Have you considered a informal chat with the person with your union rep present to mediate?

Any good union rep will try to sort things informally before going official.

This would be a good informal step to take before formalising a grievance.

I typed that in too much of a hurry, this colleague has big problems of her own, I see her point but we're all just fighting for resources now rather than seeing the big picture. I don't want to cause trouble, I just want to be able to do my job as it stands now and not have the whole fragile structure collapse in a few months time when no one with experience or qualifications is there, as it will. It's such a mess.

Please help, I need to make a decision. I know now that I won't get any support. I spoke to a colleague yesterday on the same level that I'll be when my current secondment ends. She's always been a good person.

I'd been away for a day for a course Monday and got back to the office manager complaining that I'd not told her what was on that day (it was in the diary which she'd not checked). She will soon be my manager again. At the moment I'm supposed to be training her and the others. They are never available for training. Without support I'm doing the work of two full timers and rather than being trained the manager comes in and checks what I'm doing. She will not do the study to know what it's all about, she just wants to manage it. If anything gets missed she comes down on me like a tonne of bricks. I've had several chats with her and while she sometimes seems to get it, she dismisses my fears. She took half a day and left.

So anyway my in-tray was piling higher and higher (I seem to put more in it at the end of each day than I get done.) and I made a comment to the others about stress. They were sitting around chatting and laughing. The one I always got on with made a sarcastic comment about how they had done some of a certain work for me and not passed it on to me (actually they hadn't done a lot, I had a full day's work sitting on my desk as well as 6 full hour appointments in the diary and a full shared in-box of e-mail enquiries unread) They are supposed to do this work but I've always insisted that they don't do this while on the front desk as it's too much.

I was really irritated at being snarled at constantly so showed this person a print of the email to my manager (draft) to show how I'm overwhelmed, they're overwhelmed and this process is unfair on all of us. This morning her manager stormed over with a photocopy of my message to tell me that no one is stressed at all. (They all tell me privately they're stressed, since a staff member left we've all been short staffed. They have a full time job and are supposed to help me out as well and I don't think that's fair. They don't think that's fair.

I don't know where to go from here. If I go off sick my career is over. It's been made quite clear to me as I suspected that I will be seen as unable to cope. Yesterday when they left I cried. There's no one at work I can talk to about this. No one I can trust. I'm at the end of my tether. How in hell's name am I supposed to do 6 hours of appointments per day, wade through mountains of paperwork, make decisions on locations for our work, keep an eye on everything that's happening for a 3 month period (that's a big wall cabinet of files) and handle front desk enquiries and telephone and email enquiries too. Some of our cases are very emotional events and I will not rush people in the darkest moments of their lives.

my previous post refers

go sick if you are sick

work an 8 hour day then go home

be aware your own capacity for decision making is bad when you are stressed; your own judgement may be off and you may foresee catastrophes where there are none.

I'm basing what will happen in the future on what has happened to me in the past. I worked in an industry where I was suddenly expected to do several people's jobs and got sick, took leave, went back part time, left, took time on benefits to recover and was contacted by a former colleague working in a company set up by managers doing similar work but at a better pace. New job, same as the old job only with bully. Management sidelined me as they knew of my previous illness. Small industry. Left. Moved to opposite end of the country and completely new industry (public sector). I'm now quite senior in my industry, people come to me for advice.

So anyway if I go off sick it'll be known by any future employer in a job I love(d). And it isn't the sort of job you can just walk away from at the end of the day. Certainly not at my level. I couldn't anyway. People who don't do the job keep telling me to do that and I can't. Put it this way I get asked about legal stuff related to my job on the street. Small town life.

And is that more important to you than your health? Because I think that is the real question you are asking.

People do & will get sick, in any kind of job. Thats life. Your health should always come first, no matter what's going on in the workplace.

You work for an Employer & whilst you can do your best, working for them, the onus is NOT on you to carry everything & all the responsibilities of others.

Judging by what you are saying here, you are extremely stressed out & your alone, as you say you can't trust anyone, let alone talk to anyone in the workplace.

I feel the question you should be asking yourself, is your job really worth all this stress & uncertainty?

You don't sound happy at all in your job & that has a way of affecting your personal life as well. So you end up literally living & breathing your job 24/7 as it consumes you.

Honestly bugger what anyone else thinks, put YOU first for once & take time out. You have to look after yourself, as no one else will!!

