Tag: relationships

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.

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.

Anger

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I saw my counsellor today and went through the way I’d been feeling lately. Her opinion is that I don’t express anger; I keep it inside and it becomes intense anxiety because it gets too much and I don’t know how to cope with it. She is right in as much as I do feel anger and I generally don’t express it, so I need to think more about how I can express it healthily.

She also reminds me that I’ve been through a lot and I shouldn’t feel bad about having a slight set back.

In related news… Becky viewed my LinkedIn profile again today! We have a fairly bizarre history and an extremely unhealthy current relationship, so I’m unsettled she’s taking an interest in my social media. Nobody else I work with is repeatedly looking at my profile. It’s just… weird. She’s doing it in work hours too while sat at her desk, which is very odd. My counsellor suggested that maybe my boss, knowing I’m not happy, has asked her to do some digging (she’s his PA) and see if I’m at risk of leaving. I had thought of too but I’m not sure it’s likely.

If I could do it without visiting her profile, I would block her.

I’m going to give her the wrong impression tomorrow because I have a doctor’s appointment. It’s not an interview, really.

Summary

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Health

Parkrun today wasn’t great. I’ve been pushing against my Personal Best (PB) for the last few weeks and now that the weather was a bit cooler, I should have been breaking it. Especially considering that I hadn’t run since Tuesday and should therefore be very well rested. But no. I was nowhere near my PB – over a minute off, which over 5k is an eternity. Unfortunately this is probably because of the blood loss earlier this week. Can’t run as fast with less blood. That’s science.

I feel a bit unsettled by the bleeding, which sounds dumb because it seems like it should be obvious, but the last time this happened it seemed unimportant compared to everything else. When you’re suicidal, the idea of your body dumping blood into your digestive tract is something you think of as helpful more than scary.

Life

I’ve had two phone interviews which may or may not go anywhere. If I get offered either of them I’m going to have no idea whether or not to accept. Although I have mixed feelings, one of them is offering up to £60k, and I’m currently earning only slightly more than half of that. But… money isn’t everything, especially after HMRC get involved.

Mike

Mike and I haven’t really spoken to each other since he upset me. He invited me out for a walk one day at lunch but I declined because I wanted to go further (well, it was both true and a convenient excuse). I go for a walk every day because exercise helps, but Mike is morbidly obese, so we have different ideas of what exercise is. I feel mildly disappointed with Mike. I feel annoyed he ruined a relationship that I used to value, but it’s important I don’t find myself trying to repair damage that he caused, because only he can do that. I feel disappointed that he hasn’t tried to do the grown up thing and address the problem. I think it shows he doesn’t really value the relationship.

Becky

The plants thing is weird. Here’s what’s happened: About three months ago Mike commented to me that plans were afoot (between Boss and Becky) to get some plastic plants in the office. I said that I couldn’t see the point of plastic plants, why not real plants? He said Becky didn’t want to look after them, so I said, in a completely unofficial and off-handed way that certainly was not a commitment, that I would probably end up looking after them (because I keep A LOT of plants at home). A week or so later Mike informed me that Becky had told Boss that I had said I wanted to look after real plants and used that to argue for real over plastic. I was surprised by this, but I didn’t react because nobody actually spoke to me about it. I didn’t mind so much that Mike had told her I’d said that, but she needs to actually discuss it with me before making promises on my behalf.

A few weeks after that, Becky spoke to me (which doesn’t happen often now) and we had a very awkward conversation which she didn’t seem to want to be having. She tried to get me to agree to look after plants. She didn’t mention that she’d already discussed this with Boss. I was unimpressed and I was also in the middle of an extremely stressful life event and had barely had any sleep, so I just resisted a little bit and then stopped talking. We looked at each other awkwardly for a while. She wasn’t taking the hint and said “you can think about it”. I said “ok, I’ll think about it”. This was probably two months ago.

Then last week, Boss called me into his office immediately after speaking to her, and said “Becky said that you told her you want to look after some plants”. I immediately just said “I did not say that”, but I still ended up agreeing to “partial responsibility” because I was put on the spot, which I’m not sure I’m happy with. The stupid thing is that I love plants and if someone had just asked me, I would have said yes. But going to my boss and telling him that I’ve promised something I haven’t is definitely not OK and it puts me off having any involvement. If I end up having a meeting with HR lady soon I will be discussing this with her.

