Tuesday 29 July 2014

I'm sorry it looks bad to you, however I was a great employee.

I lost my job a month ago.
So I have been on multiple job interviews trying to find something. And here is the problem. When you go for an interview and have to explain why you are not currently working, they assume you were and are a terrible employee and that is why you were let go, why else would a company not keep you?
The problem is, I wasn't a terrible employee, I was a great employee.

  • I got paid for maximum 45 hours / week. Monday to Friday 8-5.
  • I worked on average 50-65 hours a week. I was in early every day, but did not get paid for it, and left late most days, but they refused to pay me a minute past 5, and spent my nights on the phone trying to get things sorted when the equipment was constantly breaking down leaving us short. 
  • In the past 2+ years, I called in sick 4 times. Because I was sick enough that I couldn't move.
  • More then once I was out somewhere and had to leave to after scheduling maintenance for a truck that broke down somewhere and I had to pick up the driver and get the trucks to the shop. And I was not paid for that time.
  • I spent my days with a crazy woman screaming at me that I am worthless, and stupid, and I was lucky to even know her. But despite her harassment, I showed up everyday.
  • More then once after one of her random outbursts I would sit at my desk trying to conceal tears, but despite this I was still working to make the office run smoothly doing my best to hide how I was treated from the people around me. And I was not the only manager being treated this way. We all spoke, she had no control over herself, and daily went out of her way to ruin everyone elses' day, it's what she was known for
  • I was audited on 3 occasions and each time told by the government employee that they had never seen the office so organized, and that they had never had a manager in my position as on top of things as I was.
  • I had 3 different people threaten me. 1 threatened to kill me (because she had serious mental issues and would randomly call and take her lack of medication out on me), 2 threatened to sue me (not sure why), and one guy throw his paperwork in my face, scream at me and storm out because he didn't bring the money to pay for the course he was taking even after multiple phone conversations and e-mails telling him he had to bring the payment prior to taking the course. When I reported this to my boss and the owner they just ignored me and pretended it didn't happen.
  • A student would fail their road test, and immediately take it out on me, although it had nothing to do with me.
  • My companies lack of care for the safety of their employees and the student in the school by putting them out in trucks they were told by multiple mechanics were not safe to have on the road, was constantly blamed on me. Even though if I had it my way the equipment would have been replaced long before. 
  • I was there for over 2 years and was on multiple medications just to make it through the day, medication I was not on before joining the company.
  • I was stressed out beyond belief.
  • I spent my days off answering text messages from my crazy manager causing me to miss moments in my sons life I had booked the time off to enjoy.
However none of this matters to potential new employers because if I was a good employee, they never would have let me go, right?
Well here is what happened to cause my dismissal from this company.

I came into work and my phone had been going off like crazy all morning.
We have 4 trucks, one is not able to be driven due to no speedometer, and the transmission they had been told to replace by the mechanic at Atlantic Pacific 2 years ago, the mechanic at Lounsbury's a year and a half ago, and the independent mechanic we had recently hired 6 months before had finally given out.
We had another truck in the shop as it began coding and shutting off the Thursday before. When I reported this to the owner of the company, the head of repairs and maintenance and my boss this is the response I got.

From: Moncton Campus 
Sent: June-20-14 10:51 AM
To: 'Kristin
Cc: 'Megan'; 'John
Subject: AT18

Norm is requesting a jug of green anti-freeze for the truck. He said the level has dropped in the reservoir, there are no visible leaks.

Katie
Campus Manager
 Academy
From: John
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2014 11:54 AM
To: 'Moncton Campus'; 'Kristin
Cc: 'Megan
Subject: RE: AT18

Is the oil level rising and getting milky?

John
President
 of Canada Inc.
DRIVER SAFETY AND TRADE SKILL DEVELOPMENT



When I said no, I was told it was fine. They let it run for 2 more days shutting off randomly in the middle of traffic with people driving it who had never touched a truck before, before finally allowing me to put it in for repairs.
Since this truck was now out, and another one unable to be driven we have 2 trucks left right? 3 trainers. So we had to put into place truck sharing. 2 trainers have to share a truck. Shifts of 1.5 hours each. One pre-trips the broken down truck in the lot while the other one takes their students out driving in the "okay" truck. One trainer refused to share and sent his student home. His student who had his road test in 2 days. The other trainer got mad about this and mad about the change I had to make to the schedule (I constantly had to make schedule changes due to broken down equipment) and quit.
My boss got on the phone with each individual trainer and myself just her, me, and the girl from HR. The first HR personnel we had had in over 2 years. She asked me, what do you think the biggest issue is with the Moncton campus, and I told her "The equipment! It's old and not fit to be on the road, and your refusal to do proper maintenance which causes it to sit in the parking lot and makes the students and trainers lose hours upsets the students and the trainers, and since you're not right here, they yell at me. And you yell at me because their mad and nothing gets resolved. You need to buy new equipment that is less then 15 years old."

