It's ruinign our lives..and not sure what to do (constructive dismissal)

[Shiraz]

Yea whingey old me again! I know i vowed not to whinge anymore but i'm just so low and teary today.

Dp has been having the worst time possible at work this year. He is an Area Manger/Supervisor and works below three directors. Basically one of them was demoted (although no-one knows this..and know the other two have started to 'pick' on dp. I left a farily good job in June this year as they asked dp to change his hours and they would put him on a much better salary. After months of asking for this to be put into action so he wasnt working every hour god sent, it didnt come to fruition and they denied all knowledge about it. Then his female director started to slash his wages for no reason, with no explanation. It took three months for them to admit they had done it, then blatantly lied saying it's because he hasn't done the work (when they know he has etc). So his wages since sept have been about £1000 below what they should of been. Therefore forcing me to go out and get a job. We live in a lovely old farmhouse, middle of fields, no transport links....what dp has always worked hard for. On top of this they have been pushing him out...treating him like a technician, taking his weekend work away form him (which makes his wages up)...have taken all responsibilities off him...but he was advised not to leave as they owe him lots of money and it is constructive dismissal. We have a solicitor in line now...and as from tomorrow she has advised him to resign and all correspondance will go through her...He's been through the grievance prosedure and tey even tried to bully him in one of his meetings and ther HR Manager fo another party of the company sat and let them...then when he was advised to suspend the meeting if it got like that...they sent him a snotty letter syaing HE was out of order and his grievance had failed and he was to carry on doing what he was told...

My mother can no longer look after dd during the week as she lost her weekend job, so has gone back to her old job during the week.

At the moment Mark is on Xmas holidays but should be handing in his notice tomorrow so he can go for constructive dismissal (his solicitor thinks he will get a settlement or win a tribual case no problem at all). Which is great...however my job at argos will not supprt us as i am only receiving what hours they can give me (between 16 and 34)..and the wages are pants and i frigging hate it. PLus as it only started as a xmas temp job they kept a few of us on until the end of Jan so even if i can still keep getting there after 20th Jan i may too be jobless.

Yes okay i could go out and look for another job..but if work pay Mark his month ahead in lieu of notice we have no transport (company car) and no money to buy a car (i knew we should never of sold ours :roll: )....so i cannot get to work. Even if i walked into the village over the main road (which is incredibly dangerous) to catch the bus..it doesn't take me where i'd need to be for most jobs, and i can't afford the bus fare....

Mark is struggling to find anything work wise at all at the moment......okay so we could move, but he then needs to look for jobs in other areas which is proving the BIGGEST pain in the arse possible aswell..but we have no money to do that. We are two months behind on the mortgage, have had to have an electric meter fitted as NPOWER are bar stewards and bloody messed up :evil: :evil: ..and to top all that off...on Friday night our central heating went kaput as the oil tank must be leaking...we've no oil left (we opnly put some in at the end of Nov)... :evil: and the heaters we have borrowed off family are costing us the earth in electric tokens.

5 months ago i was full of joy and our outlook was superb....i was soo happy.... how did we get to bloody rock bottom..I have never said i HATED anyone and meant it like i do towards dp's bosses.... :cry: :cry:

I keep trying to think positive.....but NOTHING is coming our way...and today i cannot stop crying.....

God so sorry to bloody rant.... I know we have a solicitor/arbitrator in place now...but it doesn't help with the immediacies....iykwim

sounds terrible shiraz. do feel for you.

i think you both need to sit down and think about what it is you want to do with the rest of your lives. does your dh want to stay in the same profession, or is this an opportunity to do something completely different - perhaps for both of you.

although it's terrible at the moment, with a couple of bottles of wine, you might be able to do some really big thinking about what it is you've both always dreamt of doing. with no commitments holding you back, you could consider a huge range of options. once you've got that sorted out, you can concentrate on trying to get yourself there.

practically, if you haven't already spoken to your mortgage company, you need to. they usually pretty good as long as you keep communicating with them.

Sounds terrible Shiraz. My dp was made redundant in Nov so I'm in a similar (although not quite so bad) boat.

Sounds like you should get yourselves down to the Citizen's Advice Bureau asap as you are falling behind with the bills. They are free, expert, and they really will help you to sort your finances out. That would be a good first step before you start on everything else.

Yep, when i met dp he had his own business....(same industry..and yes i was his 'secretary') as his ex wife was friends with his business partner, they basically buggered up his business.

However now we have a business plan to put into action. He is incredibly good at what he does and really knows his stuff. He has the gifty of the gab when it comes to clients and sales etc....so that is the most positive foot we can put forward. What we need to do is raise the money for a vehicle first and foremost, which is proving difficult thanks to the debts from his previous marriage. Once that is inline...things should start moving quite nicely as the company isn't too costly to set up and he can do most of the manual work on his own and with the help of friends and family at first.

It is just that at the moment when i say we have NO money we really do have NO money....all we are getting is whatever wage i bring home from my xmas temp job...and that is being used for food and electric tokens.

I suppose there is nowhere else we can go but upwards and forwards now we are at rock bottom...

I suppose he could continue to work in his current job for another month to get a little more money but it is driving us into the ground...we've been oputting up with it for months now and we cannot continue...but we have had no money to play with. grrrrrrr..sorry to rant...

Edam citizens advice have been helping us through the employment issues and have been a great help when they can fit us in....but there really is nothing they can do to help us with bills etc...all we can do is be honest with the utilities but they really couldn't give a shite. Unfortunatley, when you ar ein this situation you realise how awful the world can actually be and you realise how people get into debt so quickly adn that it truely is out of their hands.

Oh well...

hope things improve for you soon shiraz. cant think of anything constructive to say, just been though work hell myself, it is so demoralising, you just have to keep on believing in yourself.

Just wanted to say how much I feel for you - I know what you mean about the constant crying. I have to do it out of sight of ds (2.9) but so hard to put a brave face on isn't it!

Thanks so much for your post on my thread, I didn't realise just how bad things were for you when I replied.

I'm so lucky that the big debt (£14k) is with my parents and they have let us cancel our standing order for now. Doesn't get rid of the £3500 overdraft problem and the fact that some of that is now unauthorised so more charges - appeals all been turned down Can't get a credit card any more. And now we have £150 less income than needed for bills and that's BEFORE food shopping I really understand how you feel and would like to take you up on your offer of supporting each other, oh, just received your email so that's sorted then .

The way I see it is things can't get any worse can they?!!

Will now reply to your email!