I had seen Delia erupt before, the worst time
being at a social worker, who like myself was not expecting the outburst. Delia welcomed her in to her office, allowed
the social worker to sit herself down and then, as if flicking a switch, went
into a rant that shocked the pair of us.
None of the bile was directed at me, even so, I was still amazed at the ferocity
of it. When it was over it was once again
as if Delia had flicked a switch and she was back to normal. So I wasn’t sure if the outburst that I had
been on the receiving end of the previous day was a one off, a standard telling
off, or if there was more to it. Delia
did pretty much as she pleased. She
would hire and fire people on a whim; in fact there was a rumour that she was behind
the incident where Richard had been fired from North West Community Services. Some achievement when you understand that Richard
had been put in place by social services.
So it was difficult to know what to expect, or
how to prepare for the next onslaught, if there was to be one. I thought that I had mentally prepared myself
for anything that Delia could throw at me, but once again I was wrong. She came in to her office the following
morning and sat down at her desk. She
then called me to come in. I did as
requested and she asked me to get my company telephone, my diary and my keys
and bring them to her. I gathered the objects
as set them on her desk wondering what she was playing at when she said, “I don’t
care who or what you are. I don’t like
you. You’re not good enough to be my
deputy, in fact you’re not good enough to be a service manager and I probably wouldn’t
even employ you as a team leader. Get
out of these offices.”
So many questions pop up inside your head that you
are unable to think. I went back to my
desk, threw my few personal possessions into my bag and left the office. I got
in to my car and drove away, pulling over and stopping about five hundred yards
away from the office out of sight. I
really wasn’t sure what had happened to me, but I thought that I had just been
fired. To say that I was confused would
have been an understatement. No matter
how many times I ran through what had been said, none of it made any sense to me. It took me a good fifteen minutes to settle my
head down after which I drove home, still confused, wondering what I should do
now. Everyone else I now spoke to seemed
to know what to do and the advice started to come at me thick and fast ranging
from a baseball bat across the temple to legal action.
Luckily Irene had some benefits where she
worked, one of which was free legal advice and representation for the employee
and immediate family, so we contacted the law firm and set the old legal wheels
in motion. The solicitor I spoke to was Irish
and filled me with confidence as she ran through a list of what Delia had done
wrong and what they would be able to secure for me as compensation. It was nice to have the crooks on my side for
a change. Two days later one of the
directors from the Liverpool office telephoned me and asked me if I would
attend a meeting with him and Delia in Manchester. I told him I would have to clear it with my
legal team, which was just letting him know that I was no walk over. The legal bods said it would do no harm for
me to attend the meeting but not to agree to anything and to immediately report
back to them after the meeting.
It was a very strange and a very tense
meeting. Delia was almost shaking with
rage showing that she was either a great actor or off her feckin trolley. She stated that by not carrying out a proper
inspection on the house, managed by the young Pakistani team leader, I had
undermined the authority of the senior management team. I said nothing; there is no point in trying
to put a sensible argument across when someone is fuming. She then pulled out a cardboard box which she
had hidden behind her desk. “These!” she
announced, were the company and individual household and personal financial accounts. “Thrown in a box!” If social services had implemented a surprise
inspection they would have closed the company down due to the haphazard way I
had thrown the accounts in to a box, rather than check them and store them in
some sort of order.
Both these accusations were ludicrous. I could explain my action with the new team
leader and the accounts actually were all sorted and checked and stored in
individual envelopes. I still hadn’t
decided the best way to store the receipts and accounts, but everything in that
box had been checked, double checked and was in order. I waited my turn so that I could put my case
forward but Delia wasn’t having any of it.
She had lost all confidence in me, she had never liked me or trusted me,
in her opinion I wasn’t good enough to be her deputy, in fact I wasn’t good enough
to be a service manager. However, I
would be allowed to return to the company as a team leader under her close
supervision. I couldn’t believe that the
director from Liverpool, who knew me quite well, was actually going along with this. The difference between my then salary and a
team leader’s salary was twelve thousand pounds; this was no slap on the wrist.
The director acted as if Delia’s case was hard
and fast, that everything Delia had said was true and that I had no option but
to accept their decision. It was nice to
say, “No,” to them. It was nice to inform
them that I already had a legal team working on the problem from whom they
would be hearing within the next day or two.
I hoped what I was saying was correct.
I stood and explained that I was not going to allow anyone to treat me as
they had been doing and began to leave the office. Delia was having a fit screaming at me and
the Director from Liverpool was stunned in to silence. I ignored the abuse and went to my car and
drove home to be told that the phone had not stopped ringing. It was only a few minutes before it rang
again. In an attempt to try and
discredit me Delia had initiated disciplinary proceedings against me which they
hoped would undermine my legal challenge to them. I was informed that I was suspended, on full
pay and that they would be in touch with the date of my hearing.
I have to admit I was a little bit lost in the
reasoning behind it all but I relished the chance of siting down in a formal
environment and arguing every single point Delia might put up against me. I had to wait for them to prepare the
official paperwork. I expected the two
charges she had accused me of in our meeting but when the actual list of
charges arrived, it nearly broke the postman’s arm. There were seventeen charges. The charge for not carrying out a proper
inspection was one, as was the lies about the accounts, the others had been
made up. A child with a sheet of paper
and a box of crayons would have made a better job. I really couldn’t see anything coming from
this but I was now determined to prove that the only reason Delia wanted rid of
me was to give my job to her daughter, with a bit of luck I could have the tables
turned on Delia and get her into some warm water.
To back up some of the ridiculous charges Delia
had made there was a photocopy of my most recent monthly assessment where she
had added a statement claiming that she had warned me about my poor performance
and that she might have to demote me.
The pen she used was a different shade of black to the original pen that
had been used and even the director in Liverpool telephoned to ask me if I
remembered this being written on the form.
It was obvious that it was a con job and I hoped now that others knew
too it might not go any further. It
really was a ridiculous situation but I was concerned that the Liverpool office
were taking it so seriously. The first charge
was that as a senior manager one of my monthly duties was to carrying out a
surprise inspection on a property that I did not directly manage. Delia claimed that I had never completed this
task and therefore was being derelict in my duties. I made a note that the first four entries in the
diary relating to surprise inspections were by me, regarding surprise
inspections I had carried out and each with a brief summary. You didn’t even have to read any of the
reports to know I had written them as I was the only person in the Manchester
office to use a fountain pen. I think
the motto was changing from Fight or die to come and have a go if you think
you’re hard enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment