This past week has been incredibly hard. Individuals at work pushed me to the point where I couldn’t function anymore. Over the past few months, the accounts assistant, who doubles as the HR person, has declared that only your spouse can call in sick on your behalf and as everyone who works for the company is over the age of 18, she said, “Well then, everyone has someone.” Then she invented the rule that the only reasons that she will accept as holiday reasons (in order to request holiday, we have to ask for a holiday request form, which is on paper. We have to fill out the days that we want to book off and include the total number of days that we will be away from the company for by including the weekend, and the total number of days (including in the weekend) cannot exceed ten. Then we have to declare the reason for needing the holiday). The only reasons for needing the holiday that she will accept are spending time with your spouse, spending time with your child, visiting long distance family who you have not seen for three or more years, or you have an appointment of some kind. If you have an appointment, regardless of what it is, you must provide evidence of the appointment. When it comes to hot weather working conditions, unless the temperature outside is over 30°C she will not let the manufacturers start early and finish early, despite the building getting up to 34°C. She refuses to let the office staff start early and finish early, despite the office part of the building reaching hotter temperatures than the manufacturing area. She thinks that if the manufacturers start 90 minutes earlier than their start time (during the days where the temperatures are above 30°C outside) that when they finish 90 minutes earlier, they have not worked their eight hours and are being paid to work less that they should, because she cannot work the hours out. We had a lady who was seven months pregnant, three people with health conditions and one member of staff over 70 years old, yet she repeatedly refused to put their health first. On the incredibly hot days, she didn’t even come into the office herself. She didn’t phone in sick or get her husband to call in sick for her. At some point during the day, she emailed my manager and told him a random excuse. Oh and none of her sick days have been logged, nor has she taken them as holiday.
On top of all of that, her connotation of the word mature is the polar opposite of the denotation. Due to someone childishly getting upset, now, if someone forgets their lunch and decides to order themselves something to eat (there are no shops of any kind nearby, as I work in the middle of an industrial estate) by company rules, you now have to go around and ask every single person if they want lunch too, so you must have enough money in your bank account to potentially buy every single person lunch. Yes, they will pay you back in cash, but you require the full amount in your bank account in order to order lunch. It all goes back to infant school logic. In infant school, on your birthday, you had to bring in lollypops, ad there must be enough for every child in the class to have one each. That is because in infant school, you are too immature to understand that not everyone is your friend. Someone might think that they are your friend and you don’t want to upset them. So, a manufacturing company that still runs like it would have done in 1984, now has to implement rules for an infant school. The acting HR lady, also, discusses HR events wherever she goes. She talks about them in the engineering office, with the new supervisor, with one of the warehouse colleagues, but because her desk is right next to me, she is repeatedly accusing me of telling everyone in the company all of the HR things, when I am not. I have been accused so many times. I try really hard every single day to do everything right. To follow all of the rules. Continuously being accused of things that I am not doing are making me feel mentally unwell.
Oh and the HR lady, also, periodically sprays the room with perfume and exclaims, “Ooow, I love it!” like a small child, throughout the day. Who sprays a room with perfume multiple times a day? Surely I’m not the only one who thinks that’s a little bit strange, right?
Then, last week, on Thursday, my manager said that I could move desks to the one that is in the label printing room. I am the one who prints all of the labels, so it makes sense that I use that desk anyway. Well, because the company has only purchased three licenses and we are all sharing them, I was unable to login as me on that computer. Yes, I still have access to all of my files, as they are on t eh server, but I could not access my emails. On Friday morning, when I said that I had tried to log in to the computer downstairs and I couldn’t, he was acting as though he had never said that I could and that I had made it up. He kept asking me where I had got the idea from and that the director would never allow it. I got upset, as I was in a complete panic attack, after being accused of doing so many things and I cried to one of the manufactures I think got into trouble, because apparently wanting to move desk is private and confidential and because I spoke to one person about really struggling at work and I can’t cope anymore and all I want to do is move desks, that means that I have been telling everyone all of the HR things. I haven’t! I hide in the toilet to cry, and I got so overwhelmed and so sacred that I couldn’t come out and I was locked in there for three and a half hours hyperventilating.
