AIBU to go off sick over complaint about me at work

[SadlyNotATroll]

have kept some details deliberately vague but will try to give as much detail as I can. I work in the public sector dealing with members of the public, making decisions that affect their lives. We recently recruited and I chaired the recruitment panel. Due to legal issues affecting our department we were no longer able to recruit and withdrew the vacancy. I was tasked with communicating this decision to the unsuccessful applicants after they had interviewed, but was not able to offer any information as to why they were unsuccessful, despite them being told if they were unsuccessful that they would get feedback.

One of the candidates was very upset about this and emailed me several times asking for feedback. I explained I could no longer provide feedback but I couldn’t explain why. Upper management forbade me from providing any further context, e.g. that there was a legal issue affecting the vacancy. The candidate emailed me several times over the following days and I replied each time saying I was sorry but the decision was final.

They have now complained about me and I am being investigated. I am confident I have done nothing wrong but I am so anxious about the process. I’ve been told it could take up to 4 weeks. I’ve been invited to a formal interview next week and have asked a member of the union to come with me. I don’t know if it would look bad if I went off sick. I’m so anxious my brain keeps jumping to the worst conclusion. I just don’t know what to do.

Welcome to the public sector!

Hopefully management sees quickly that investigating you is ridiculous.
if you can try stay calm and not go off. That said if you are really struggling take a day or two

If you have followed the instructions you were given in terms of telling the candidates there is no longer a vacancy then surely you have no need to stress over any action that you have taken.
Print all the emails, sent and received, and take those plus any personal notes you made to the interview. Having a union rep with you is a positive move but it would be best to not go sick.

my money is on a local authority

@SadlyNotATroll You were just executing orders however bonkers they might be so the responsability is with your managers. Really try to shrug it off. I understand how you feel though. SS investigated us due to my disabled son not attending school. Camhs and private psychiatrist was involved and he was awaiting a SEN school place. Even school was onboard with him not coming in because he spent his time crying in a corner shaking. I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong and that dh and I are good and supportive parents (I used to be a SW so I knew this would be routine investigation and that they wouldn't find any reason to go on with it because all professionnals knew what was going on and were involved). Yet I was so anxious and could hardly sleep. It's the fact that you're being accused of something- no matter that you know you're innocent- it's really troublesome. But you know what the outcome will be so just hold your head high and wait for this mess to be dealt with.

Meet with your superiors who issued those instructions and ask them to stand with you.

If you are suffering badly from the stress of it all, I would certainly see my GP and tell him about it.
You don’t need to go off sick even if he offers to issue a ‘sick/fit’ note for you but it may be useful if you show you needed to consult your GP for help dealing with the situation.
Especially as your senior management seem as if they could be total wankers and throw you under the bus. (again)

Are you too ill to work? If not, why would it be appropriate for you to go off sick?

@MyDeftDuck I don’t think she was even allowed to tell the candidates that there was no longer a vacancy? If that had been allowed it might have diffused the situation with the complaining candidate? Honestly stuff like this makes me glad to be retired. Good luck @SadlyNotATroll I am sure you won’t need it though as I can’t see what you have done wrong. Your line manager should have stepped in and contacted the candidate that was constantly emailing you.

Are you a union member? Seek union advice.

It sounds like it’s being treated very seriously but something seems a bit off here to me - in that you’re being pulled into a ‘formal’ meeting.

Has management not already been involved in order to clarify the situation and that you were just following the instructions you were given? Or do you work in a shit show of a place that can’t be trusted to manage anything properly.

I’m sorry you’re going through this. Get your timeline and evidence together as a PP suggested. Can you meet the union rep in the meantime to discuss things?

This

Sounds like just following their complaints process, hopefully they’ll soon tell the complainant to fuck off.