HR Lady

HR lady hasn’t been in the office all week and hasn’t contacted me. I asked for a meeting about 5-6 weeks ago and she brushed me off until “late June”. She’s been back from her holiday for two weeks now, and it’s July. I’m underwhelmed. It doesn’t make me feel like a valued employee whose concerns are important. It makes me reluctant to speak to her at all, because part of me thinks I’m being obstructed purposefully. What does she gain though? If I end up leaving because she’s mismanaged the situation then my boss will not be impressed with her.

The only certainty is that nothing is certain

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HR Lady didn’t speak to me today after all, though she was in the office. She had a 30+ minute meeting with Mike, which is probably the first time she’s ever had a meeting with him. This makes me think “hmm”. Is it about me?! He would probably have framed it as being concerned he’d upset me and not knowing what to do. I’ll be honest though, if he’s involved HR without trying to work it out with me directly then I’m going to find it hard not to roll my eyes. But maybe it’s not about me. Maybe I’m just paranoid. Maybe it’s just a massive coincidence that his first meeting with HR came shortly after upsetting me. Maybe.

Later, HR lady went out for lunch with Becky. This has happened three times now. She is supposed to be mediating between Becky and me, but she’s going out for lunch with Becky. The last time this happened I ran it past my counsellor and said “is it normal that I’m a bit concerned about this…” and she gave me a very definite yes. I don’t actually WANT to be in a position where I might need to complain that the head of HR is showing a conflict of interest, and it astounds me that she is putting me in that position. It feels a bit… amateur hour.

She didn’t speak to me at all so I have no idea what’s going on (even though yesterday she cancelled the meeting between Becky and me with no explanation), and it hit my anxiety levels pretty badly.

I don’t need to be worried about this. If I get in trouble then I still have my “I just started SSRIs and they were making me feel worse” excuse. But I am worried. Why am I even expecting to be in trouble?!

Garmin watch stress levels: high.

Mike

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Mike is the work friend I’ve referred to a few times. I thought I’d write a bit about that relationship, since it seems to have imploded.

I started getting to know Mike shortly before the police issue unfolded last year. He always seemed happy and friendly and I always enjoyed bumping into him in the kitchen. I was a bit surprised when he opened up about having mental health issues of his own. He has had severe anxiety issues and is on medication for it. Outwardly and superficially, you wouldn’t have realised, but as I got to know him I started to see it more.

In the aftermath of the police issue I found him quite valuable in keeping me sane. He didn’t know anything about it, of course, but I could always rely on him to distract me for a while. 20 minutes in the kitchen chatting about anything or nothing was enough to lift the fog for a while.

Over time I started to confide in him about my problems with Becky. He seemed understanding.

So far so good, but things become a bit strained at times. He’s 40, I’m 32, but in a lot of ways I tend to see him as being a bit immature. I couldn’t have a conversation with him about investments for example, despite the fact he used to work in a bank he seems to be pretty clueless about finance, which is a big bell ringing in my mind that he hasn’t really got his life together. Planning for future security and independence, it’s important you know?

He’s very friendly, but his life is filled with drama, which just goes on and on. It’s one minor disaster after another. You’re allowed a few, but at some point I start to question just how random these events are. We have students who work here on placement years who seem to be full of disaster. One went through 4 different phones, 3 laptops, and 2 TVs during his year here. They all mysteriously broke. He moved flats because his flatmates were mean to him. He was often late because his bus didn’t turn up. It was never that he missed it, it just didn’t turn up. With students you tend to give them a bit of a pass because they’re very young and it’s their first time away from home and they’ll probably grow up quickly. But Mike is the 40 year old version of this. He seems to function well in general, but his girlfriend mothers him a lot. He complains to me sometimes about the food that his girlfriend (who works full time) packs for him. He’s a nice guy, but his journey through life has been more of an aimless meander than a process of maturation.

His supportiveness over the Becky situation tailed off and he started being sceptical of the things I’d tell him. “If she’s doing that then that’s crap” was the first one. No, not “if”. He just plain doesn’t believe some of the things she’s done, which is annoying because she’s been kinda gaslighty and for a long time I questioned my own perceptions until I started to pin her down on things.

