What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?

[shehardlysleeps]

I’m in a reflective mood, and it’s got me thinking about something I did a few years ago which is probably the thing I’m most deeply ashamed of.

There was a coworker who really rubbed me up the wrong way. I was very unhappy at the time, and going through an awful time personally. She would make snide comments about me, do things with my family members (who were colleagues too) which really got my back up, I felt like she judged me harshly and was pretty rude. Along with another colleague they made three or four very nasty comments which still stick with me.

Instead of raising a grievance, which I should have done, I took to posting about her on another website (along the lines of Mumsnet), not realising she used it too. She saw the posts and reported me, and I ended up facing a meeting with HR and a senior partner of the firm I was working in. It damaged my reputation within the firm forever and I ended up leaving after not being offered a promotion. I still feel ashamed of it now, nearly half a decade on, and feel like it’s tarred me forever.

Whats the worst thing you’ve ever done?

Thanks @JudgeJ - I did as a last resort contact their Rotten Borough piece about what Surrey had got up to, spoke for over half an hour to the fellow running it, he seemed interested and said he's pass me on to their health correspondent Heather Mills; never heard back. That is in my experience what happens when contacting journalists about this kind of thing - they can run exposes on care homes - I've facilitated a few of them myself, including one in the Daily Mail and the Mirror - but trying to get to the dark characters in the Council behind it all, you can forget it, they can't be even named. But before you get ghosted you will have a happy, promising chat with the journalist in question, getting your hopes up... Local authorities plead poverty but spare no expense taking legal action against newspapers, that is one aspect to it.

All the ghouls who did this to us are still employed in Surrey 10 years on; I don't know if the new reorganisation of the Councils will change that. Probably not. If you know the dark secrets, you will be protected, you are gold dust.

@Tredadt Don't try to justify and excuse your poor behaviour by saying other people would do this. Not everyone has such low morals as you. Which is clearly shown from the comments regarding your post, throughout this thread.

@NewspaperTaxis I'm not clear what happened, did the care home deliberately dehydrate your parent so that they died?

Don’t judge us all by your own low standards, @Tredadt.

And actually you have not helped your dd - she needed to learn how to make her own way in the world, but all you have done is to make her completely reliant on you, if she wants to get anywhere in life. So now she can only work somewhere where her mum is her boss - that is infantilising her, not helping her.

I think the thing that really irritated me (and others) was the "lol".
You say your dd struggles with confidence etc, so do thousands of others.

She broke multiple internal rules and codes of conducts at her organisation..multiple major breachers. Conflict of interests.

Proud of it too.

Proud of holding other back in her team. What a great leader.

That's called rage bait and you're all falling for it.

It's a long story. She did nearly die - she was admitted to Epsom Hospital and on the third night her BP went down to something like 35 over 18, I mean that's end of days stuff, she was there for a month and a half and we arranged her a place at the Reigate Beaumont on fast-track NHS Continuing Healthcare. It was around this time of year, April.

Nobody got into trouble for it - and despite the Hospital saying they were dropping like flies at the other care home, and the CQC having visited (but nobody was informed about this) the care home had a 'Good' record from the CQC for half a year, til I phoned them up to complain - the bloke informed me, oh, yes, they'd been failed on all counts since their visit in Feb! So I took it to the press, around October that same year.

While it took a long time for it to dawn on me that the reason the Reigate Beaumont had it in for us that Christmas was because Surrey County Council had set us up, and were trying to get back at me via Mum at the new care home, it seems it was also because I'd noticed they weren't giving her sufficient drink, we had to come in daily and do it ourselves. Basically, it's the Liverpool Care Pathway, which was meant to be phased out that year. If they can guesstimate the elderly person has less than 3 months to live, I understand, then they can kill them off via dehydration. My understanding is that 'passive euthanasia' is legal though undertstandably the don't advertise that.

So if you ever read these stories in the tabloids of relatives being barred from the care home for 'abuse and intimidation' it's most likely because they've been raising concerns about poor care, little realising that if it's been secretly assessed the resident has less than 3 months to live, they won't get good care anyway, and that includes daily fluid intake.

