Stress leave?

Wow, things just keep on going downhill. It’s almost hard to believe, but then not so much when I realize how clueless our boss is.


The other day I was assigned a project because a client requested an update. Surprise, surprise, the last update was in April by mean girl one and she found no new information, which is why the client was asking for a more useful information. I sent some e-mails and made a few calls and got a quick, useful response from one of the project managers.


I go to add the information and I realize that mean girl one had completely dropped the ball. The project had an environmental impact study and she had not added a lot of information from that into the project. By April, that was a requirement. The editor missed it too. I ended up working an hour late yesterday to take care of that.


I am really starting to think that our boss has instructed the editor to go easy on some people and to nitpick those she doesn’t like. I can't see another explanation when I notice glaring errors like that from her favorites that were not caught by the editor. You just know that if I had failed to do that, I would have never heard the end of it.


I’m still not seeing much to apply for. The economy here is really in the dumps right now. I know several long-term unemployed people. I contacted the professional institutes in town, but they are fully staffed since the semester started recently. I guess I could send my resume in case someone doesn’t work out or quits, but it’s a real long shot. One of the wineries I had thought to apply to just started bankruptcy proceedings. Another has job listings on its website, but all it’s showing right now are internships.


I really think the only way that the cheating is going to be caught is for a client to complain that so many updates aren’t really updates, just the boilerplate language that we didn’t find information. Even so, it won’t be my boss that would do anything. I think it would take her boss doing some analysis as far as what sectors this is most common in and from there, who is publishing the most of those.


I’m just trying to hang on since it’s better to be working than not. It’s not easy, though. At least the company gave us a 4-day weekend. Tomorrow is a holiday and they gave us Friday off too.

Happy holiday rechu.

I'm not sure if I missed it, but is it possible for you to report those cheaters? Maybe with that, you can determine whether the boss is totally oblivious or there's favoritism in your company.

Thanks turtle rider. I wish I could, but there is favoritism. She sees everything that certain people do as wonderful and looks for the most minor problems in others’ work, including mine. So, any criticism of one of her favorites will not go over well. She’d probably ask why I was monitoring others’ work.

For me, with the cheating that has gone on before, I am alert to those sorts of things. I saw she was having a huge number of projects published, like too many as to not be possible. And I saw that most (5/6) of what she was publishing was with the “we couldn’t find information text”. The thing is that the projects where you can’t find information tend to be slower to work on, if you are doing it right, since you need to make a certain number of attempts to contact different companies/agencies involved. That is why it all seems so suspicious.

Just when I think things can’t get worse, they do. Last Wednesday she would not listen to me, insisting she was right about something and I had screwed up, when she really didn’t understand what she was talking about at all. In the end I saw what she sent to the client and she had finally agreed with me, but I have to constantly fight tooth and nail with her on those things because she is not capable of recognizing that she does not know everything. It’s absolutely exhausting.

I ended up losing my patience with her somewhat and she wants to talk to me about it another day. I don’t even want to think about having to do that. Speaking to her is useless. She doesn’t listen to anything we have to say.

And now cheater has been chosen to give a presentation on her work processes – ugh! Of course she’s not going to reveal her real cheating techniques.

I would definitely take a break if there is the opportunity to do so. You need it.

Ugh, the editor seems to be morphing into our boss - so bitter and snippy and getting on my case for stupid little things. I almost want to feel badly for her. I mean it must be awful and stressful to have to work so closely with that woman.

Yesterday was particularly terrible. I was driven to tears and a panic attack. Everything I did the editor found some reason to reject it. For example, I found a pdf of an engineering study for a project. When you find those things, you are supposed to add the companies to the project. There were names of the two companies that had prepared the study on the cover. So, I added them to the project and uploaded the pdf as my source. The editor told me that it was not a valid source and I needed to find something better?!? I mean, WTF? Documents like that had always been accepted as a source before, which is why I think I am being targeted. I had to spend 20 minutes finding better sources. And yes, I was correct. They did do the study. Why else would their names be on the cover?

