It’s over six years since I was bullied out of the evil British Red Cross. Over 40 years in the workplace had not prepared me for the hateful treatment I received from this multinational behemoth which, I believe, operates more for the highly paid ‘managers at the top than those it supposedly helps. The subsequent mental breakdown caused me many years of pain and it is only in the last few years I have recovered to a state resembling the old normal. But some aspects of my time there will stay with me forever and I will never get over it.
After being bullied and abused by clown-like managers, I was shunted off to a tiny broom cupboard in Easton and forced to work alone. I was allowed no contact with colleagues and just left to it. Yet I saw in the media an image of this kindly, caring organisation that existed to make people’s lives better. Even though I was in the twilight of my working life, doing a job I really wanted to do, helping lonely and isolated people in rural areas, local managers made my life hell.
As I was being bullied and abused, a local manager who has now gone onto more lucrative employment in this grotesque top heavy charity told me I needed to go on a course for anger management. Me, someone whose temper is on the longest fuse imaginable, even under the severe provocation I suffered. The bullies didn’t need educating: the person who was being bullied did. Mid breakdown, I was referred to Occupational Health which I was told would be a positive move for me, but it wasn’t. The woman who saw me, described me as “emotionally weak” and “flawed in character”. If I was not broken before, by the end of the consultation I certainly was. By early 2018, I left.
I wrote to CEO Mike Adamson, salary £173,000, to complain about the bullying and abuse I suffered. He wrote back to tell me it had never happened. He was confident this was correct because the bullies and abusers had investigated their own bullying and abused and had reached the conclusion I had made it all up. Then things became slightly sinister.
On two separate occasions while the in-house investigations were taking place, I found nails driven into the tyres of my car while it sat on the drive. I had my suspicions as to who was responsible, but had no evidence beyond that. The police were made aware of the matter, but that was the end of it for them, but not for me.
Every year since then, I have written to the British Red Cross to remind them what they did to me and that it was about time they acknowledged the truth of what I was saying and apologised. Being the caring humanitarian organisation they are, they haven’t bothered to reply. But I will continue to write, telephone and email until I get some kind of closure. Because I have suffered a wrong and to date they have got away with it.
In the meantime, I have a favour to ask you. My story is 100% true and honest and if you speak to anyone I have ever worked with, they will tell you I am not a difficult person to manage and I always give of my best. Please do not give the British Red Cross anything. They treated me like shit and they never said sorry. As well as Adamson, who has now retired, and trousered £173,000 a year, they have over 50 staff in the UK who earn in excess of £50,000, some of whom earn around £80,000. If you think this is money for old rope, you’d be right. I have met these people and trust me I never came across one who would cope in the private or frontline public sector in a high-pressured job.
Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold and one day, somehow, I am going to serve it. Not by sticking nails in someone’s tyres or any other form of vandalism – that would be an act of moral defeatism – but it will happen.
My message is this: death to the British Red Cross.
