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    The Work Experience
    The Work Experience
    The Work Experience
    Ebook111 pages2 hours

    The Work Experience

    By L Tait

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A quirky novella exploring the working world, with some of my own personal experiences thrown into the mix!

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherL Tait
    Release dateMay 29, 2018
    ISBN9781386071341
    The Work Experience

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      Book preview

      The Work Experience - L Tait

      The Work Experience

      L Tait

      Published by L Tait, 2018.

      While every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

      THE WORK EXPERIENCE

      First edition. May 29, 2018.

      Copyright © 2018 L Tait.

      ISBN: 978-1386071341

      Written by L Tait.

      Also by L Tait

      The Van Helsen Series

      Frenemies

      Home Truths

      The Reunion

      Loose Cannon

      Satan's Game

      Artistic Differences

      Keeping Secrets

      Identity Crisis

      Undecided...

      Standalone

      If Only!

      School Daze!

      Random Quest

      I'm Not As Green As I'm Cabbage Looking!

      The Work Experience

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Copyright Page

      Also By L Tait

      The Work Experience

      The Work Experience

      Introduction

      Hello! Yes, it’s me! Your humble narrator! Back again! But...it is with a particular agenda in mind! The world of work! From the Hell that is jobseeking, to the joys of being part of the working population, I am prepared to give it the old college try! From my own side of things, I felt compelled to write this because, recently, after having worked religiously for twenty years (but, not continuously! I mean, I had to eat, sleep, stop myself from going insane at times at the logistical nightmare that is human existence, you get my meaning!) I found myself among the unemployed, through no fault of my own. It was either the job, or my health, and my health won out! It is my understanding that, if you are in a situation where you can’t decide what to do, something happens that takes the decision out of your hands. In my case, I felt like my brain was going to explode with all of the conflicting information my immediate superiors were bombarding me with! I knew I was doing a good job, but they pushed, and pushed, and pushed me so far, that, if I didn’t leave, and leave when I did, I wouldn’t have been able to recover, as I have. It’s taken me a few months, but, here’s the thing! I worked for my previous boss for thirteen years, and never once did I experience the symptoms I did when working for my most recent boss, who I inherited after the business was bought out. The big boss (who I got on with really well) offered me a post in another shop, and it was like Utopia for my two month trial, until I agreed to stay on in that shop, which then evolved into The Little Shop Of Horrors! Two in particular! And, before I knew what was going on, I found myself trying to grapple with the most gruesome twosome it had ever been my great misfortune to work with! And, by November 2015, I was exhibiting the very scary early signs of stress! And it is indeed frightening when you feel like your brain is shutting down like regional T.V stations used to in the 1980s, when the continuity announcer would appear on screen and say that there were no more programmes, and bid you goodnight! I’ll explain all this later! Needless to say, you know you’re in a bad work situation when all it takes is nine months for your brain to start going into self preservation mode. Apparently, the brain, when under chronic stress, produces macrophages, and, in turn, affects short term memory, speech, concentration, coordination, thinking, motor responses. There was a study conducted in Ohio, where mice, when repeatedly exposed to a bully, or ‘alpha’ mouse, exhibited memory loss, in that they couldn’t remember the location of a hole they had made only moments before. But, when the bully mouse was removed, within a month, their short term memories returned. As the brain has no pain receptors, this is how chronic stress manifests itself, via brain inflammation. I googled it, and everything checked out! My short term memory is all but restored now, but, when I was working under these conditions (don’t get me wrong, the work was easy, it was the supervisor and the manager who were hard work!) I felt like I was locked out of my brilliant brain, and others who have experienced this will relate to this. Now, at the time of writing this, I am still desperately seeking work, and don’t plan on releasing this until I am in a job again. After all, I don’t want to ruin my chances of getting a new job, so, if you are reading this, you can take it as read that I have found myself a job. Due to circumstances beyond my immediate control, which I will also elaborate upon later, I wasn’t given the opportunity to stay in my job while seeking another one, but, on reflection, I couldn’t have lasted any longer and I wanted to get my head together for my next posting. So, sit back and relax! Take a break from those endless job listings, and spend some time with me! Can you think of a better person to spend your time with? No? Then, let us proceed! Dust down your resume, and step into my universe! You’ll be glad you did! And...you are very welcome!

