bullying at work

[sailingmummy]

worried and pissed off with my boss. On my way into work today, I was literally behind a huge crash on the A3 and had to phone for ambulance, police etc. I had one man complaining of chest pains (overweight and diabetic too) - who was clutching his chest (heart ?), together with a man who had not been wearing his seatbelt (?) who gashed his head open on the windscreen as he hit it, and had an injured leg. As I had to make the 999 call and then give a prime witness statement I was late to work. I arrived at work really shaken up by the experience and had to sit down for 15 mins to gather my thoughts and have a quick coffee before entering the classroom to teach. My boss has made snide remarks all day about me getting into the classroom 15 mins after arriving at school. I was shaken up by witnessing and dealing with the whole thing. Was I right to have a quick sit down or taking the piss? I feel like I am being bullied by her. Meeting with her and deputy head at end of week where no doubt they will have a go at me :(

You were right to have a sit down. better to gather your thoughts than go into class and meltdown. Who did you tell? Who covered for you? As long as you let people know, then they can't really find fault, and even if you didn't, the extenuating circumstances are so extreme that you can be quite firm in standing your ground that you made a good decision due to the physical and mental shock of the situation you'd been involved in.
Stand up to bullies totally. Don't apologise. Call them immediately if they are snide or make digs.

You did entirely the right thing. To have gone straight into the classroom might have been asking for trouble - you were, when you got to work, still shaken and upset.

Have you written your boss a note - explaining the reason for the lateness? Hard to believe that at the meeting your managers will be critical of your very reasonable behaviour. If they are, consider further action of some kind and certainly, I agree with racingheart, do not apologise. Rather say that, in your opinion, you did the professional thing which was to compose yourself. Actually, if you told the school what you'd seen, you should have been offered support and not snide comments.