Chaos Attraction

So That Happened....

2016-12-08, 6:56 p.m.

This is the first time I’ve missed some days in Holidailies. I’m not proud of that, but something has happened this week that made me just completely unable to write for a few days.

At the end of the day on Monday, I got told that something had come up, there was a meeting scheduled for Thursday morning, and .... if you want to bring a union rep, ahem, you probably should do that and we will postpone the meeting until you get one.

I knew what that meant: after years of circling
the drain, they were finally starting me down the trail of firing. But here’s the stumper: they didn’t say what I did now, and for the life of me I couldn’t think of anything they hadn’t already expressed their displeasure about with me. Like I was at work for four days and nothing happened, so who did I piss off NOW? But here, it could be anything.

So I’ve spent the last few days trying to get a hold of someone in the union. They are gearing up for a strike and everyone is freaking out, so I didn’t hear anything within the first 24 hours of my sending a request, so that was nervewracking. However, my friend Dawn used to be really in with them before she got fed up and quit, so I got a hold of her to ask for help. Turns out that one of her buddies from the Tour de Craft is not only in with them, but she’s a “shop steward” (I’m not quite sure what that means, but it seems to boil down to advocate) and Becky was willing to do it for me. I’ve also had a few phone calls from another rep who was supposedly going to come too and then bailed at the last minute (don’t know what happened there), and she’s entertaining on the phone.

Anyway, I finally found out “what I did” on Thursday and here’s the kicker, folks: for once I didn’t do it.

Someone wrote an anonymous letter to every higher-up they could short of the leader of the entire organization saying that “a few weeks ago” they called me for some issue and I screamed, “I don’t know!” at them and hung up on them. Twice. They did not show me the letter, but apparently it was super vague and nonspecific. I was pretty well gobsmacked because well, obviously I’m not going to be able to prove I didn’t. However, I’ve had very few phone calls in the new job--I maybe get one a week--and I don’t even remember saying that I didn’t know to any of them, and I definitely didn’t scream and hang up on anyone. (The only person that gets that treatment is my mom if she’s being especially crazy and won’t stop it after repeated askings.) And given that everyone reports on everyone around here all the time, I think if anyone had heard me do this, they would have reported on me immediately.

Boss said he was going to ask my coworkers if they’d heard anything (this should be fun, if one of them says they heard me I guess we know who wrote it) and then ask his boss when she gets back next week what to do. They may write me up again and start me down the path of eventual firing, or...I don’t know what. I suspect that no matter what I’ll get some kind of slap on the nose because if you mention the words “customer service” it’s like I stabbed them in the heart five times and they will never let it go, but maybe it won’t go full on down the firing trail just yet.

My union rep said she thought it was pretty clear my boss was on my side, especially if he told me to get a union rep in there. Both reps are all, “If they write you up for something this vague, we’re gonna pursue it.” Another friend of mine thinks I should sue for libel, but given that I don’t technically know who did it and most likely never will be able to prove anything, I don’t think that’ll happen.

I am actually feeling pretty good overall because even if they decide to fire me for this, I didn’t do it. Every other mistake I’ve made I admit to and beat myself up about constantly, but in this case: I’m bad on the phone but I’m not THAT bad.

But one way or another I don’t think I’m going to be here all that much longer. Probably not making my 15 years at this rate, at least. And yeah, it’s nice to know that I pissed someone off THAT BADLY that they went after my job. I have my theories as to who, but obviously I can’t say anything and will never have proof, so there you go.


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