So they fired me. They fired me for not saying everything was fine. For telling the truth. For getting so fed up with their mismanagement and lack of care about anything but they're wallets that I just couldn't take it anymore.
The trainer that quit complained about the constant schedule changes and the fact that they would force us to take days off unpaid, and he was told that the schedule should never be changed, and they had no idea I was forcing them to take days off unpaid, and they had not approved any of that.
I did not have the authority to to allow people time off, and I'm not a fan of the forced days off either, I need my paycheck.

Another trainer who I thought was not only a co-worker but a friend, saw this opportunity and convinced head office that a trainer should be in my position. Not that he is, my job is being done by a few other people and he just sits at a desk. But a lay off for 1 or 2 trainers was coming and he knew it, so he was just looking out for number 1!

And he'll be fired as soon as they replace me. How do you think I got my job? I was replacing a man named Oren who did exactly what this man did to me to a woman named Joleen.
From: Moncton Campus 
Sent: June-25-14 1:11 PM
To: 'Megan
Cc: 'Jamie
Subject: Class 1 course next week

I just spoke with Jamie and it appears we only have 2 students starting next week. They are both 12 week students which means from July 14th  until the 22nd  will only have 2 students driving. And from the 23nd until the 28th we will not have anyone driving. The following week we will again be back to 2 students.

Katie
Campus Manager
 Academy
From: Megan Cunningham
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 2:15 PM
To: 'Moncton Campus'
Cc: 'Jamie Rowlings'
Subject: RE: Class 1 course next week

Which means we only need 1 trainer?

Megan 
 of Canada |
From: Moncton Campus 
Sent: June-25-14 1:17 PM
To: 'Megan
Subject: RE: Class 1 course next week

We will need 2, one in class and one in truck

Katie
Campus Manager
Academy
From: Megan
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 2:20 PM
To: 'Moncton Campus'
Subject: RE: Class 1 course next week

Do they know this yet?

Megan
From: Moncton Campus 
Sent: June-25-14 1:21 PM
To: 'Megan
Subject: RE: Class 1 course next week

No.
I was able to talk to Neil and terry yesterday and told them that we were hitting a slow period. At the time I thought we had more students coming for the in class so I thought it would only be a 1 week lull.
When Norm and Chris were in there were students around so I didn’t have a chance to speak with them about vacation time and a slow period coming up.

Katie
Campus Manager
 Academy
-Forwarded Message Attachment--
From: @.ca
To: moncton@ttcc.ca
Subject: RE: Class 1 course next week
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 14:29:29 -0300
K let’s not say anything today.

Megan
 of Canada |
So now, after being fired, despite the fact that I was a better employee then they deserved, people say "Why would they let you go if you were a good employee?"
What am I supposed to say? If I bad mouth them I look bitter and angry. Would anyone really believe that a company would run caring so little about safety. Should I tell them I had to be prescribed sleeping pills because I couldn't sleep at night because I feared an employee and student getting seriously hurt if not killed from our faulty equipment. This stress caused me to go into a deep depression, and on top of it, the faulty equipment was always blamed on me!! I have e-mails from head office saying it is my fault the equipment is like this, despite their constant refusal to pay for much needed repairs.
Now I am without a job, without a paycheck, struggling to get by, and the jobs I really want, the places I would love to work at, won't hire me because they think if I was let go, then I must not be a good employee.
Life is pretty unfair right now.
However when someone from that school does get seriously hurt if not killed from the faulty equipment, my conscious will be clear, because at least I spoke up, even if it did cost me my job.

Thursday 8 May 2014

Someone just reminded me of this, and it's really funny to me.