I managed to phone the doctors and they gave me a phone appointment, but that was pointless. I didn’t get a doctor that I know, as in my area, all of the doctors surgeries and practices that come until the same town, all use one phone number and you can get sent to any of the doctors locations or speak on the phone to any of them. The doctor I had said to call in sick for a week, then on the following Friday (which is today) to walk to the head office, ask to be fitted in if a doctor has time, sit in the waiting area all day, then when I get to see a doctor, be put on the strongest anti-depressants, so that I will never be able to feel any emotions, or anything, ever again and I will be in a permanent zombie-like state. I don’t want that. I like having emotions. Yes, I feel lots of emotion all of the time and they are constantly fighting for my attention and it can be overwhelming, but that doesn’t mean I need to chemically stop them. Also, he couldn’t have read any of my medical history, because my body is not very good at producing the chemical that makes you happy, and I have been told multiple times to hold onto one or two memories that, when I try hard enough, can make me feel al little bit of a happy emotion and that I need to periodically so that, so that my body does not forget how to do it. I have been told by three separate doctors that anti-depressants are not the right thing for me. I do not need help on the weekends or evenings, to be by myself and just enjoy my own company. I only can’t cope when I am being persistently accused of doing bad things, when I am not, when I am being constantly called a tramp, that I belong in the bin, that I am so fat that the floor shakes when I walk by (those are all things that a chavy family call me every day at work, and they are, apparently, the most mature people in the business – another group of people who have the connotation of the work the complete opposite to the denotation) and just when I feel unsafe.
I did partially do what the doctor said. I called in sick on Monday and Tuesday. I couldn’t do it for the whole week, because my manager is on holiday from 3pm on Wednesday 26th August, so I had to come in. I had two panic attacks and I cried once on Wednesday, as I was absolutely terrified of coming back into work. I had five panic attacks, but I didn’t cry yesterday. While I was off, I did apply to jobs nonstop all day both days. I heard back from one company, well the recruitment agency acting on behalf of the company. I signed up to her agency, through an hour long Teams meeting. The job isn’t the best. It is essentially what I do now, for another very small, old fashioned manufacturing company. I have been applying to jobs since January and this is only the third one I have heard back from. The first was an Ai interview, which apparently most autistic people automatically fail, because no human ever sees it, the results are solely AI facial and tonal recognition and the second one was to work in a wedding ring factory, and knowing that I can never get married, I would just cry every single day.
Yesterday was, also, stressful, because Severn Trent have said that I am under investigation. I am on a water meter, but they do not let me give them my meter readings. They say that I have to pay the estimate. Well, my water estimate is £197.56, but I have not even used anywhere near that amount of water on the meter. I have taken a photo of the meter and found an email address to send it to. They do not have any online contact. They only have a phone number that is available from 9am until 5pm Monday to Friday. They said that either my water meter is broken or I have been winding the numbers back. The water meter is working and I haven’t been winding the numbers back. I am single. I live alone in a one-bedroom maisonette. I do not use my bath. I only wash my hair once a month. I only use the washing machine once a month. I only wash the dishes once a fortnight. I fill my one litre water bottle up three times at work, from Monday to Friday, so I never drink the water, at home, during the week. I am never at home on Sundays. I do not use a mop bucket to wash my floor, I use antibacterial floor wipes. I just, simply, do not use much water, and I definitely do not waste water. The most water I use, is to water my nine plants. I have a panic attack every single time someone has to come over to my maisonette. I did not cope when the plasterer came, the plumber came, the electrician came, the floor repairman came, the door fitter came or when British Gas came. I get hysterically upset, when I have to stand at the window all day on a Saturday morning, looking out for Royal Mail, to let them into the building, to sign for my letters, on a day where I have post. I am terrified of Severn Trent having to come over to my maisonette on Saturday 12th September, anytime between 8am and 4pm, so I will have to stand at the window all day. I have no idea how long they will be, how messy or noisy it will be. I will have to move everything out of my cupboard, because the water meter is in the cupboard opposite my bedroom door. I am on the priority communication list for British Gas, but Severn Trent doesn’t have one. I cried for over three hours yesterday evening, worrying about it. Even after the new meter is fitted, I will continue to be under investigation for two weeks. Then, if I still am using an abnormally low amount of water, someone else has to come and do a further inspection. It’s not fair. I was brought up that we couldn’t afford to use water. I am not doing anything any different, but because my mum isn’t on a water meter, she isn’t thoroughly inspected. It isn’t fair. My mum is at work that day too, so I will have to make myself feel poorly, so that someone can replace the meter, only for someone else to have to come two weeks after that and replace it again and someone else to come two weeks after that and replace that meter and it will just keep happening over and over and over again. I am so scared. I can’t have a home delivery for my food shopping or order a takeaway, because I can’t talk to the person who comes to the door. Actually, having to have someone inside my maisonette just makes me feel incredibly unsafe. Being single and not having anyone to be with me is incredibly scary.
