them continuing to pay for counselling, to be honest. It seems to me that they pay for a few sessions of counselling and they think that’s their part done. I voiced this all to my counsellor at the last session, and she agreed. She summarised it as saying that the counselling is very separate to what’s happening at work and she can’t fix Becky. You can’t outsource the problem of fixing a toxic work environment – you can outsource the problem of repairing the damage it’s done, but you also need to address the source of the problem internally. By offering me counselling and nothing else, it implies my employer thinks I am the problem.

I am going to try to express that I don’t feel the situation has improved much, and, importantly, I don’t see any reason to believe it will, but ideally, I need to do that without making an enemy of HR lady. I am not sure how to do this currently, because she’s only added to the problem by refusing and cancelling meetings. I mean, I’d be totally justified in putting in a formal complaint against her, but I don’t think that would be tactically sound. I don’t think she’s malicious (unlike Becky), I think she’s just incompetent. This brings complete unpredictability.

Interview

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How are you supposed to feel after an interview?

Did it go well? I don’t know. It didn’t go terribly. I was actually surprised I was given an interview because I didn’t have familiarity with their main technology, so if I don’t get the job, I will expect it’s just lack of relevant experience.

The job is OK. Not amazing, but OK. Their technology is probably not going to be a valuable addition to my CV.

If I get offered it I am pretty sure I’ll accept.

But I still feel deflated.

I’ve been at my current employer 7 years, so… that’s a big thing. It’s almost a quarter of my life. OK, a fifth. It’s a long term relationship! I don’t want to bounce between jobs I don’t really like for the next few years. But I’ve only spent an hour in the building, I’m scared of commitment!

That’s all normal I guess. To some extent.

But I’m more scared of being offered the job than not being offered it. Is that normal?

My brain hates this. I woke up in the early hours and felt stressed and nauseous. That’s how my brain works. You have an interview in 12 hours, let’s throw up. Why is throwing up an evolutionary response to stress anyway. In what situation would that ever be helpful? My brain is terrified of interviewing. It’s terrified of change. God knows how I’d deal with actually starting a new job. Even in the interview room I could feel all the uncertainties creeping in. All the new faces, new routines, new cultures, new expectations. You’d be safe at your desk on the first morning… but what about lunch?. Would I even get to work on the first day? I’m not sure if I’m mentally healthy enough to start a new job without causing myself a breakdown. And then I have months of ‘new job jitters’. Can I do this? REALLY?

You know… if you’d killed yourself in December like you wanted, you wouldn’t have to deal with this…

Not being offered a job is easy. It’s safe too. While I was sat in the waiting area, I was aware of this. I had to kick my brain a few times and tell it not to sabotage the interview just because it hates uncertainty.

I don’t know.

Strangeness

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I’m just writing this to take my mind off the fact I HAVE AN INTERVIEW in a few hours, for the first time in seven years.

But…

Something bizarre is happening at work.

On Tuesday I had a phone call from “Adam” who works for “Recruiters R Us”. Becky took it, and just sent me an email asking me to call him back, which I didn’t because… who are you and what do you want?

On Wednesday it happened again. I didn’t phone him back but I did ask Becky whether he had said what it was about. She gave a generic response which didn’t quite admit to not having asked him. I knew she hadn’t; I only asked to be awkward. She is very professional – when anyone else gets a phone call she says “can I ask what it’s regarding please?” before going over and speaking to them and asking if they want to take the call. With me, she doesn’t ask what it’s regarding and doesn’t ask if I want to take the call. I just get an email telling me to phone someone back. This is one of the things that really grates on a day to day level with Becky – everyone else gets professionalism, I don’t.

Thursday, again! But this time she got some details. He says my name has been given as a referee. I find this extremely unlikely – I still think he’s tactlessly cold calling my employer because he’s seen me online and wants to speak to me about a job.

So I did the sensible think and CCed HR saying “if it concerns references this would be better handled by HR”. I wish I could listen if and when HR does phone him.

I did some digging though.

“Recruiters R Us” are based in central London, and the phone number given has a Cornwall area code. I found “Adam” on LinkedIn and he actually works for a different recruitment agency. In Cornwall. Except… he lives in France. What’s going on here?

Sleep is important

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I slept about 3 hours last night because of the heat/thunderstorms/work stress, but I felt today OK until I left work. I didn’t have any anxiety incidents. I crashed when I got home and felt really, really hungry, which probably isn’t good (hello, anaemia).

Work was OK. Becky was ignore-able. She sent me an email this afternoon following up some kind of review she’s supposed to be doing. She had asked everyone to reply and answer a few questions about the software installed on their computer. She sent it when I was off sick and I ignored it. She sent it again to me but also asked me to do it for another computer, which is… uh, how about do that one yourself?

I didn’t even consider replying and I wondered later why that was. I think I find it irritating that she expects a frictionless professional relationship to exist between us when she wants something from me, without her having to invest any effort in rebuilding it. But if I don’t reply will she complain… or will she send it again and CC my boss…

I’ve booked off some holiday for the start of September and I’ve set a soft date of 7th August for giving my one month notice, if I’ve seen no reason to think things will improve by then.