About a month ago, I felt very mentally drained, at work, and I had a migraine. People were accusing me of things that I hadn’t done and I couldn’t cope. I stayed at work and spent three hours fixing a spreadsheet that I had been accused of manipulating, to sabotage the warehouse team, when they just edited formulas they didn’t understand. After remaking the spreadsheet from scratch and making sure that the manufacturing team could use it, so that they could continue working, I then said to our HR lady, Amy, that I felt unwell, and I asked if I could go home, because my migraine had got a lot worse. I was wearing my tinted glasses at my desk and I was in so much pain that I had been silently crying. Amy said no. She knew that I felt unwell and that I was struggling – I sit next to her. She said she could go home if she wanted to, because she is the only employee that can work from home, but I can’t go home, because I can’t work from home.
Then, I asked if I could book some time off, because I know I am struggling and feel like I am close to burnout. She said no. The only acceptable reason to put on a holiday form is that you are spending time with your husband/wife, you are spending time with your child or you are visiting family that live far away that you haven’t seen in years. I am not married, I don’t have a partner, I live alone, I don’t have family (apart from my mum who lives two miles away). I have never had a child – miscarriage yes, child no.
My workplace has rule that you are only allowed five days off sick or you get a warning. HR and the three engineering guys have all had more time off each than anyone else in the company, but they don't get into trouble. We have been told since April that we are all supposed to have a meeting about the number of sick days we have had - luckily I haven't had any. My manager Steve isn't supposed to look at the holiday/absence file (it is an Excel spreadsheet), but he did the other day and that's when we found out that HR and engineering have all had over 10 days off sick, but we know that many of the days they have had off sick haven't been recorded. Only Amy records holidays and sickness, yet most of hers, the Head-of-Engineering, the Technician and the Works Manager’s absences are mostly missing.
Then on top of that, if you want to book a day off, unless it is for medical reasons and you must show the medical appointment, you cannot book a day off with less than a month's notice. Amy emailed my manager last week on Wednesday and said, "I'm going to take today as holiday," when she had taken Monday and Tuesday as holiday. No one is allowed to extend their holiday like that, nor are you allowed to not come in and just take it as holiday, but the HR lady can.
On Monday Amy emailed my manger to say that was taking the morning as holiday and the afternoon as medical leave. You are only allowed to have one hour off for a medical appointment, and you have to make the time back, otherwise you have to book off a half day to go to an appointment if you can’t make it by leaving an hour early or coming in an hour later.
Yesterday, my
manager, Steve, made a comment about wanting to not be here and said that if the
Works Manager calls in sick today, with Sunstroke, then he doesn't want to be here
(there was a big audit today and the Works Manager was supposed to help out a
lot with it, as it covers a huge part of his department). I said, "Can we say
we have sunstroke too and not come in too?" Steve chuckled as he left the room,
then Amy said very spitefully, "Just go to hospital, you'll pick up lots of
bugs there and then you can be off sick." Would you like to know how she
got sick over the weekend? On Friday she said that her husband had to go to
A&E – that is the reason as to why she wasn’t in work on Friday (she only
worked three and a half hours last week). Amy, her 18 year old daughter (who is
not Amy’s husbands child and does not get along with her step-dad), Amy’s husband’s
mum and sister all went with him to A&E. They all caught a sickness bug. Why
were all of their family at A&E with him? Was he dying? No. He was told he
has a water infection. How he has a water infection I’ll never know. He is a
stay-at-home dad (he and Amy have an 18 month old). He has no reason at all not
to drink enough. Then again, if Amy is anything to go by, she thinks drinking a
300ml carton of kids orange juice is her drinking loads and being healthy (she
usually only drinks one bottle of Coca Cola a day, and the size that you get
from the meal-deal section at the supermarket. She buys a bottle every day. She
doesn’t buy the meal-deal, just the bottle of Coca Cola).
To add to my frustrations, Amy sent me an email today and copied the director
in, warning me that I haven’t used any of my 13 days annual leave. We get the
five bank holiday days automatically deducted from our holiday and we have
around nine days (including the weekend) that the company closes for Christmas.
I told her, I don’t have a wife, or a husband, I don’t have a child, nor do I
have family who live abroad that I haven’t seen for years. If that is the only
way I can take a day off, how can I take holiday. She replied, “That’s not my
problem.”
I really wish I could get a job in RISK or an audit company for health and
safety, because the company I work for should be shut down for so many reasons.