I am unable to find a person who is a similar age to me who treats me as though we are in a relationship. People around my age have only ever treated me like a situationship, which causes anxiety in a non-anxious person, so for me, it makes me feel incredibly mentally unwell. But they will never take responsibility for their actions. It is always my fault for not being able to cope with being made to feel worthless. What makes me feel more uncomfortable, is having someone thirty years older than me and somebody who is twenty years older than me, both treat me like they want to be my partner, but I don’t want to be with them. It feels creepy and uncomfortable. I just want someone close to my age. I don’t want to be with someone who is old enough to be my dad.
I have been going to the airport, with a colleague, every Sunday for a few months now. I don’t really want to, but it is another one of those, where too many people think that they know what is best for me. I have got to see the world’s biggest passenger aeroplane, and I had it take off right over my head. I have had some of the pilots wave to me and Snuffles. I am getting better at being able to read the registration number on the side of the planes as well. I am hoping that watching the planes might help me to get the other manufacturing administration job, as that is for a company that manufacture the coatings for plane engines/equipment to protect them from overheating and from the elements. Part of me really doesn’t like it that I no longer have Sundays to myself anymore. I don’t feel like I have any time to myself anymore. It is so stressful.
I am so glad that our marketing guy, at work, is back from working from home in France. He is one of very few people that has been making any sense at the moment. The company’s quality manual was written in Comic Sans. Some people don’t seem to understand how unprofessional that is. When the Office Manager retired., I took over the layout of all of our documents. I have made them all look uniform, changing all of the font to Arial, all of the main text body sizes to 11. All of our spreadsheets now all follow the exact same layout, so they actually look like they are for the same company and not like every individual spreadsheet was created by different people, or more frighteningly different companies, and just randomly saved to file. Some people keep trying to change the template spreadsheets back. It’s a nightmare! Our marketing guy has been redesigning our company website, because it currently is appalling. The company that was hired to redesign the website, also, did an awful job, so our marketing guy has redesigned it all on Wix and keeps having to pass his designs to the company that are being paid to create our website, so that they can recreate what the marketing guy has produced. How on earth have we come this far with technology and people still don’t understand that if you do not have a clear and easy to read font, people will not engage with your website. A handful of fonts are dyslexic friendly and if websites choose not to use them, they are cutting their views down dramatically. If you use all capitals, everywhere, that is not professional. It is not easily readable. I know that engineering graduate degrees teach you to handwrite in capitals, but that is only because most people have incredibly messy handwriting. I do like knowing that many people request that when documents legally require to be handwritten that I write them, because I have the neatest handwriting. Also, I came across a website last week, a dn I know it must have been made in the early 2000s, but who thought that having things flash or static between loading screens was okay. What were we thinking twenty years ago? All websites need to have simple, straight forward menus to navigate and a clear and easy to read font. If it isn’t easy to read or easy to find what you want, people won’t bother and will go elsewhere. I don’t care if your website is the only one on the world where I can find out information about… I don’t know, frog migration in my local area, or information about my favourite unsigned band… if I need to highlight your text and copy and paste it into Word, to change the font into Calibri or Tahoma, I am not going to bother, and neither are the majority of the human population. I will always remember the acronym my IT teacher taught me: KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid!
I set myself a goal to make eight people diamond paintings for Christmas, a few weeks ago. Each one takes me between 15 and 25 hours, depending on its complexity, so one takes around two weeks to complete. It is very stressful and is making me feel very panicky. I have been staying up late every single night to try to make progress on them. I didn’t realise that I have just completed the easiest one, and now all of the others have confetti colours, not block colours, so it will take forever to complete them all. I do have an issue, as one of my pictures has an area that is obviously three or more colours, but it is only using one colour to cover the area, so I will have to take creative liberties with it, which I have never done before, so that is scary too. It is a good job that I don’t have a partner, because I wouldn’t have any time to see them at all. I go to work, come home, eat, speak to my mum on the phone for over an hour, try to do an hour of diamond painting and then go to sleep and start again. I can’t wait for Christmas to be over, as I will hate diamond painting and never want to ever do another one ever again.
I am looking forward to this weekend! This is the weekend, where Homesense put out their one of a kind Halloween decorations. All of the unique and special stuff gets put on display and then only the more boring stuff gets added as the weeks leading up to Halloween go on. I own way too much stuff and there is definitely no way that I could make room for more things, but Halloween is my thing. I have so many pumpkins and cute, little ghosts. I only want to window shop, but I am so excited. I wish I had someone to share my love of Halloween with! I did have someone like that, but sadly, they never wanted to spend Halloween together or carve pumpkins or go to Homesense with me. I know they were immensely busy, but I just want to be on the position of someone’s priority list that a partner would take, not below everyone else, including strangers online, which happens to me with everyone I date. Stupid situationships!
