To have been eating lunch in my car?

[DogHair]

Name change as potentially outing. I started a new job in July, it’s health profession but mostly office based. I find the place quite overwhelming and I don’t feel like i fit in. Antics include running around the office with no top on, screaming at top volume. Throwing things around, calling each other horrible nicknames, dragging each other around on the floor, locking each other in cupboards, dead arm fights etc. On one occasion it was someone’s birthday and they had done a buffet. A food fight broke out and although I didn’t get involved I did end up with my uniform covered in chocolate cake. I had specifically asked them not to throw anything at me as I had afternoon home visits. I was covered in it and had to drive home and get changed in order to go out to visits again.
Anyway a month or so of this and I just can’t cope with it. I’ve started driving to the quayside and eating lunch in my car. Today I was called into managers office asked why I disappear at lunch time and was I having problems with anyone. I said no and made out that the office lights give me migraine. I was asked to make more effort to intergrate into the team which means coming to office at lunch times. It’s making me so anxious I’m seriously considering going off on sick. Husband thinks I’m being precious but I can’t face it. I suffer with social anxiety anyway and this is making it so much worse.

PLEASE REPORT THIS OP. This is a healthcare company. What kind of health 'care' can these toxic morons provide? You owe it to yourself and the endpoint client to report this vile company.
I would get a hidden camera broach or something.

That this is a 'health profession' is worrying!

Do you work at the Brittas Empire ?! Only us oldies will remember that.

For you - leave. This is probably not going to get better - cultures like this don't tend to change until there is a critical mass / change of (strong) leadership.
Eat your lunch in your car - it's your business. Some of us need space in the day to recharge away from other people.

For the team - I'd be concerned this is the sign of a team that is really not coping with the personal impact of the work they are doing. I wonder if behaviour deteriorated under the stress of the last 18 months? Is this having an impact on patient care? Try to keep a diary of this nonsense and consider sharing in your exit interview.

Is it a care company full of teenagers ?

This is the problem with the care system in the UK at the moment - you'd achieve more by whistleblowing and taking the story to a newspaper to expose it. If management and HR know of the issues then they're part of the problem. Do the right thing and try take steps to fix it rather than walk away and leave it for the next person.

That sounds like an absolute nightmare, I think I'd go and have my lunch elsewhere too.

It's none of their business what you do on your lunchbreak! They don't have to know it's because you don't like them. Maybe you enjoy reading. Maybe you've got calls to make. Maybe you need to call your elderly mother every day. Maybe you like to go for a jog. None of their business!!

I can't decide if I believe this thread is genuine or not because what the OP describes is so mad.

If it is also true that people have complained already and management will not get rid of the topless loony 'because she's not easily replaced' then really I think public whistleblowing is the only possible way the get this resolved.

As a student I worked a few shifts in a factory and it was like this.
One day a group of women stripped a man to his pants and cellophaned him to a pallet for hours. All sorts went on, it was terrifying
Management didn’t care about anything unless it was stealing

Oh god is this the place where people did a shit in filing cabinet? If it’s in Yorkshire it probably is my friend worked there and said she was bullied after she complained. Someone needs to report those stupid idiots as they’re liabilities.

This is shocking beyond belief 😳
If you can't complain, I guess your only option is to leave.

This is such unprofessional behaviour and your workplace frankly sounds hideous. I'm an HCP (nurse), I like a good laugh/bit of banter with my workmates, but what you've described sounds bloody awful, and rightly wouldn't be allowed where we work!! Is there someone higher up where you can raise these concerns to? I'd definitely raise these issues and get them nipped in the bud.

YANBU because frankly, the place sounds awful. I am astounded that the manager finds such behaviour acceptable

I manage a large department (different context) but no way would I tolerate this. There would be strong words from me and it would be taken higher up.

I would either go to HR and/or, go back to the manager and explain that the behaviour of your colleagues is driving you mad and so you go out for lunch for a bit of peace and quiet!

Get ĺooking for another job and tell the manager why!

@Aspergirl77

If your break is unpaid that is your own time and you can do as you wish.

This.

I can believe this really happens. Those of you who don't believe it are lucky to have only worked in professional environments and it's ridiculous that I even have to say that.

OK i know you're going to say "no" but I'm going to ask anyway: are you in a union?

(join one. Now. It will take 3 months before you can make good use of them but there you go)

Do not put up with this. And certainly don't put up with

They’ve started holding meetings at lunch time and it’s the norm for everyone to sit eating their lunch during the meeting. It’s worse on a weekend. I work one in 3 weekends and it’s my turn this week, totally dreading it and honestly not sure if I can do it

you are entitled to a break - even in Britain i think - and any meetings held over lunchtime are not meetings that I'd go to. Tell them you'll take your lunch break either immediately before or immediately after the meeting.

And get a new job. Urgently.

I do believe you. I have worked in a setting where the behaviour of others was not too dissimilar. I was also the recipient of a 'prank' that really upset me (bullying under the guise of a joke).

Start looking for another job.

Gather evidence (time, place, what happened, what was done (if anything). Whistleblow (as has been suggested before).

In many cases where poor working practices occur, individuals let things go or join in with the bad practice because they are afraid. It sounds like someone is already putting pressure on you to join in or put up with this behaviour, by reporting your 'lack of team playing' to management. It is a toxic environment and has no place in the care sector.
Apply for other jobs, report to CQC, and leave.

@jessycake

Is it a care company full of teenagers ?

I wondered that. It sounds like the kind of behaviour you’d see from a bunch of eighteen year olds in a uni hall of residence, not a professional workplace. As for being told you can’t eat your lunch in the car, well I know loads of people who do that or who go out for a walk or even pop home if they live close enough. It’s even more common in Covid times. They can’t tell you how to spend that time.

Jaysus op. It sounds like you are working for Nurse Ratchett in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Are you sure that they are not the people who need treatment 🤔. Definitely get a new job and in the meantime keep taking your lunch wherever tf you want. What a shower of assholes.

This sounds absolutely intolerable, I can't believe what I've just read. It sounds as if you work with a lot of dysfunctional, immature teenagers.
Running around without a top on - wtf???

I think its def time to start looking for another job. I am shocked by how unprofessional this sounds, especially this topless-running woman.

Upon leaving (and as long as it doesnt impact your new job) I would write chapter and verse to them detailing all the awful incidents and why this has prompted you to leave. Send it not just to your manager but to your manager’s manager and all the way up the chain. They should be made to behave like professional adults instead of a bunch of ferrets.

@DogHair

They’ve started holding meetings at lunch time and it’s the norm for everyone to sit eating their lunch during the meeting. It’s worse on a weekend. I work one in 3 weekends and it’s my turn this week, totally dreading it and honestly not sure if I can do it

If you're having meetings at lunch time, you're not getting the statutory minimum meal break. A meeting is NOT a break!

Their behaviour is totally out of order, unprofessional and puerile. I know what it's like to work in a challenging field and totally get that people need to vent and let off steam, but this goes way beyond that.

Have you tried telling your colleagues that their behaviour makes you feel uncomfortable and that you want to be left alone to get on with your work? Or your manager? If they know you don't like it, but carry on regardless, then it's a form of bullying or harrassment.

I've worked in some places where there's been a fair amount of horseplay from time to time, but this behaviour is totally unacceptable. Everyone involved would be on disciplinary proceedings if they behaved like that where I work.

But no, you're not unreasonable to eat in your car. I used to do it sometimes.

And this is the NHS .? My God.. what an enviroment to work in
How does any work get done ?

This is all utterly bizarre, like all the absolute nob heads from school have converged on a single place of work and carried on as though they were still at school.
You need to get out of there ASAP.