I’m surprised half the staff haven’t dropped dead from mercury poisoning or from
having too much resin on their lungs. The mercury smell is constant, and some
people smell of it so badly that even outside of work, I can still smell the mercury
on them. And the resin spray makes me choke all of the time. So many people say
that they love the smell. It degrades brain cells. No wonder we have so many
bimbos – one girl literally thought you spelt sausage, “sossig.” The rest of
her brain works in the exact same way. I had to explain to her that if her and
her fiancé decide to have a baby, how her body knows not to give birth to a worm
or a cat and why it knows to create a human.
I have been trying to find a new job since January, but with no luck. I like
the type of work that I do, but it is so hard to find job to apply to that pay
£30k. I don’t understand who Gen Z are so lucky to constantly get the first job
that they apply to, without any experience in anything to do with the job and demand
£36k or they aren’t interested and they get the job, because apparently a
teenager can’t survive on less than £36k. I hear of so many 18-21 year old that
this happens to. I live alone, have a mortgage, pay my council tax, gas,
electric, water, broadband, service charge, ground rent, communal electricity,
communal gardener, communal cleaner, £88 a month in case the building needs work
doing, then the charge for the work on top of that. I don’t need £36,000
to pay all of those things. It would be nice, yes, because then I would
actually have savings towards a pension but I can exist in life without it. My
gas bill is usually £12 a month and my electricity bill is usually £33 a month.
It isn’t hard to entertain yourself without multiple TVs on, an AI system constantly
listening to you, in case you are too lazy to get off your bum and turn a light
on, turn the radio on, set a timer on your phone. I swear, people who are that
lazy disgust me. I hope to never have to interact with a person that says, “Hey
[insert AI technology here] set a timer for two minutes.” Do it yourself for
Pete’s sake!
All I want is peace and quiet. No drama. No nonsense. No visiting places. No
hosting. No mental abuse. I just want things to be fair. Is it too much to ask
to want a workplace where I am allowed to take a day off, without needing a
partner, offspring or family? Is it too much to ask for some peace and quiet,
to be left alone to sleep, clean my home, meal prep and look after myself
without interference? Is it wrong to not want a creepy stalker named Lucy
Henson thinking she’s my best friend and phones 999 for a welfare check on her
best friend. I only know one person named Lucy and she lives in Belgium. She is
my director’s niece and she only knows me as Josie. She doesn’t know UK addresses,
let alone where I live. Is it too much to actually want a relationship that
doesn’t come with mental abuse? Is it wrong to want to be with someone who
doesn’t tell me that it is wrong to see their partner, of their serious,
long-term relationship daily… who doesn’t think it is wrong to live together…
who, when you don’t live together communicates properly with you as though you
are both adults in a long-term committed relationship and not as though you
live together and therefore don’t need to text or schedule calls ever? Is it
wrong to want a partner who doesn’t think that having your friend as your
housemate is going to be the normal forever and your serious, long-term
relationship girlfriend will just pop over for a short visit every six to eight
weeks? Is it wrong to want to be treated with love, kindness and respect by the
person who is supposed to be your number one priority? Is it wrong to want to
live with your partner and get married? Is it wrong to want to treat my partner
with love and kindness, to see if they have had a good day and to want to make
them a cup of tea or dinner, when they get home from work or massage their
shoulders after having a tough day and let them unwind? Why am I always accused
of living in a fairytale for wanting to feel safe and loved in a relationship,
where I live with my partner, we have dinner together maybe once or twice a
week, we communicate, share important life changing decisions before we
decide upon something and include your partner’s thoughts, feelings and
opinions? Why is that wrong? Because everyone always says it is wrong for me to
want those things, but they can have them all with their next partner. Why is
there one rule for Josette and one rule for everyone else? Other people live
with their partner. Other people who don’t live with their partner are
communicated with, treated with respect and are their partner’s number one
priority. Why is it wrong to not want to have their family, friends, colleagues,
penpals, online friends, random people from an online chatroom to all before
your communication with your serious relationship? No one is ever too busy, it
just depends how low down you are on their priority list. Is it wrong to want
to be someone’s priority? Is it wrong to not want someone to get bored of you
after five months? Is it wrong to not want a mentally abusive situationship, but
a real relationship? Is it wrong to want a job where a single person gets treated
with the same rules and respect as a person who is happily married? Is it wrong
to want to exist in a workplace where the rules apply to all colleagues equally?
Is it wrong to want a cuddle, when you’re completely alone and have no one, because
your entire life is just surrounded by controlling and/or mentally abusive people?
IS it wrong to want a day off work just to catch up on sleep, cook from
scratch, wash up, do some laundry, have a wash and put some craft supplies
away? I am running on absolute empty. I am mentally exhausted. I just want a
break. Why must I be married or engaged or at the very least in a relationship in
order to qualify for a day off?
- Josie -
