Bullying at work.

[PTvor]

I had this problem once and I didn't know what to do. Eventually I took the **** out of the bloke without trying hard. He tried to come back and he wasn't very good at it, so it was like twisting his arms into the ropes and giving him a good working over. He left me alone after that.

Years later in the same company he introduced me as by far the nastiest person he'd ever known. I said he'd obviously lead a sheltered life.

All a shame because he had genuine talent, but an ego as big as a planet and as fragile as a balloon.

However, you can't use someone else's weapons without inviting catastophe, so I'm not suggesting you take the **** unless that's what you find easy.

TBH, it sounds like a really weird and unhealthy scene which you're not going to fix. Suffering it as long as you can and finding a more agreable place to work seems the most practical way.

 

[ronan]

makesure u have another job before u tell em to shove it up there ar./,././se otherwise u will get a bad refrence . i told my gaffer to shove it where the sun dont shine after 25 years then took all his work and customers :

Yeah, but if a job is so bad then it'll do your head no good. Where i was i used to hate going in in the mornings, first thing after waking up was just sitting on the side of the bed , head in hands and dreading the coming day. An indication of the sort of cludgie it was, was when a job came in in the central bank mint , police clearance was needed to be allowed in to work , out of about 50 lads only myself and another lad were the only ones without criminal records !
The place i went into next was wonderful, i was there for 6 or 7 years and never missed a single day. working with civilized people is the only way to go , even if they are a bit rough around the edges.

 

[PTvor]

I believe you can refuse to give someone a reference but you are not allowed to give them a bad one.

You can give a bad one if you are prepared to justify it and risk a court action for malicious misstatement.

I think most companies give a standard reference, "Mr X worked for us from dd/mm/yy to dd/mm/yy in such and such a capacity" and don't add anything else.

What's the point of refusing to give a reference when the standard reference is factually true and causes least bother?

Now what happens when a prospective employer picks up the phone and talks to a past employer might be a different thing.

I've heard that most references are not taken up anyway.

 

[Engineer1964]

I worked for a company once where the directors where as bad as the bully, The amount of times i complained i begged the directors to do something, they told me to tell him to F off like everyone else has done,I was so close to picking up a lump of 20mm round bar , but thought its not worth getting myself arrested for.

The Company in Halstead are still desperately looking for welders and fabricators, and are desperate to get new welders on board they they have advertised with nearly every employment agency in essex, but they have such a bad name for themselves and welders do hear things though the grapevine, so they avoid that place like the plague. You would of thought the Directors would of latched on to the reasons for this by now.

I think they tolerated it because the work was being done.

When it gets to be this bad you need to leave, the issue is that you can't do anything if you've worked there less than a year and there's no laws against workplace bullying which is sad.

The idiot concerned is still there making workers lives a misery but the bonus being, i got out quick and ended up with a job paying almost twice as much.

So getting out is the only way forward unfortunately

 

[malcolm]

There was a bullying culture among the technicians in a company I once worked and it's not nice. If you can find a boss that the bully reports to it's worth mentioning the concern. Nothing will happen so you will have to leave anyway.

I resigned to start my own company. Oddly enough the company I worked for fell on hard times and all the bad sorts were laid off. That company is now my biggest customer and we all get along really well. Don't burn bridges.

 

[Hitch]

I believe you can refuse to give someone a reference but you are not allowed to give them a bad one.

The Mrs changed her job a couple of months ago...after not seeing eye to eye with the manager.

When the new boss wanted a reference, she sent off a form to fill in, rather than asking for a letter style.

In the 'other' The old boss wrote something along the lines of-

"***** is very bossy, and has NO experience in the role that she will be in. She is ONLY a night carer"

Obviously, the new one has a bit of sense about her, and ignored it....seeing it was more of a personal dig in the ribs....

"Thats why we are sending you for training....and bossy, you will be in a management position, so I need you to be a bit bossy"

 

[Hugh Jass]

"Mature improver" I had to laugh at that one. I suppose it is what I am thlough.

Thinking about the reference made me think though...
I was always 20-30mins early every day, always willing to work late if they needed it and usually worked part of my lunch hour as well. I mean if no one is going to talk to me I might as well do something productive.
If I had to ask to borrow a tool I would buy one at the next opportunity. So now I have my own welding helmet and gloves, vernier, micrometer, tin snips etc etc.

But yes it is a toxic working enviroment.

But It made me realise that my next employer will be very happy to have me. Because if I had a business and I got an employee that was always early, keen as hell to learn and always smiling when he has a welding bucket over his head. Never complains and is always willing to do overtime. I would be pretty happy.
I suppose I will get faster at work, learn the tricks of the trade and be a valuble employee. (most likely for another company though)

 

[the snooper]

I believe you can refuse to give someone a reference but you are not allowed to give them a bad one.

employers can legally give a bad reference but it has to be 100% accurate, employers shy away from giving bad references because employees can sue them for any inaccuracy that may come to light.

ive given 1 bad reference a guy left us in the lurch badly with no warning then had the nerve to give my name to a possible employer so that i could provide a reference a few weeks later.
ive never refused to give a reference, i dont see the point if the person is leaving its their choice so why not part on good terms.

 

[Shox Dr]

Will it do much good recording anything though? AFAIK you can't do anything with a recording of a private conversation except listen to it yourself, unless the person you were having the conversation with knew about it at the time.