I want to try to remember to buy some flowers, on my way home from work, today, so that I can do a spell candle to Aphrodite. I know she likes red and pink. I have some scalloped shells that I can use as an offering too. Maybe I should buy some strawberries or raspberries for my offering too. I just want to sit with a few candles and with my thoughts. I just want to think positive thoughts about getting a new job, where the workplace isn’t toxic and immature, and to hope and wish really hard that someone will come into my life one day, who will treat me like I am their partner, and I will remain in that priority position and not be replaced or be told they are, “too busy,” when no one is ever too busy to communicate with their partner. I have learnt that from multiple doctors and talk-time sessions, and I will never let anyone treat me any differently, as I know understand that this is what taking advantage of me is. I’m really not asking for a lot. I don’t want money to be spent on me or to go out to places. I just want to be spoken to with respect, treated respectfully and to be communicated with as though I am someone’s partner. Nothing more. Why is it that women who treat men badly all have loving partners? Why are women so catty and demanding both straight and gay relationships? I know I am too busy for a partner, but I would prioritise them every single time. That can be my secret wish that no one else in the whole world knows about. I do not need a partner and I am more than happy being on my own forever. I am allowed to have a secret wish that I never tell anyone though. I am also going to light my career and luck candles. I will have to look into which Greek god I should address it to and what offerings they like, so I can try to buy something for them too, while I buy my offerings for Aphrodite.
Yey! The HR lady called in sick today! So, no HR and no manager. I have the office all to myself today. That means that I do not need my noise cancelling headphones (as I have been wearing them since coming back into work) and I do not need my tinted glasses, because I do not need to unnecessarily put the lights on, when it is sunny outside. Finally, something positive to happen after a really long, tough week!
Okay, so I have managed to do the company production plan for September. I am mentally exhausted now. I hate doing it. It is my least favourite part of my job. If components don’t come in, because of global shortages or because we haven’t paid a supplier, it will be all my fault of we can’t manufacture things in September. I really don’t understand how the company that I work for is still I operation. As a customer to suppliers, surely, we should be paying them based on their terms and conditions, but oh no, that isn’t something that we do. As the customer, we dictate to our suppliers what payment terms we will pay. Even if the company doesn’t offer 60 days NET. So we are, currently, on credit hold with one of our biggest component suppliers. I keep getting emails from the supplier asking when we will pay them. How on earth am I supposed to know? Not only do we dictate the payment terms, but the accounts assistant often forgets to pay suppliers too. It is both stressful and embarrassing.
Okay, I think that is all my brain can handle for right now. I have managed to buy a reduced, bake-at-home, cookie dough tiny dish. I think a teeny, tiny bit of that will be my reward for getting through this week. I am so tired and mentally drained. I think I need a hug from giant Froggy.
This is my current favourite song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5R9RVMVce4 I wish I knew more sea-shanties or violin songs.
After work today, I went into Shirley, where I met me mum. We walked into Sears Retail Park and we went into Homesense. I was so good. I showed a lot of restraint and I didn’t buy anything. I did fall in love with the attached decorative ghost, but I told myself that she was too big. She was about the size of my panda, Cuddles. If she was closer to Snuffles and Ducky’s size, then I would have bought her. There were so many pumpkins and ghosts decorative pieces. I liked lots of things. I didn’t buy any wreath or a cushion or a pumpkin or a figure or a candle.
It started to pour with rain, so my mum and I popped into Mountain Warehouse, just to look. I am trying to convince my mum to buy a pair of walking boots, just because they will be better for her to walk in, if it snows, because my mum walks inwards in her feet and when it is frosty, snowy and icy she cannot walk at all. She didn’t buy any, but she is considering them now. I found that the women’s clothes were way too big and the children’s clothes only go up to age 13, so my mum thinks they might be a bit small, but I am going to look online to see if they have a hoodie with sheep on it in age 13, because it looked fun.
Then we went into Marks & Spencer. I never usually go in there, as I usually can’t afford anything in there, but we were looking in other shops to shelter from the rain. I did end out buying their chocolate swirl spread, that is a sandwich spread that is half white chocolate and half milk chocolate - it looks like the colours of my panda, Cuddles. And it was on offer at £1 for a full size jar! So I bought one.
Then we went into TKMaxx and I was good and didn’t buy anything Halloween in their homewares section. Then we went into Smyths Toys (again, we were sheltering from the rain) and I was very good and I didn’t buy anything. Then we went into Asda and my mum tried to convince me to buy a black blanket with little white ghosts on it, but I was good and I didn’t buy it. I did very well!
I am so proud of myself for not buying anything Halloween related. I was very tempted to, but I was very, very, very good. That is the most good I have been all year. After I broke up with Dexter, I know I bought too many plushies, so I am being extra good now, as I am running out of room!
- Josie -