So many years ago I had a friend. He's still a friend actually.
Anyway. At one time we attempted dating. It didn't go well. I think we lasted 2 weeks, maybe not even that long. Unsure.
Anyway, we stayed friends after the fact and eventually both moved on. He moved on with a co-worker of mine, which was fine, for me. Not so much her.
She became very jealous of our friendship, because we had recently broken up. I tried to assure her there was nothing between us, and I assume he did too. Again, unsure, never asked him.
So it came to pass that he was no longer allowed to talk to me. This put allot of our mutual friends in a wierd position. We all usually hung out at the same bar, and if we were both there who do they hang out with. It was just weird!
She began bad mouthing me at work. Not saying the usual catty crap girls say, she diagnosed me with a mental disorder claiming she had worked as the receptionist for a psychiatrist and knew about this stuff. So eventually word got back to me through the guy I was seeing, who I am now married too, as we worked in the same building and people mentioned it to him after seeing him with me.
Really, they were looking out for him, seeing as he was dating a woman that had been diagnosed by girlfriend of her ex. Of course the diagnosis was fully legit.
It got bad enough that I eventually went to HR about her, not that it went anywhere, he was not interested in hearing this. Which is kind of fair as it's pretty high school in a way, but in another it's work place harassment.

This is where it gets funny.

Clearly as co-workers we had to be around each other from time to time. We worked in different departments and I could see her desk from mine. One night I had to go into the kitchen to use the phone. I looked, and she was no where to be seen. So how do I avoid her... I decided to cut through the bathroom to the doors that lead to the kitchen. Enter the first set, nothing, second doors, nothing, third doors almost run her over.
I was so on edge baout trying not to see her, that when I saw her I screamed and yelled "OH MY GOD!"
Seriously, not on purpose, it just scared the crap out of me when I opened the door.
Then began laughing, really hard because the entire situation was so ridiculous.
She did not see the humor, muttered something I can't remember and stormed off.

A guy I work with just opened the door and another guy was standing there and he screamed a bit, which reminded me of this, which made me laugh so hard I was crying. It's still kind of funny 12 years later.

Wednesday 9 April 2014

I'm pretty sure I'm not on drugs.

On a regular day I usually have a moment or 2 that makes me raise my eyebrows, or eyebrow! The left one, cause I can raise that one independently.
Not the right one though.

Stupid right eyebrow.

Anyway!
This morning was like any other day. My alarm went off, and I had to decide between the snooze button or weeping quietly as I made my way to the shower.
I chose snooze.
I got ready for the day, massive amounts of make-up to try to give the impression to people around me that I have a clear complexion.
Ran out of time so my hair got put in a ponytail.
Wrestled with a cat to get him into a carrier to bring him to get his boys snipped.
Came to work.
This is when the moment happened that I was trying to figure out if I took a hit of acid before I left the house. I have wracked my brain and decided that I in fact did not take a hit of acid, nor did I digest any mushrooms of any sort. I think I would remember if I had injected or snorted anything, so I am pretty sure at this moment I am in fact in full control of my faculties.
A co-worker came into work and handed me something. What they handed me was something they did, that they were not supposed to do. They did it knowing they were not supposed to, and we had a conversation about it last night and it is not what was discussed.
So of course I ask why they did this.
He first lies about the timeline.
Whatever, lets move on.
Then he appologizes. I say it's okay and ask him not to do it again in the future.
You would assume conversation over, right?
Nope.
He continues appologizing.
I again assure him it's okay, please just don't do it again.
This happens 2 more times, then I just begin looking at him and he's appologizing and appologizing over and over, he's waving his hands widely, shouting "What more can I say I'm sorry, I already told you that!"
I'm just staring at him as this continues for about 90 seconds.
Then I again repeat "It's okay, don't worry about it." and he continues freaking out and appologizing over and over.
At this point I am trying to figure out if he is on drugs, because I am not really sure what is happening right now.
Eventually, he leaves in a huff acting like I was attacking him, however I wasn't actually saying anything just staring a little wide eyed because he was acting a little crazy.

So I am trying to decide what this was about.
What you should know about this particular person is this. A few weeks ago I took a day off. It was a Thursday, and this is something that rarely happens. While I was gone this person called my boss and began telling her things about me that were 100% untrue in an attempt to get me fired.
Why?
I don't know honestly. Unfortunately it didn't surprise me as much as it should have as our relationship is strained to say the least.
We had cameras installed a few weeks ago, and my back would have been to the camera while this was happening, while he was flailing and acting like I was attacking him. I honestly think it was a show for my boss so she would think I was yelling at him.

You are reading this thinking this sounds crazy, and it totally does. However in the past 2 years the amount of stunts this guy has pulled to get me fired or get me to quit because he thinks he will get my job if I am gone are too numerous to count.
And honestly, if he wants my job, he can have it. I give him a week. Enjoy the stress and the pay cut! Let me know when your done and I will come fix everything.