I’m working for someone else now but I cannot get the hideous final year of my employment at the British Red Cross out of my head, no matter how hard I try. Most of the people I met and worked with were terrific, caring people and I was sorry to have to leave them without having the chance to say goodbye. The bullies and abusers I cannot forget or forgive.
Imagine me, a middled aged bloke who worked for 39 years for the same employer, finishing up as a benefit fraud investigator at the DWP in a tough, stressful job, being bullied and abused by employees of a world renowned humanitarian charity. It seems incredible, unbelievable, but it really happened.
I made an extensive timeline of the treatment I received but by the time I left after three months on the sick, my already fragile state of mental health ensured I didn’t have the stomach for any fight over constructive dismissal or anything else. All I wanted, in the end, was an apology for the abuse and bullying I was subjected to and how the organisation did nothing to protect me. As they had effectively deprived me of an income, I asked for compensation too, but without the legal resources, I knew that was a non runner. An apology was all I wanted, needed, for a year in which the British Red Cross caused me to have a mental breakdown. But they never did apologise. They plainly sided with and believed the bullies and abusers. They wrote the book on how not to deal with bullying at work. I was broken.
In the continuing absence of an apology, I am tempted to tell my story, the whole gory series of events. I don’t want anyone, ever, to go through what I had to go through. Hopefully, they will apologise and I can put this nightmare behind me. But some of the bullies are still there and I suspect they will surround the wagons and hope this all goes away. I’ll certainly keep my loyal reader posted.