Meanwhile, mean girls are constantly being told by companies they contact not to bother them anymore. Obviously they are doing something wrong to be that off-putting. At the same time, I have been making great contacts. People that are willing to discuss the projects with me and give me useful information, even telling me to get in touch whenever I need to. But that’s not appreciated at all.
We have a long weekend coming up soon and I’m going to see if I can take a few more days off to decompress. And, at least my boss is out for the rest of the week, but with the editor acting just like her, it’s less of a break.

I’m looking at job listings, but still not seeing decent jobs to apply for. For the time I have been with the company, if she finally puts me out of my misery and fires me, I will receive about 5 months’ pay. So, quitting is not an option. I can’t leave that kind of money on the table.

I'm so sorry you are going through this. I know it has just gotten worse and worse. The only upside is that you get a paycheck. I hope something comes up soon that you can get out of there, or maybe they will just fire you. I've never wished anyone to be fired, but since it is an okay solution for you, I keep my fingers crossed that they will let you go with that payout.

Thanks seesaw.

Ugh, now mean girl one stole something I was working on. We have a google doc where you put your name next to the projects you will work on. She erased my name and updated the project herself. I had already spent time trying to get information, which is now worthless. And it sucked. The news item she used was more than 3 months old. You are supposed to use a news item that is three months old or less. She didn't even include a source and the editor published it like that. You know I would have gotten hell for that.

I just know she is going to want to have another talk about the stupid numbers. I don't want to do that. I don't even know what to say, because she never listens to anything and I can't bring up the cheating or the fact I am being sabotaged by the editor, because I am sure she has instructed the editor to do that. She'd just get mad and deny it. Thoughts?

As far as I know, G.Docs has a history version where you can see the changes. It can be an evidence. Next time, always screenshot your post along with the update date.

And I am wandering, why don't you confront that cheater herself? You have proof, you can tell her to stop. I know it might spark a new drama and she was backed up with the boss, but you're not wrong and this must be stopped. Just be careful though.

For me, it seems like the boss tries to make you quit, by making the workplace feels like hell. That's why she closes her eyes despite the cheating. She won't fire you because of that five months pay. At least, I think it'll give you a little bargaining power. It just my speculation though.

Thanks turtle rider. Yeah I completely think she is making my life hell to make me want to quit since the higher ups will not want to make such a high payout. Companies generally don't fire for cause (in which case they don't pay) because they fear a wrongful dismissal lawsuit - and she knows I am married to a lawyer.


I don't actually have proof about the cheating, but it is VERY suspicious that she almost never can find information despite supposedly making many attempts. How can it be that no one ever answers the phone when she calls? If she's not cheating then she really sucks at her job. I know that a guy with high stats in the past was busted for the same thing a while back. Cheater has all the maturity of a 5-year-old and she will go tattle to the boss if I confront her. She once didn't like the way I did something and went whining to the boss.

Hmm, I have to go to a meeting with my boss and my boss' boss on Monday. I guess they are either going to say I need to work from the office or outright fire me. And, if I say I won't work in the office, then they will fire me. As long as I get paid, it's for the best.

Well, things have taken an unusual turn. My husband is a lawyer. He said, why take this lying down? He thinks that either they were going to try to pressure me to work in the office or resign and if I refuse to resign they fire me. They wanted me to go there on Monday with my tail between my legs and just take it.

There were some other suspicious things going on. If month end falls on a weekend, we get paid on Friday, ALWAYS first thing in the morning. The direct deposit is always in my account when I get up and check. Maybe they were thinking of paying my salary along with whatever they paid me for resigning/being fired on Monday as a lump sum. Then, the editor sent me some corrections and said they needed to be turned in the same day, urgently. Usually we have a few days and this wasn’t something time-sensitive like a client question. So, I guess they wanted me to wrap up my work before firing me.

So, my husband convinced me to send an email to boss’ boss that I didn’t feel well and I was going to the doctor. My husband saw that I was a wreck in the morning even before I got the email. My husband gets off work early on Fridays, so I took the bus to his work and he took me to a clinic where the ER is always staffed with psychiatrists. He’s gone there before for work stress issues; he went through a similar situation with a boss that wanted him gone and made his life hell.