Then I had a breakdown in November/December which had me do something a bit stupid – I emailed Becky and called her a bully. Which she is, but it wasn’t a smart thing to do. The reason that it happened is because she was bullying me, but also, I had a huge amount of stress outside of work, AND I had internal bleeding in my intestines which had led to me becoming anaemic shortly before. I did not feel well at that point and I stopped functioning as humans should, mentally and physically (some fainting was involved). I’m not proud of that, but I’m not really ashamed of it either. People break down when life gets too much. There are no end of celebrities who have imploded very spectacularly and very publicly when life got on top of them, and it’s only after it happens that they look back and realise they need help. You’re handling it fine, until you’re not. This is a biological limitation which is not specific to me. It happened, I regret it, but I moved on, so, whatever.

But he’s never let me forget that. Every time something happens now it’s “did you email her again?”. It’s 8 months ago now and he still brings it up.

Over the past months he seems to have got closer to Becky. On three occasions since then he’s had me justify myself to him because she’s said something to him that has led him to believe that she really wants to get along with me but I’m just not cooperating. He once believed that I’d Cc’ed her on a complaint about her. I ended up showing him the email so he could see that 1) it wasn’t about her, 2) it wasn’t a complaint and 3) I didn’t cc her, her boss did! He suggested to her that if I don’t want to get along then she should just ‘treat me like a student’ (we have foreign student placements, who mostly stick to themselves and don’t interact with the rest of us beyond whoever is managing them, probably because they find the language difficult), which was really unhelpful because… urgh, I’m a fucking senior developer, don’t treat me like a temporary foreign student.

I feel that as his relationship with her has grown, he’s become less of a friend to me. And I find this confusing, because he’ll happily make nasty remarks about her to me in private. I can’t resolve how one minute he’s casually suggesting she gives sexual favours to her boss (I mostly filter out the stream of inappropriate remarks) and then adding in that she must have to “have a paper bag over her head though” (because that’s a really necessary addition), and the next he’s being friendly with her. I just don’t understand that. I couldn’t be nasty about someone behind their back and then friendly to their face. My brain just isn’t wired like that.

He suffers a lot of insecurity and he wants desperately to be liked. But the two-faced routine I see him do with Becky makes me distrustful. He’s insecure and he wants to have it both ways.

He projects that insecurity too. He’s a failed software developer who now works as an assistant to a manager (for a lot less money than me), so obviously the reason I’ve had trouble at work is because software development isn’t for me. I find that a little bit annoying. He dropped out of university whereas I have a master’s degree. His assumptions about himself do not apply to me. Writing code to make computers do stuff comes very easily to me and I do not appreciate him suggesting I’m not very good at it, especially when he’s never worked on a project with me.

A few days before the WhatsApp argument, I upset him (also on WhatsApp) when he was working from home. I commented that the person he sat next to had moved into another room so it was quiet in the office. He decided it was because of him, even though he wasn’t there(!). I just said “yeah, probably” thinking he was joking. He wasn’t and he got very upset about it and told me that he’s left jobs before because he’s upset someone.

He’s very sensitive to the possibility of someone not liking him and I’ve learnt to manage this situation. I immediately stop. I apologise. I acknowledge his feelings even if I think they’re irrational. I empathise. I try to see where he’s coming from. I empathise. I listen. I really, really try to empathise.

So it pissed me off a few days later when the situation was reversed and he upset me that he just dug in and started arguing with me. I uninstalled WhatsApp. That was a few weeks ago and haven’t reinstalled it. Although I didn’t technically block him, I would not be the first person to block him on WhatsApp after he refused to back down from an insensitive statement. Why do you keep dying on this hill, Mike?

This week at work he’s been tiptoeing around it, trying to be pleasant to me and I am being superficially polite in response, but… it’s just not going to reignite our friendship and I’m expecting a confrontation when he figures that out. I’ll be honest when that happens. I’m not sure how this will be affected by his assertion that he leaves jobs when he upsets people. I don’t want him to do that, but I’ve also learnt not to try to solve other people’s problems.

At the moment I feel empowered by my response here. Someone makes me feel bad repeatedly and I put up a boundary. That’s healthy. My mental state has not been healthy for the past year. This is progress. I will care what you think, but not at the expense of my own mental health.

But will it bother me when we drift apart and I see him getting closer to Becky? Hmm… Time will tell.