It looks like Barchester's Reigate Beaumont were scared I'd figured out what was going on (I had, but didn't realise the low fluid thing was deliberate) and was going to take it to the press. So in a state of alert they contacted the Safeguarding team at Surrey and they arranged a hit job - this isn't actionable btw, it all came out in a Subject Access Request but the press couldn't run it. The aim was to have my sister and me barred from the home after some trumped up charged so they could do as they pleased; we got her out without their permission and she lived another three years pretty much.

A story in the Telegraph in Feb this year about a Barchester care home mentioned 'dehydration' - that seems to be a newspaper's way of tipping off those in the know about what is really going on.

You can take it to anyone you like - the CQC, the NMC, your local MP, the Police - nobody will ever be held to account and they all seem to know what's going on and will be keen to mess you about.

Compared to all this, someone on the Council pulling a few strings to get someone a job seems very small beer!

That is appalling and terrifying, @NewspaperTaxis - I am so sorry you and your mum had to go through such an ordeal.

Very true, I'll have to not reply to her.

She clearly pressed my buttons!

Thanks @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius - really I'm just tipping people off on what goes on, because these kind of stories don't go in the papers.

Will also add - please arrange for a parent to grant you Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) in Health and Welfare (and Finance) well in advance because otherwise you are not in charge of them once it is deemed they have lost mental capacity - and that is a very vague area. The Council were legally allowed to give us hell because they found out that while we had LPA in Finance, we didn't have it in Health and Capacity, so even though we were self-funding, they were in charge. Nice! They even tried to get themselves the Deputyship of her, according to the notes, so they could put her where they wanted - again, they're all still in their jobs.

LPA is like travel insurance, you have to get it in advance, not when you find out you need it, by then it's too late. Your parent has to have mental capacity to agree to it, the signature have to be witnessed by folk known to them by a few years and in the right order, it costs about £80 etc

Very good advice, @NewspaperTaxis. Dsis and I had LPA for my mum, and dh and his brother had it for their dad (my dad and his mum both died without needing them), and while we didn't need to use it for my mum, because she was living independently right up until her death, it was useful for dh and his brother when they sorted out my FIL's care, towards the end of his life. It made it possible for them to deal with his finances and to get him into a care home quickly and easily, once he'd decided it was necessary. It also meant that things were organised and tidy, so that when he did die, sorting out his estate was easier for them.

For me, that post actually caused a physical sensation - nausea! I'm not exaggerating. You might find it tedious, but I found it shocking in its brazenness and lack of remorse. We're all different.

I'm neither shocked nor bothered by people's sexual indiscretions - only by cruelty and in this case, callousness and corruption.

And the reason some of us have returned to it is because Tredadt is adamant they did nothing wrong - when the whole point of this thread is recounting things people know were/are wrong, and most people regret them.

But that's it as far as I'm concerned.

Bit hysterical.

That’s not so bad, standard hiker’s procedure!

No, I wouldn’t, because I have the integrity that you lack. My son, also, will have been raised to have integrity of his own and I won’t fail him by spoon feeding him throughout his life.

And it violates to many internal policies.
I'd give my DC interview prep but I wouldn't do such a big conflict of interest. Gosh

I mean it's very easy to say you wouldn't do X or Y but ultimately meaningless unless you've been confronted with that exact same situation.

Got drunk after going out with office girls on last day in a job. They lined vodkas up and felt bad as they'd paid for them so knocked them straight back. Out in fresh air omg. Collapsed on toilet floor, my regular lift refused to take me home in his car, and I told boss to drop dead and asked one of the girls if I could sleep with her!! Also wouldn't let boss take me home. We'd fallen out when I took a day off to go for an interview and prospective new employer rang that afternoon for a reference. Uh-Oh. Awful hangover next day. Never again.

It’s not even the conflict of interest that’s so bad. It’s the fact she’s failed her daughter and can’t even see it, she thinks she’s done her a favour instead it’s the exact opposite.

I think most of us have been confronted with bringing our children up properly.

Can’t believe the number of posters who slept with their friend’s boyfriend / husband/ fiancé .

Now who's rage bating?