If your level of stress and anxiety means you are worried about your ability to do your job, and is affecting you to the point where your mental health is being severely impacted, you are absolutely not unreasonable to go off sick. You can self-certify for the first 7 days usually but you might feel more secure to get a fit note from the start (from a GP or any other appropriate professional who works at your GP practice - some have a mental health specialist of some other kind, like a nurse, who handles this). And yes the term 'fit note' is weird (the old term 'sick note' seemed to make more sense to me!) but that's just the name they've given it now.

Of course it is often hard to determine what counts as too stressed and anxious to work. This massive area of subjectivity is the reason that we get all these news stories and political debates about where the line should be drawn.

However the best person to determine the level of severity is ultimately you.

Ultimately your managers seem to have directly caused you this stress and anxiety by behaving like dicks - it is frankly shocking that you are being investigated in what seems from the info you've given like a completely clear-cut case of 'not your fault at all'. If you are on the fence about what to do, it would be understandable for this context to push you towards going off sick. Hopefully this won't be the main factor in your decision though. Even if the situation were different (you had genuinely messed up, or your managers were wonderful), it would still be up to you to determine whether you are well enough to work, at least for those self-certification days. People who make big mistakes and people with great managers can also be too stressed and anxious to work.

Good luck - it sounds like a ridiculous and yet deeply horrible situation.

Unhinged applicant. Thank heavens they were not hired.

Why didn't HR contact the applicant?

Hopefully you get full sick pay then :)

Going off sick would be a huge mistake.

Why are you worrying about this, you followed instructions, end of.

OP it sounds as though they are duty bound to ‘investigate’ any time a complaint is made, as some kind of Kafkaesque public sector rigmarole.

I’d be well fucked off with management in your position, as this is a shitty thing to ask you do to do job applicants - even though the one who complained sounds like a nutter. It’s awful enough interviewing for a job that gets pulled, but even worse that they won’t be honest about it.

I think it would be entirely reasonable to go off sick. I would be too stressed to work properly. All sympathies to you, what an awful and unreasonable situation to put you in.

I don't understand why you weren't allowed to say the vacancy had been withdrawn. They didn't have to be told there was a legal issue. How odd.

Easy for me to say I know, but I dont know why you are being stressed. You were told what to do. You did it. Thats it. Nothing more to say to any investigation or panel.

Told not to give feedback. Told not to say why you couldnt give feedback. Thats what you did. Thats all there is too it.

It should be water off a ducks back.

Carry on at work and just make sure you have those emails.

No idea why HR didn't DO THEIR JOB and intervene in this situation. But not at all an unhinged candidate IMHO - if I went to an interview where I was promised feedback and was then told 'no feedback', I'd be pursuing the case too. Your senior management (and HR) sound like shit. Unless the original discriminatory feedback was down to you, and the hearing is actually about that, you have absolutely nothing to worry about. But then, I quite enjoy a good scrap against morons, and watching them dig themselves into ever deeper holes.

So you will stay home funded by the tax payer?

My friend works for the NHS and it’s the same there she says. Lots of people getting paid but not working for no real reason.

If you are so stressed that you cannot work, taking time off sick is justified. Particularly when the stress is directly caused by the workplace / management.

I don’t know why, given the circumstances of the legal case, HR couldn’t provide a standard response to feedback for this. Or why you couldn’t escalate the applicant to HR after they contacted you initially for feedback.

this is absolutely the result of pushing HR responsibilities into individual managers.

sadly you’re going to have to go through the investigation (why isn’t it being handled in accordance with the complaint procedure and rather like a grievance?

your union rep should have your back. This should. Be very easy especially given everything is in writing and you were following directions.

I've been in situations where we decided not to recruit in the end, and whilst that is frustrating for everyone involved, I'd have said very sorry but due to a change in circumstances we are unable to recruit at this time, rather than try and fob people off by saying not possible to give feedback that had previously been promised. Why were you advised not to do that?

It might be worth raising a counter grievance of your own regarding the instructions given, and lack of support after implementing them.