The Ramblings Of A Wannabe Screenwriter...

So I thought I’d do a diaryesque blog type post as I tend to reblog others or Instagram links with photos I’ve shot.

So I had a pretty meh day at work today, infact work in general has been a bit meh. I work for a “luxury” brand but their methods are far from luxurious, I’ll refrain from the company as I still need to pay bills at the end of the month. 

It all began this morning while I was meeting a client and I literally bumped into my previous employments manager (Not directly to me) she was lovely and I had completely forgotten who she was, turned out that she had left the company and was on the up and up with the new place. She asked if I was loving my new job and my blanket response with fake enthusiasm made me think as I left the awkward encounter how, no I REALLY don’t enjoy my job at the moment. 

I wouldn’t consider myself overly sensitive, I do what I’m told, think on my own, initiate, delegate etc. Give advice, take advice and am generally a good all around employee if I do say so myself.
I’ve worked with many terrible people, managers and places, but I persevere after all a job is a job and I do like eating at the end of the day. 

The new job I took on back in December is far from what I imagined it to be, I have met with much hostility and plain rudeness, which is expected in my field but it pains me as to why people have to adhere to a certain stereotype in the workplace. But today took the biscuit. 

I am one member of a three person team, my colleague (Now friend and ally) are literally been taken for a ride with our manager who finds it acceptable to demand everything, is never happy, and expects things done 1 millisecond after he has asked for it, expects us to mind read, finds it acceptable to turn up and leave work when he pleases and finds it satisfying to point out things we have forgotten or not been shown how to do.
This past week, (Last minute I might add) My colleague and I went on a business trip across the UK and had no idea what was expected of us. We asked what was expected  of us and were greeted with a sneer despite not being on a business trip on our own. I am not saying we need to be spoonfed information, but it would literally be like telling someone to knit a jumper who has never done it before. Its a skill, you’d learn eventually after maybe several youtube videos or someone’s instruction but logically, you’d find a way. Which is the path me and my colleague went on, during the week we were not asked if we made safe journey to the 5 cities we were visiting and meeting people. But were demanded where things were back in the office that he should have known.
On return, we were not asked how the trip went, or if it was insightful, we were greeted with a text on a Sunday afternoon of the change in schedule and we were meeting somewhere else. 
On Monday we were treated like naughty children who had been caught not doing their homework as we began working on an installation that our manager should have begun and finished the week we were away. He snapped and wanted things done at a speed I’m sure would make give a person a heart attack. We returned to the office minus said manager, and proceeded to catch up on e-mails and correspondence we had missed and replied accordingly and got up to speed. For five straight hours, the manager took turns in ringing my colleague and I on “What’s happened to this?”, “Why did you write the e-mail this way?” he was basically finding ANYTHING to pick on us, luckily, I’m one of those annoying people that won’t rise to bait such as that, and responded with ” Oh dear,” he then proceeded to try and make it out that we had not done our work after an overseas colleague had not received a certain document. The manager gallantry began to “take charge” and asked if he had received other documents that I should have sent. The colleague (Overseas catch up!) then said he did receive my documents but not somebody else’s, (Which in her favour she did, but the colleague hadn’t checked properly) My manager then began saying how he would get ME to send MY document over, to which I succinctly e-mailed saying He HAS received my documents because I have SENT them MYSELF, and he had already mentioned he’d received them.
Being unable to grab anything else, he asks us to have our reports from the business trip ready as soon as possible.

So today, my colleague and I worked on the reports and finished them, around 12pm the manager then demanded us where they were and we said that we had done them. To which he replied, “Well we haven’t gone through them together” rolling our eyes. We then showed him and we could see the annoyance that we had done the reports far faster than a normal person would.

We sat together like a teacher marking work, and he was on a roll, picking on things commenting on our incompetence “I’m trying to be positive but everything I’m seeing is negative” and on the second report he snootily says ” You guys have been here three months, maybe I should reinterview you” took the biscuit. It wasn’t so much the reinterview part, but the fact that there was no disappointment in his tone, it was more that he was proud to say it. Maybe if he hadn’t been so “busy” meeting suppliers and leaving the office three hours early, he could train us so that we are up to his impossible standard. 

After the ordeal ended, only early because he “had to be somewhere”. My colleague and I say at our desks with faces on nonchalance. He put his coat on and said “I know everything you have heard is negative but don’t take it as a personal attack, its only related to work, I hope you take on board on things I have taught you” What you have taught me, is how much a lazy arse can get away with.

The issue here is we have no one to turn to which I do not wish on anyone, the manager in question has had strings of assistants who have come with high hopes and left due to his terrible work ethic which does not bode well for me and my friend. I have adopted a mantra of convincing myself I will be having a good day, to prepare for everything because this manager is a twisted nasty piece of work; like I said, he is comfortable saying horrid poisonous attacks but on anything that is recorded i.e e-mails and texts. He is your best friend. Therefore if we do complain, there is no record of it, so starting from today, my colleague and I have had enough and are recording everything being said. 

Being told I am need to be reinterviewed after 3 rounds of interviews and ACTUALLY working hard does not sit well I’m afraid. It is actually quite disappointing that apparently HR have known of this but have not acted on it. As we are all pretty indispensable really, we leave, two more keen candidates take our place, they leave, two more keen candidates take place. But this needs to stop, I work hard and put the hours in, I don’t deserve a gold star but I do at least expect gratitude. 

Its time to fight back.