The doctor said it was a good thing I came in. He diagnosed me with adjustment order with anxiety and said that he sees a lot of people who are going through the sort of stress I have been through and wait too long to be seen; to the point they are spiraling into depression.

He gave me 10 days off work and sleep meds since I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m up a lot at night dreading the next work day. I have to make an appointment to go back this week to see if I get more time. Interestingly, right around when they would have been notified of my leave, my pay was deposited.

I am quite sure work is shocked that I did that. But, in this country I have the right to leave for mental and physical health reasons and the pdoc agreed that I was not in good shape and needed it. Interestingly, one of the problems this disorder causes, is lack of concentration and reduced work performance. Basically our boss pushed me to the limit stress-wise and is now criticizing me for lower performance caused by this.

Well, after talking more with my husband over the weekend, we decided on a scorched earth strategy, since they are going to fire me anyways. I have nothing to lose. He’s a good lawyer and he knows all the tools I have at my disposal to make life complicated for my employer.

First, I can probably get some more paid leave when I go back to the pdoc this week. It’s common to get it extended. Then, I will go to the workmen’s comp insurance provider to be evaluated for an “occupational illness” in this case work-induced stress and anxiety. My employer will be investigated and while this goes on I will continue on leave and they can’t fire me. They will interview my boss. That will not go well. She can’t handle the pressure of someone questioning her actions. Her behavior in the interview will likely help my case. And, it is not going to look good to her higher-ups. I hope at least this wakes others in the company up to how she is the problem in the department. The decision may come out in my favor, in which case I will get more paid leave. If it doesn’t, at least I get paid for this time and the time of the investigation and my boss suffers.

My husband also said that by doing that they may fear I am preparing to sue. There’s the possibility they could offer to let me go with some sort of settlement (more than usual severance) if I sign something saying I won’t sue. I really think they won’t know what hit them when they are notified about the investigation.

My boss is such an HR nightmare. She has contacted people on doctor mandated sick leave to try to get them to come back to work before it is up (and this is the woman that is constantly on sick leave herself!). That is a labor law violation. She’s done other shady things too. While I am out, work is not supposed to contact me about any outstanding work of mine, to ask why I am on leave (strictly prohibited to ask that) or to ask me to come back early. I would not be surprised if she tried to contact me about something. She has shown to just be that stupid. I blocked calls from all but a few select people, so she can’t call me. She’ll have to contact me in writing, which would help my workmen’s comp case.

This weekend I felt weird, lightheaded, sort of tired, even before I took the sleep prescription. I guess my body is sort of relieved that I didn’t have the shadow of having to go to work today hanging over me all weekend.

Well this ended up being a novel, but there was a lot to tell.

If you block her calls are you still able to show when she tries to call you? I would not block her calls just not pick up and let them go to voicemail, and save the voicemails, then also save my call records so I could use that too.

Yeah, I thought about that, but caller ID on cell phones here often doesn't work. It can show a completely different number. And, people here rarely use voicemail.

I do need to be on alert about her trying to have co-workers get in touch with me to snoop around, I think. There are a few that I message on WhatsApp on occasion. If they write to me to say they heard I am on leave and ask questions, I should just say I'm not able to discuss it. They may report back to her.

Turns out I can see the blocked calls. I got a few from a number I recognized last night. My husband called today to see. It was just some company, telemarketing it appears. Not work.

My pdoc appointment was changed to last Thursday. He gave me leave until the 22nd. I am supposed to keep taking the sleeping pills for now because he says better sleep will help with the anxiety.

He wants me to use this time to reach a solution to leave work with severance. I don’t think he will be happy with the plan of going to workers’ comp. But in the end the decision is mine. He also said consult with a lawyer about my rights in this situation, so I said my husband is a lawyer. So, at my month-end appointment I will mention that I consulted with my husband and this was his advice.

I am still feeling sort of shattered and very angry, with some moments of feeling relaxed in-between. I hate thinking that my life is in turmoil and my boss will likely get away with this again. I also hate how she will try to drag my professional reputation through the mud. That is why I at least want a workers’ compensation investigation into her and the company.