Wishing you all the best...

Thanks. Still not sure what to do. Feels like every decision has negative consequences and I can walk back from any except sick leave.

In situations such as yours, there are no right answers, until comes a point where you have to make a choice. (Which going by what you have written, is where your at!)

It's down to you, what you choose to do from here on out, as it's only you that it will affect.

But what I will say again, is that your health & well being has to come first, as no job is worth feeling the way you do.

Bottom line; No one else is looking out for you, so you have too....

Sending you a *hug* & I hope whatever you decide to do, it works out!!

Hi

6 jobs are to go in our council, all at the same pay grade and one of them's mine. Two in my office and the others in offices spread over a large area.

I've worked there for 10 years but previously had a one day per week contract. I did have cover for colleagues included (this was the point of my job, the one day was just to keep me up to date and using the skills). In a previous job evaluation I received a contract without the cover and they wouldn't budge. Despite seeking union advice it came to a point where I felt I had to sign it or not have a job.

4 years ago we were merged into another department and despite not having the cover in my contact I got enough hours to cope so didn't worry. Then in September 2013 after a colleague retired I applied for her job. It was temporary as the current review was supposed to start soon (and this post was due to be deleted as part of the review) so I arranged to take it as a secondment.

So now the council have voted the cuts in and I'm waiting for the axe to fall. My manager mentioned last month that as I'd been in post for over a year my job might be considered permanent (I'd thought two years but apparently this changed). I'm not sure which I'd prefer at the moment. I love what I do (mostly) but I can't survive on one day per week. The colleague who is covering the hours on my old one day may also have rights over it or is asking whether she does.

In addition this has been handled rather shoddily by the council I believe. We are given no information, this review has been going in for over two years and there was another just before it. My colleagues and I were called to a meeting last month but I didn't go as our office was incredibly short staffed (this is before they take two of us out of it.) and we believed it was just a regular meeting. When the other person from my office asked for HR advice she was told that they'd yet to be consulted. Oh yes and there are interviews for people to work in our office doing much of the work we do but at a much lower grade. My colleague will do the interviews (possibly me too) and we will both have to train the successful candidate.

In addition to this I'm horribly overworked. I rarely leave anything like on time. I've posted on here before about the stress I get. I have appointments all day while work piles up and I never get time to handle it. It used to be a two full time equivalent plus my one day and now I just have assistance from staff in another department who are overworked without having to answer my phone and assist with paperwork. I've put up with it as professionally speaking I want to do my best. As I said above I value my work, qualifications and position in a professional association. Out of a handful of people across the two areas two will lose our jobs and we're the most senior. When we're gone the place won't cope. It can't, but anything we say sounds like it's about our jobs. As whistleblowers we're effectively neutralised.

I'm waiting for my union to get back to me but it there anything else I should be doing?

Help!

Can someone help me with the above? A lot has happened since. I had a telephone meeting with a senior manager on Thursday and they still haven't decided whether I'm eligible for redeployment given that my year's contract (Sept 2013 - September 2014, extended to March 2015 and then extended "until further notice") seems to be confusing them.

My union say that I am but seem to be concentrating on two jobs that are available for the five currently employed in the 6 posts. This job is more suited to the other 4 and not really me. It seems there is no option to continue doing what I am despite the fact that no one else is available to do it.

Yesterday I got an email from my union forwarding a backtrack from the same manager saying that it would be "unfair" on the others to consider me for this job. A member of another union has complained about my being considered and from the detail I think I know who this is.

I'm thinking that at the moment my only option is redundancy but I love my job and it's crushing me.

One of the things that bugged me is that they gave the fact that I don't drive as a reason for my lack of suitability. I don't drive for a medical reason. I've always managed to get where I need to, by public transport of with the assistance of family members. The manager in this role doesn't drive either.

One of the things that bugged me is that they gave the fact that I don't drive as a reason for my lack of suitability. I don't drive for a medical reason. I've always managed to get where I need to, by public transport of with the assistance of family members. The manager in this role doesn't drive either.

Could you fulfil the role if "reasonable adjustments" to the role or the way you could perform it were made?

So, (for example) if you were required to work at different sites, very infrequently moving between them during the work day, by providing transport between sites?

Different if the job was e.g. "Transport driver" where adjusting it for a non-driver wouldn't likely be "reasonable".

How integral / often is driving?

I have no idea, they haven't yet released the job description.

