A weak, woke snowflake writes…

I suppose I should be grateful that Piers Morgan doesn’t know who I am nor, perhaps more importantly, that I am not a black woman. You see, I’ve decided to end my search for part time work in order to protect my mental health. I’m a Poundshop Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles, a poverty-stricken man’s Ben Stokes, albeit not one with a poorly finger. I’m weak, I’m woke, I’m a snowflake, I am letting everyone down. But Morgan won’t be coming for me because I’m a complete unknown and I’m a white man.

My loyal reader will be familiar with my experience of bullying and abuse at the British Red Cross (BRC), repeated ad nauseum in this blog. Four and a half years on, I am still troubled by it and I fear I always will be. I subsequently took on another part time job managed by autocrats who always knew best, even when they didn’t, and believed the art of management to be nothing more than telling you what to do. But, unlike the BRC, the managers were not bad people and the job itself quite enjoyable until they told me to start wiping people’s arses for a living. I do understand that arses do need to be wiped and I have nothing but admiration for those who are able to carry out that kind of work, but I wasn’t. I resigned, was shuffled out of the door immediately after I resigned, told never to return and, as at the BRC, I didn’t get so much as a farewell card.

I confess that it hurt to leave so suddenly and at first I was devastated, not so much by leaving that particular employer, but by the way it happened. But devastation soon turned to relief and acceptance. I felt I did a good and professional job over three and a half years, I had much to be proud of and nothing to feel bad about.

I was blessed to have great managers throughout the final 21 years of my civil service career and indeed at the start of my BRC career (initially the best job I ever had with some of the best managers I ever had until they left and were replaced by the worst ones). I suppose it was a case of going from the sublime to the ridiculous over seven years. And the bad managers made me very ill. I will never forget, nor forgive, the BRC for what they put me through, and I’ve known for some time that the glut of punctures I suffered with my car whilst it sat on our drive was not some kind of unfortunate coincidence.

One comment had always stuck with me. The BRC sent me to their occupational health officer when I had been driven to illness. At the interview, she said, and here I literally quote the precise words, “you are mentally weak.” To someone with severe clinical depression, who was going through a breakdown as a direct result of their actions, it was ALL MY FAULT. I was close to breaking point by then, but instead I started volunteering with another charity, one where I soon re-entered the world of paid work. I was not – am not – the person I was in the civil service or in my early days at the BRC, but I was doing okay. When that ended, I had that same old feeling of despair and failure and after wrestling with the consequences, I have decided, at least for the foreseeable future, to not risk putting myself through that again. If someone comes to me, I’ll look at it but this weak, woke snowflake does not intend to get hurt again.