Do I fight or not?

A blotchy-faced M met with me at the end of the day. After she had given me the job of dispatching one of the three secretaries (she gave another the full-time job and the other tearfully capitulated that she could work on a 50%+ reduction in salary and become a lettings negotiator). After she had, despite all employment law, treated all three secretaries completely differently. All had met with different managers, therefore all had been told different things and been treated completely differently. How is this fair? Oh, forgot to mention, but may have done it on a previous post so forgive me, that it was a foregone conclusion anyway as to who would get the job.

But I digress, yes met with M who seemed like she'd been through the ringer, but hey, she had god on her side and she was completely in the right and he would carry her through these difficult times. Well, yes of course he would. If she believed he was there, then he was there and he would. So it's all a state of mind and despite the fact that she and D are childish bullies if they believe in the God of Estate Agents, he will of course support them in their hour of need. When they are down to their last £1,000,000, he will still be there for them.

Yes, I've digressed yet again. She met with me. She said she would only pay me statutory and I bit my tongue and was calm and said, OK I would discuss it with who-ever. If she thinks I will discuss this through lawyers, then she is mistaken. I just need to know how you juggle an Industrial Tribunal while you are still working your notice.

Mondays

After pulling the dog off a cat in the back garden and then rushing like a fiend to get to work for a 9.30 meeting with D which was cancelled, because D, for all his authority, is unable to schedule a meeting without my confirmation (he tried doing that on my day off) - I eventually have a meeting with M where I ask what they have decided about my payment.

Statutory I'm afraid. I delicately mention I have taken advice and I have a case for being paid in full where M promptly stands up, and says then 'my lawyers will talk to your lawyers' and makes to leave the meeting. Not only am I completely stressed out by having to challenge her like this but I am amazed at her childish immature reaction.

Not sure why I should be so surprised considering her and D's behaviour over the years, but I am an employee so definitely not her equal. Her tantrum shows how she wants to bully in her turn too.

I, yes me, calm the situation down and we eventually part on calmer terms to await the advice she receives from her advisers. More joy to come.

Chocolate Brownies

Is it just me that finds this a little strange?

The staff who asked me previously what was happening were the secretaries. Today they have all been advised that their jobs were being considered for redundancy. M meets each secretary to tell them face to face. This is quite a stressful thing to do, wouldn't you think? But the first secretary she tells, she gives a plate of chocolate brownies (which super-woman M made last night) to dispense to the office. Granted, secretly this is the secretary she wants to keep out of all of them, but still....

No word for me on what they will pay me though.

Is it easier?

Is it easier to know that an Industrial Tribunal may find against M & D if I decided to go that route? Why would I do it? Because it will put the fear of the God of Estate Agents into D for a start. That seems like a good enough reason. Will it jeopardise what is left of my relationship with M? Probably.

I had a formal meeting with M today to let her know what I had decided to do. No contest, hands up, you got me. I can't fight this, I said to her, and she said, oh it's not a fight, it is what we have had to decide. We thought you could work 3 days a week or even return to 4 or 5. We didn't know it would come to this.

She asked me if I could still work with her on further redundancies. Hey, why not? What do I care? So the next thing I do is type out 3 letters to the 3 secretaries of other offices to say their jobs are on the line too.

I said I could carry on as normal... until I take advice. Because of their meanness, I would have to accept a redundancy package based on the salary I have been on for the past 3 months not the salary I was on previously and considering I have worked for them for over 9 years, that does seem mean. When I started 9 years ago I was on a higher salary than I am now. I think even if an Industrial Tribunal found in neither of our favour, it would cost them more than the £2700 they are trying to do me out of, to defend themselves.

So I see what the Board decides tomorrow. M & D and W to decide and I know the answer already.

Melt down

And worse has yet to come. In my weekly meeting with M she ended with saying they were considering me for redundancy yet again! Silly me, I thought I was safe. She said no-one was safe. So when I had a meeting the next day with a some staff who asked me what the situation was, I told them the same thing 'No one is safe'. They thanked me for my honesty, little did they know the anger and turmoil I was feeling.

Now, however, I feel relieved. I want out of this toxic environment. The God of Estate Agents is certainly not Mammon. If he or she was, she would have saved the day by now by increasing house-prices by 40% to compensate for the downturn and some.

So in consultation I find they in making me redundant (I will accept this time, by the way) three months after the first redundancy they may think they have to pay me less money, but we will see.

D, by the way, can't look me in the eye or even come into my open office area. Coward.

Daddy's got a gun.

Luckily it appears I am not the only one being singled out for the unrealistic treatment from D. He's having a go at everyone. Cutting costs in the most petty yet sadistic fashion. Why are the accounts department sending faxes to his office when they could deliver them by hand? Cancel all the water-cooler contracts for all the offices! But make sure you pay my personal invoices immediately.

After his jaunt to the country (wonder who paid for that... not the water cooler company that's for sure) he came back into the office and as if to rub our noses in the fact he had taken time off for the kill, he BROUGHT HIS GUN IN WITH HIM. Apparently I am only third in line for people who were tempted to use it on him.

M has taken to ending her emails to me 'reply by the end of the day please', just to emphasise the fact that nothing can wait until I'm back in the office.

Jaw Jaw

As W. S. Churchill once said, is better than 'War War', but not if you talk it up and up until it all comes crashing back down. We all know what is happening in the economic world, but do we have to keep repeating how bad it is? How it is almost a recession but not quite. It will be soon if we keep talking it into existence.

Anyway on the smaller scale work front, the person I mentioned in my last post would have been made redundant on Friday and yet another person will have been added to that list. The more I look at it, the more their behaviour confirms what a knee-jerk reaction my 'redundancy' was in April. We are now in October and the people who have been with the company two minutes are being asked to leave.

Not seen D for a whole week (which is excellent) so I guess he has been out on another short break (possibly killing small birds and animals). You know the type, you can see their teeth gleaming in the dark, Tory boys the lot of the them. Pale yellow cords, plaid shirt and barbours..... the uniform of the Tory Hunter. In Pompey they would call it something else, but I leave that to your imagination.