But, I am working on moving forward. Spanish and English resumes are updated and I am setting up accounts for some freelancing sites and English teaching sites. Hopefully I can hit the ground running once I can work again.

Good luck with everything, Rechu! Keep taking care of yourself! Let us know what happens! Stay strong! *hugs*

Latest update. I got notice on Thursday that my insurer reduced my leave from 14 days to 5 days. They usually should ask for an assessment from one of their psychiatrists and a report from your doctor, not just reduce it without recourse.. So, I went to the government agency that handles appeals to submit one. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get a note from my doctor. It’s national holidays this week so a lot of people take vacation around this time. When I called his office last Thursday, they told me he was on vacation as of Wednesday. So, I probably won’t get the appeal approved.

I was told I would have to go back to work on Monday (today) so on Friday I went to the worker’s compensation clinic one town over (my town doesn’t have one). Again, my blood pressure was high and I had a panic attack in the collective taxi on the way over. The doctor agreed to start the intake process since I was very stressed and anxious and gave me another seven days, until the 23rd. Because of the holidays this week I can’t get into a psychiatrist’s evaluation until the 24th, so they said come in on the 23rd; not to work, and they will give me more time. The doctor was Venezuelan and gave me the time off before the receptionist made the appointment, so maybe he forgot it can be hard to get an appointment soon due to the holidays. I was given documents to give to work about all this. Luckily my husband dropped them off for me today.

I was doing some reading about toxic work environments. This article really hit home, especially the following points:
Ten Signs Your Workplace Is Toxic -- Whether You Know It Or Not

4. You can't bring up legitimate concerns with your manager. You already know what he or she will say if you protest a new policy or object to the fact that you're expected to work straight through another weekend. If you say anything, your manager will get mad and say "That's your personal problem! Figure it out."
You also can't go to HR with your complaints. They can't help you. Other people have tried going to HR with their issues and it only made their problems worse.

5. Corporate culture, trust, teamwork and collaboration are not topics anybody talks about in your workplace. They talk about targets, goals, production, errors, infractions, verbal warnings, written warnings, and the 'chain of command' instead.

6. You have no idea what your CEO's leadership philosophy is, if your CEO even has a leadership philosophy. All you know is that the managers you see every day lead through fear. Their management philosophy seems to be "I'll do whatever my boss wants me to do -- including mistreating and intimidating my employees."

7. There are sometimes meetings and training sessions called, but nobody speaks up at those meetings. The only time you or your coworkers tell the truth is when there are no managers around.

8. Nobody ever asks for your input. Once a year they send around a "confidential" employee engagement survey but nobody you know ever fills it out. How could they? If they told the truth about how they are treated, things would only get worse.

9. You've stopped expecting to be treated fairly at work. You've stopped expecting your manager to tell you the truth, because you've been lied to so many times before.

@rechu

I bet a lot of people feel like this at work. I keep trying to figure out why it’s like this and why it’s so common.

Yeah, a lot of people I know are going through similar frustrations, either toxic environments or job loss in a few cases. So many work environments seem really toxic and no one seems to care, especially management who are usually the biggest part of the problem.

I opened up my work email to see if there was anything about the paperwork that was dropped off yesterday. There wasn't, but there was a bunch of emails about a new policy our boss instituted, without consulting anyone of course - no one has a voice but her. It is just going to create inaccurracies and more work. People have tried to bring this up, but she's not open to any discussion, of course.

I know there are people out there who like their jobs and good work environments. I have experienced this in the past. However my last two work environments have been awful due to poor management. I don't know if it's bad luck, or just a sign of the times, i.e. fewer decent places to work.

I think it might be a sign of the times. I’ve been thinking a lot about how I can find some positive coping methods because this is something I cannot change.

