bullying counter managers

[the old girl]

One counter clerk taken ill health retirement, one transferred to another office to escape (and he loves it there), two have returned to work but are rather "fragile". One still off sick. Out of the remaining three that have managed to hang in there, one is physically sick on the way to work and one is waking up crying in the night so it's only a matter of time...
We have however been "lent" an additional human manager who is fantastic, to work with us as our manager will be off on maternity leave in a few months.....
I can cope with the sales culture, the queues etc, it's just the lack of people skills and bullying ways that i can't cope with.
We are now being offered another meeting with someone else in the business, to talk through our problems, i'm not too excited about this as it will undoubtedly be a waste of time just like the H&S visit, which suggested we "go to the manager with our problems".......

[billyhayes]

So, you are in an office that has 10 staff. And your manager will soon be on maternity leave.
Give me a couple of days and I'd give the office a call myself to talk to the members.

Save me the trouble and PM me the office... This has seriously got my blood up!

[Running Man]

Well said Billy!

I really hope The Old Girl sends you a personal message as there is too much of this going unchecked in POL thanks to weak managers who simply will not tackle problems like this.

Once again The Old Girl has my sincere sympathy and I am totally flabbergasted that, even in our haphazard and pathetic excuse for a business, such a mess has been allowed to develop.

The very best of luck to those of you remaining and please 'Old Girl' consider sending Billy a personal message, even if it's just a mobile phone number that will not initially identify your office.

Regards, Running Man.

[the old girl]

Thankyou Running Man for your kind words. I have done as you suggested.

[Running Man]

That's great OG (I feel a bit silly calling you 'Old Girl'!).

I reckon Billy is just the man to stimulate some proper, meaningful action. Who knows, whatever the outcome in your office could, and should in my opinion, serve as an example to those who wish to control our hardworking frontline staff in an atmosphere of management by fear.

By the way OG, sincere respect to yourself for soldiering on in what must be an absolutely dreadful working environment. Why do you do it? May I respectfully suggest that it's because you care.

The very best of luck to you all and please OG keep us posted.

[the old girl]

Goodness, you are absolutely correct! I don't want to walk away after all these years.....

[the old girl]

So unfortunately Billy couldn't help us with our office problems. I'm positive it's a very "protected " situation. Thanks anyway Billy.

[billyhayes]

No probs. I wouldn't call it a 'wall of silence' more indifference, from both sides.

[the old girl]

We are still waiting for the promised "stress assessments" and the P.O has money to spend on these.....

[PostalOfficer]

Just been catching up on this thread. Mercifully my office is not as bad as this at the moment, although I would say that almost all the staff have had time off with stress, or are currently taking tablets etc.

Having suffered the irony of a formal warning about my sick leave due to stress caused solely by idiot managers, several points strike me as "strange":

1. If this was a physical health and safety issue like asbestos leaking from the roof, the office would be shut down by the council or whoever. Although an impairment to good healt stress is treated differently. Why?

2. The PO collects endless statistics on everything else, funny they don't monitor (don't want to monitor) levels of stress-related illness. Ignoring compassion, surely it's a waste of money having people sitting around at home staring into space on full pay?

3. Clearly from the above, many of the internal procedures for dealing with bullying are useless. My therapist mentioned about an employer having "a duty of care". Surely if almost every employee in an office is ill, the PO are in breach of this duty? Could the union solicitors not prove this and have the PO taken to court?

[the old girl]

Thats correct, the PO do have a duty of care, which is why i have been dealing with the union solicitors lately. It's not easy either as you keep going over all the issues (many times) that you are trying to forget, and very time consuming with the paperwork, meetings etc. We shall see if it gets me anywhere!

[PostalOfficer]

Thats correct, the PO do have a duty of care, which is why i have been dealing with the union solicitors lately. It's not easy either as you keep going over all the issues (many times) that you are trying to forget, and very time consuming with the paperwork, meetings etc. We shall see if it gets me anywhere!

Very interesting. I'm sure we all wish you luck and would be interested with the results. Ideally I would have thought this ought to be a 'class action' involving a number of employees or (preferably) offices for greater hitting power. As I see it the PO won't be concerned however many of us are reduced to nervous wrecks, but judgements that cost them MONEY will affect their beloved balance sheets.

I can well imagine how much paperwork etc. is involved having had the union solicitors handle a comparatively minor traffic accident. I think it took the best part of 2 years to finalise and as you say it keeps alive memories of things you would rather forget.

Turns out that my GP offers counselling on the NHS, so think I will give that a go. Talk about smoking, I wonder how much stress costs the country!

[the old girl]

I would like to ask Mr Barker what his feelings are on the subject of bullying managers as 7 out of 10 members of staff have been driven to long term sick over the last year or so at our office.

[the old girl]

The latest development on the lack of "duty of care" shown to me and my colleagues has got to the stage of the claim now being submitted to Royal Mail. Bring it on!

[baileycaravanner]

Hi old Girl

I do believe the end for the office troubles are in sight, should become clear very soon