      Lilian Tait

      January 2017

      Part One

      The Early Days

      So, time to cast my mind back to where it all began! Early November 2016!

      Now, I didn’t take the decision to quit lightly! I enlisted the help of a trusted family member, who, despite being five years my junior, has a very sensible head on her shoulders! I told her my dilemma, and her response was immediate. I suppose I would have done the same, but, I had to get an outside perspective! Sherlock Holmes valued ‘an outside eye’, as he put it, and so, it made sense to ask her opinion. In fact, she tipped me off about what was going on in that Little Shop Of Horrors very early on, from around August 2015, and the endless progress reports I sent her via text! ‘They don’t like you,’ were her exact words! And, boy, was she right! The big boss is out of this equation, so, don’t factor him in on this story! And there were a few others who did like me, I suppose, but, over time, even the very people who I had worked with under the old order, fell prey to the ringleader and the lies she spread about me, and how was I supposed to compete with that? My instinct never fails me, and it works outside of me, like an intuitive response, if you will! I sensed that there was a lot going on behind the scenes that I didn’t know about! All I knew was that I worked hard and, for the most part, well! Even over the next year, I soldiered on, and was able to pull it out of the hat! It was only when the ringleader took a nervous breakdown, and blamed me for it, that I realised I was really up against it, and sought advice. I suspected that this nervous breakdown was brought on by something going on in the ringleader’s home life, or to draw attention away from a big boo boo she had made somewhere, because, I have wracked my brain, and, I can’t think of anything I did wrong that would have triggered it! I came in, did my work, got the hell out of there at the end of my shift! That’s it!

      As for the lead up to the event, my advisor said I should text the big boss, and tell him I wanted out, which I did. We arranged a meeting away from the shop a few days later. I was on holiday at the time, and we talked for a bit. I hoped he would have been able to overturn what had happened. But, he couldn’t, and he said that the manager of the shop I worked in (he is best buds with him, by the way) wouldn’t fire me, but I begged to differ. From the ridiculous reasons cited in my disciplinary letter, the outcome of which would mean a final written warning or dismissal, it would only take one more stupid thing I allegedly did for the manager to view that as grounds for dismissal. Or, when the appraisals rolled around in January, all it would take was a bad appraisal to get me out the door. Something I knew the management specialised in, if the last put down session was anything to go by! It was getting to the point where, if I looked at the manager funny, he would instantly dismiss me, by putting some sort of weird spin on it, just to get me out. I figured, this way, I got some severance pay, and I refused to let this venomous manager get the satisfaction of firing me. If I were to tell you that my last appraisal lasted two hours (this guy really knew how to spin things out! More on that later!) and that none of it was complimentary or constructive, and, in some sense, completely irrelevant, you’ll have some idea of what I was dealing with. If anything, it was like a one on one motivational speech session, where the manager’s sole 'motive’ was to make me feel like the scum of the Earth, like I was the sole nominee in the Worst Worker and Human Being In The Whole History Of The Entire Universe Awards. I sensed, after the two hour ear bashing, that merely made me feel like my glass was half empty, and not half full, that he derived some sense of glee at being able to spend a whole two hours trashing my good reputation, and I held on to my belief that I’d worked for thirteen years with very little complaint! It was my understanding that appraisals weren’t put down, confidence trashing sessions, and that they were meant to be productive, constructive, discussions, with the nett gain of a better performance. Only, despite the scarcity of constructive advice, when I put into practice what had been suggested, it got me nowhere! I couldn’t go any faster than I was going,

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