You could try telling him right away that any further conversations you have will be recorded, and that might cover it, but otherwise the recordings are useless.

I believe if you transcribe the recording a third party can read it

 

[Dev]

You can have all the revenge fantasies you want but the best way to progress is to move on, its better for your mental health and you won't do your best work while under this type of pressure. I finished the last year of my apprenticeship in a hell hole like the one you're in and the day i walked out felt like a ton of lead had been lifted off me.

This is wisdom. Even if the guy you're talking about wasnt there it still doesn't sound like somewhere you want to be. You spend more time in work than anywhere else, that's a long time to be miserable.

Learn as much as you can and move on.

 

[bill_gj]

As many others have said --- bide your time, bite your lip and research the jobs market.
The @rsehole has a big head, a big ego and knows what he can get away with.

Like some of the other guys, been there, done that.

Strangely enough, my bully was a woman manager. I used to get slagged off all the time because I was tying to do the job right, but this didn't line up with her ambitions.
It's very difficult to argue the toss with a woman that also has the ear of her bosses.
I was lucky and when I couldn't deal with it any longer I had the support of my Union and ultimately got another job in the company, where my efforts were appreciated.
Funnily enough, when she did get pushed into a corner by someone else that was suffering the same problems, she could conjure up tears at a moments notice. Bitch.

You be careful. Don't resort to violence or 'getting your own back'. Use intelligence.

 

[atomant48]

Hugh, must say after reading your initial post - you have answered it yourself. If you are working on your own anyway and teaching yourself, then nothing to lose by going off and doing the chef'ing. Use the extra money to buy yourself a nice welder and come home happy each day and spend as many hours as you want in the shed. That way you get to weld and be happy - and life is far, far too short to be putting up with the type of chap you describe.

 

[Hugh Jass]

Hugh, must say after reading your initial post - you have answered it yourself. If you are working on your own anyway and teaching yourself, then nothing to lose by going off and doing the chef'ing. Use the extra money to buy yourself a nice welder and come home happy each day and spend as many hours as you want in the shed. That way you get to weld and be happy - and life is far, far too short to be putting up with the type of chap you describe.

I have myself a DC tig welder at home in the garage (really regret not buying ac/dc). I think I am one of the few people who come to learn to be a welder who you can rely on to be left alone with a tig machine.
I realise I am ok using the guillotine at work also the corner notcher, chop saw, the press break has lots of tools and I used to just pull them out and use them(could do with more time useing that one to get my head around all the tooling). But I can make hooks and bend any angle you need on it.
Useing the "pierce all" is ok as well so I can put holes in sheet metal too.

 

[stuvy]

When i was 18 i worked in a massive warehouse for a catalogue company and when i left i asked for a reference and was told no due to the high turnover of staff there HR department refused to give one!!

 

[Engineer1964]

I had a member on my site add a post about what happened when he called an agency about a welder/fabricator job in Halstead, When they told him the name of the company he said no thanks, He's heard about the bullying and that the company has bad rep with the local welder guys, so much that no one wants to go and work there.

When i set up my agency in June i had a few agencies call me and ask if i had approached this company because they were registered with about 4 or 5 different agencies, So desperate to get welders there, they are using loads of recruitment firms.

When i explained about all the Bullying and backstabbing that goes on and the management allow this to happen because "The work gets Done"

Basically they told me thats why they cannot fill the vacancies.

Goes to show that a million pound company can be bought to its knees and have a bad reputation from just the actions of one charge hand

Crazy, best thing to do if your being bullied or know someone who is is to get another job, you'll be the winner in all this, and the company with the bully will lose out in the long run. That company in Halstead has been advertising non stop for welders/fabricators, that you have more chance of seeing the DFS sale coming to an end than them getting rid of this bully.

 

[penfold]

When i set up my agency in June i had a few agencies call me and ask if i had approached this company because they were registered with about 4 or 5 different agencies, So desperate to get welders there, they are using loads of recruitment firms.

When i explained about all the Bullying and backstabbing that goes on and the management allow this to happen because "The work gets Done"

Basically they told me thats why they cannot fill the vacancies.

Goes to show that a million pound company can be bought to its knees and have a bad reputation from just the actions of one charge hand

Clearly if they can't get welders the work won't 'get done'.

 

[Shox Dr]

They must, or they'd close/go bust. So there's a few that will work under him. And while those few put up with him, and put the hours in the work will get gone, and management will continue to beleive there is a shortage of welders.

 

[Justme]

And while those few put up with him, and put the hours in the work will get gone, and management will continue to beleive there is a shortage of welders.

Why dont the agencies just tell them that they cant find anyone willing to work for THEM.

 

[garethp]

Will it do much good recording anything though? AFAIK you can't do anything with a recording of a private conversation except listen to it yourself, unless the person you were having the conversation with knew about it at the time.

You could try telling him right away that any further conversations you have will be recorded, and that might cover it, but otherwise the recordings are useless.

I dont think you have to get permission to use the recording, possibly you need to prove you've made an effort to tell the other side you've made a recording and are planning on using it as evidence. There was a program on TV last night where an audio recording had been made which was labelled as 'secret recording' and it was used to prove a point that someone was a lying git!

 

[Shox Dr]

Why dont the agencies just tell them that they cant find anyone willing to work for THEM.

Simple not their problem. And they don't want to lose out on commission