Walked into a shit show

[Melony17]

I’ve started a new job recently. Honestly, I’ve come in as the manager and staffing is diabolical. People are just going off left right and centre and not just for a day. For prolonged periods. I’m honestly losing the will with these people.

I don’t want to divulge what I do. But it’s a proper profession whereby attendance shouldn’t be this poor. It just feels like I’m managing a mess. I have nothing but hassle from the moment I walk in to the moment I leave. I left my old work place for this reason. And now I’ve picked up the same shit in a diff place.

He sounds vile, i hope karma bites him!

It will be because of bad management. People who are pushed too hard disengage, do the minimum and go off sick because their job is unbearable. Staff who are appreciated and are given time and space to do their job will only go off sick when they are ill.

I really hope so. He was dreadful.

Of the ridiculously generous policies guarantee 6 months full pay and 6 months half pay with no measures at the end. As a senior manager in the NHS, of course we have genuine illness but we also have an unusually large amount of people totally working the system and we are powerless to effectively manage them due to the overbearing unions and risk averse culture. It is beyond frustrating as we are failing the staff who consistently appear and only use sickness absence when they genuinely need it.

You’re probably right, I didn’t know about the huge amount of paid time off that was available before this thread!

If it’s a General Further Education College then I recommend you get out now - run like the wind and don’t look back!

Funny how a lot of men have a “breakdown” when they’re caught cheating. And then claim to have been suffering from mental health issues all along - because, as we all know, a common symptom of depression is the inability to stop yourself shagging people you’re not supposed to…

Yes...I recall thinking the same thing. I always thought that stress caused ED. Apparently not.

In the staffroom, we had a coterie of middle-aged men who were his pals and who set out to make life difficult for me. One, in particular, was a real letch. [Divorced 3 times.] Like speaks to like.

One day, predecessor was off yet again. Someone was stuck on a crossword puzzle and asked me for help. Truthfully, I told them that I was rubbish at cryptic crosswords. The Letch piped up: "[Predecessor] would have known!"

Almost to my horror, I heard my voice retorting: "I might be shite, but at least I'm at my work!"

Just then, I realised that the Scotsman newspaper sitting opposite me had started to shake. It was our ex-naval officer Assistant Rector trying to conceal his laughter.

I think jobs in health and education are under relentless pressure, with pay and conditions getting repetitively worse every year. The professionals who went into those jobs were usually highly motivated and altruistic, and then hit the wall of burnout as well as cynicism when they realise that their goodwill has been taken advantage of.

Bad central funding management means that they've had to constantly turn 9n the thumbscrews to get additional "productivity". The problem with these supposed productivity improvements is they're not genuine changes, they're just screwing morecwork from the same staff.

If i compare my friends and family, the private sector have a much more comfortable jobs, salaries, and realistic expectations, but more uncertainty around the future. The public sector have better terms and conditions like absence pay and pensions plys job security, but its sheer hell every day now.

We need to rethink public sector HR policy. It's become so woke you can't get rid of the maliciously incompetent minority. That then puts pressure on everyone else to cover, and it's a downward spiral of burnout, illness and low morale. It has no end until you can rely on someone turning up reliably to do a day's work. 🙄

Yes agreed but also a knackered and now sacked solicitor. Everyone was furloughed except me. "Oh X is great in a crisis!" I didn't feel great. When people came back to work, they all booked their holidays. Then people started leaving and muggins here started taking on all of their work. It wasn't pretty. I did say no, blamed it on my "depression". Had three months off on 15% pay. My parents both died. I don't know why I was made to feel guilty about this. They have no HR department. Xx

I'm so sorry, @Ilovegrantnicholas. What a mess 😢 Alongside your post, lots of others are describing situations with zero staff 'redundancy' (spare capacity) so those with the broadest shoulders get more piled on until they, too, cave under the pressure.

Employers are neither hiring enough people nor taking care of the ones they have. It goes a long way to explain the explosion in sick leave and, consequently, the poor service we're seeing in so many areas.

I do hope you're in a position to regroup and recover. I know it's not easy

Good on you! Loved your accidental “Mrs X” comment too.