It will involve at the least supervising a number of offices, nothing that makes driving a primary requirement. All will be on bus routes judging by the expected division of the two jobs.

It will involve at the least supervising a number of offices, nothing that makes driving a primary requirement. All will be on bus routes judging by the expected division of the two jobs.

Depending on the details, it seems likely that to not consider you for the post would be unfair (disability) discrimination ....

That's something I plan to discuss with the union rep on Monday.

Back again. I'm using the old subject as it's linked. The review is over I didn't get that job (I'm relieved to be honest it was not related to the side of the job that I love just management of offices). A colleague took her package and although she was a pay grade lower I was matched into her job. She was told she could have the package if it made way for someone facing redundancy.

When I had to make the decision they wanted the decision that same day. I switched off my PC at the end of the day, went home in a daze and had a panic attack. I needed a job and I take pride in what I do. It's a specialist job and I'm a senior member of our small professional association. Leaving the job would break my heart but staying in it is causing major stress. I was signed off for a week with stress.

So 3 months later I'm there only now I'm doing the jobs of two people. I manage a team as well as doing my old job (someone has to do it). Every time I go to the department I'm used to working in (it's still part of my job) I have to justify myself. Work isn't getting done, when it is it's of poor quality and added to that my manager is piling extra work on me that my predecessor did not do in the general department as well as still leading my old department. I have an additional colleague to train so she needs close supervision (good as she will be I can't leave her to get on with it).

Now another colleague has been offered a redundancy/retirement package. Last Tuesday we had no one on holiday. No one off sick and it was horrendous. Our busy season (in my speciality) is summer and that's when people will be on holiday. I end every day feeling sick. I have a chronic condition which is leaving me with poor quality sleep, chronic pain and stomach problems and I can't go one like this.

Everyone's stressed but I feel like I'm the one that always says it.

Added to that I'm using my holiday for association business and flexi when I'm too exhausted to complete a day. I mentioned a new (vague) sick leave policy for my manager (I wanted detail) and mentioned stress and she told me "That doesn't affect you!" It really does and this is my quiet time.

No one has ever mentioned the week I was signed off with stress. My doctor was keen to write stress on my sick note. "Then they have to deal with the problem". So far all I've heard is fingers stuck in ears and loud humming. Any time I mention an issue to a manager (I've mentioned a few) they tell me it doesn't exist. I can't go on like this and I have years before I can try for early retirement. If they even offer it then.

why did you fight so hard to stay rather than take the golden bullet? ask yourself why are you there and if it isnt for the money then you should be off somewhere else.

Because I need a job. I had to restart after a similar scenario some years ago. I moved 500 miles to a small town with not much employment but family nearby. I was attracted to this by a qualification and a very interesting job description. It turned out to be something that I really enjoyed doing.

At the moment I'm on lunch break. I'm close to tears. We're short staffed and if I get out my colleagues will be in a mess. I'm feeling paralysed and terrified.

Needing a job and needing the money are different things, with the latter you can do thework that fills the time you are employed to work, if you think the job is important then you will give yourself a nervous breakdown as you are trying to solves someone else's problem in your own time.

Look at what you need from your work and if they fail to pay you enough them you are in the wrong job

At first when the review was on I felt that they wanted rid of me as I stand up for a service and I was determined to not go as someone must provide that service (it's a statutory service). I also respect my colleagues and don't want to leave them even shorter than they are. If I left now I would lose the redundancy, possibility in the next few years of an early retirement and a job that I love. I can't do this anywhere else. I'd have to start at the beginning in a new skill and I'm not far from 50 (just not close enough to retire). I also love the work that I do for a professional association. You have to be actively employed in the job to do that.

do you need the money from this employment or can you get the same salary elsewhere. Very simple Maslow pyramid of needs question but you wont answer it.

I used to have a well paid job that I absolutely loved but became permanently unfit to work but in the last 7 years set up and disposed of a successful import business, downsized and now live very happily on about £15k a year. I work part time on casual hours in the education sector and spend a lot of time just mucking about.

I was 48 when this all kicked off so there is still plenty of time to change your career/life direction. It may be helpful if you start being awkward at work, this will make it more likely that you get what you want. Everyone else will trample all over you to get what they want so dont feel guilty or think that the self-preservation bit doesnt apply. look at the past round of redundancies, no-one leaving gave a stuff about those staying and those making the decisions wont care who does the job as long as someone does.