Latest update. Yesterday I had a meeting with an occupational psychiatrist at the workers' compensation hospital. He approved continuing the evaluation process. He gave me another 21 days of leave and I have appointments tomorrow with a psychologist and then with a doctor on the 15th. I had to go to my office twice: once to drop off the initial leave extension and one to drop off the new 21-day extension. I was able to get in and out, leave things with the recepcionist and have her stamp a copy as received for my records both times without running into anyone I didn't want to see. I realized that, even though it is an open plan office, if I enter the door by the reception desk, it was relatively easy to not bee seen by my boss, her boss, etc. - unless they were headed to the bathroom or the elevator.

They will be sending a psychologist to my work to talk to people and see how the work environment is. Unfortunately, it sounds like often co-workers are not willing to talk negatively about management in these situations. It's understandable. I mean it is confidential but people may worry that word will somehow get out to our boss that they portrayed her negatively. If they do actually tell the truth, it will help me, since I am far from the only person who has had problems with her. But, I probably shouldn't get my hopes up too much.


Well, unfortunately, I read a few complaints online about the doctor that I am scheduled to see on the 15th; people unhappy with him determining that their mental issues are not related to work, which is what you need determined to continue on leave/in treatment with the workers' compensation insurer. But, I am still going to follow through and try at least. I have to do that. The thing that is causing my stress and anxiety is my work environment. The first doctor I saw definitely agreed with me on that and the guy that evaluated me the other day asked me about other areas in my life causing stress, but there really aren't any, as I told him.

I got a call today saying that there has been a decision in the workers' comp case and I have to go in on Monday, not Tuesday to be informed about what it is. So, I am back to having major panic attacks and crying just thinking about it. I know that it is more than likely that the decisión will not be in my favor.

So, the possibility of being told I have to go back to work, which means I will be fired is looming over me. I don't want to work there any more and I should get severance, which will be a big plus. However I just cannot deal with seeing my soon to be ex boss. I just know she will be all smug and insult me and my work, even though it is so clear that she set me up to be fired. This is not about my competence when she supports my incompetent co-workers all the time. I don't know how I can make it through that. I don't feel strong enough after all I have been through these past months due to that woman. I probably will have a panic attack and I don't want her to see me like that.

Do you have a routine you do in order to deal with panic attacks either before they happen or after they have started? Do you have any other person you could take with you for support during this meeting?

Ugh, sorry to hear this rechu. When you go back to your workplace, do what bpcyclist suggested as far as a routine to prepare yourself ahead of time for the panic attack you think you'll have. Take something from your home with you to your workplace, that symbolizes happiness or calmness or love with you. It could be a small object, a photo, a note, something you can keep in your pocket and hold on to while you're at your workplace. For me, it's photos of my niece and nephews. I use those to stave off the anxiety I feel about my new job. I look at their photos throughout the day in order to keep myself grounded and it actually works.

Well, that didn't go well. As expected my claim was found not to be work related. BS, but what can you do? I am quite sure that my co-workers had pressure from my boss not to say anything negative. I mean she wouldn't have access to their statements, but she may have threatened to fire people if the decisión came out in my favor. Threatening people is her M.O,. after all.

I can appeal, but I am not sure I want to. I'd need new evidence. The only possibility is to get something from the pdoc I saw in the ER and later in my office. However, when he extended my leave he said I should try and negotiate an exit with severance, which was something I did not feel emotionally strong enough to do. So, I am not sure if he'd help me continue this.

bpcyclist - I have tried some breathing techniques, but they don't seem to help that much. Talking to my husband can sometimes calm me down, but he'll be working, so I can't necesarily get in touch with him. All my friends work, so I don't really have anyone that can go with me and I'm not sure if they'll be allowed in the meeting.

At least they told me yesterday that while the workers' comp insurer won't be paying my leave for the time since I've been with them, they submitted the request to my regular insurance. Apparently, they will sometimes reject the first attempt, but the insurance regulator approves it on appeal.

Ugh, so I go back to work tomorrow. I dropped off the paperwork about this yesterday. So far no one has contacted me, but I haven't looked at my work email. All I want is to be fired with the least drama posible and to get paid what I am owed.

And, Blanche, thanks for the picture idea. I will bring a picture of my dog Helmut.