GRARRRRRRRR!!!!!

Okay, so like the title says, this really isn't related to anything trans in nature (not directly anyway), but I really need to vent, and you guys are like the only family I have right now. T.T Strap in folks, this will be long, ramblomatic, and an utter waste of your time...

I was promoted to Assistant Manager in my retail store at the beginning of April, but our store doesn't have a manager. That means for the last two months I've been running the store all by myself. To compound the problem, there were all of three staff working in the store when I was promoted (including me), and one of them was promoted to AM in another store in the same city, and left. That meant the week I took up my new role we also had to hire four more brand spanking new and utterly useless staff members.

Oh, did I mention I hadn't had any training at all?

But this isn't even the problem. I managed around six weeks ago to have my chest surgery date brought forward to the 5th of June (so soon! O.o), and informed my work the very next day that I would have to take two weeks off for it. Our regional manager, who is my direct superior, was none to pleased when I explained to her over the phone that I needed to leave during what was our stocktake (dates were changed) and accused me of keeping my surgery date to myself until the last minute in an effort to get around the work. She didn't lighten up when I told her it had been less than 12 hours since I found out myself.

Skip ahead a week and I'm doing a pre-stocktake count on one of our product lines, and realise that I've completely run out of time. It happened because rather than getting a small delivery every week, our DC has started sending us one giant order every three weeks. We had the count sent to us on the Monday of the week, and it was due by close of business Thursday. It took until late Wednesday to finish the delivery, and then I had to leave early on the Thursday to go to a specialist appointment, and just totally ran out of time. I called the store I needed to send it back to and explained that I was running late, and would they mind at all if I sent it in around lunch time the next day. They said that was fine, and thanks heaps for letting them know.

6 o'clock that night I get a call from my casual letting me know that the store called back and said they needed it by 9am the next morning. The morning I had my T shot booked in for, already a week late, and on a Friday which left me waiting until the next week for it.

I went in at 7 o'clock in the morning and just managed to finish the count for them by 9, then I had my actual rostered shift from 11-7, so all up I was at the store for 12 hours that day. My regional manager then called to yell at me for not having better time management, and yelling down the phone at me about how they weren't going to pay me for the extra hours, even when I had already explained several times that I didn't expect them to.

There have been many times like this, including a couple of weeks where I had to work two of my rostered days off and ended up working 12 days in the fortnight, and I have worked so much overtime in the last two months that I have a week's worth of DIL accrued. And that's only the hours I've managed to manhandle management into giving me.

Worse still is that thanks to the ridiculous level of work I'm putting into this, the store is staying afloat and doing well, but has anyone said thanks? I haven't had a single word of possitive reinforcement spoken to me since I began, and all I keep hearing about is what a crap job I'm doing of it, and how I need to take more responsibility for things, when I'm already doing the manager and assistant manager's jobs rolled into one, and getting paid for the lesser of the two. I've also been told 'We've all been there before Max. **** in blah store is in exactly the same possition as you right now' over and over again, with this one woman and her store given to me as an example of how smoothly everything should be running for my guys and I.

This other woman was a manager for two years before she found herself in a store without an official assistant manager, and all of her casuals have worked there for so long and are so knowledgeable that they may as well be assistant managers. Me? I have no official training, am an assistant manager (as they all just loooooove to remind me), and am working with staff who can't do even the simplest of tasks without me having to explain (for the fifth time) why we can't put stock in this particular format, or why those signs don't meet centre policy. Yeah. I can really see how our two possitions are exactly the same...

Every day my regional is telling me all about how I shouldn't be struggling so much, and that everyone else manages so why can't I, along with the 'There's so much support out there for you!' that seems to have become her catchphrase, and I just can't take it anymore.

Well, about a week ago I decided enough was enough, and called finance to forcefully and pleasantly ask that I be paid the higher duties allowance that I should be on for working in a role higher than the one in my contract. Our HR and payroll manager was away all of last week, and won't get back in until Thursday next week, so I'm still waiting on her to find out what's happening with that one.

But yesterday my regional manager calls up and lets me know that she's been speaking with our HR person over the phone about everything in regards to me, and that they're going to need a certificate from my surgeon saying that I'm 100% fit to return to normal duties when I get back to work the two weeks after surgery. I told her I couldn't do that because I'd have a 'light duties' certificate for three months. She then told me that because of that I would be 'incapable of doing the job we're paying you for' and that 'the company shouldn't have to spend money on employing other people to help you out, when we're already paying you to do the job. It's a waste of company resources' and proceeded for forcefully suggested that she'd be happy to approve leave without pay until such a time as I could return to work fully recovered. Three months later.

As far as I can tell, that's descrimination based on disability, and I'm not even bloody disabled! For crying out loud, 'light duties' just means I won't be able to unpack the delivery we get once every 2-3 weeks, and normally I only count the stock and give it to a casual to put away anyway!

I planned to quit this weekend the minute my two weeks leave is approved anyway (so that I don't lose the two weeks worth of pay I've accrued), but this has just floored me. I was so upset and angry when she hung up the phone that I felt like destroying the store I've been working so hard to restore. I cannot believe that after everything I've put into this, she can talk to me that way, say those things to me, and think that everything is okay.

On top of that, she's known about this surgery for six weeks now, and the first time she thinks to bring up my imminent loss of a job is four days before the surgery? No. This is because I'm the first person who's stood up to them and demanded they actually give me the DIL I've accrued, and forcefully suggest that I should be on higher duties.

I'm going to take this to the fair work ombudsman when they open on Monday, but I really don't know what to do from here. I am dying to quit, especially after everything that's been said and done to me over the last week, but if I do then I have no proof of them trying to make me take leave without pay to give to the ombudsman, and this is something I really want to see them pay for. Alternatively, if I don't quit and they decide not to stick their foot all of the way into the steaming pile of ->-bleeped-<- they've been building up around me, I will be forced to return to work and continue stocktake preparation after surgery until my two weeks notice are up.

And I'm not even going to touch on the bullying and intimidation from her and another manager in one of our city's other stores, that's a whole other kettle of rotting fish...

Congrats if you made it this far, I've officially run out of steam! For now...

I'm sorry work is being so mean, and unreasonable. I think you should stick it out until you can take the matter to someone with some pull. Don't let them get away with this kind of behavior. But, be careful. It sounds like they are trying to stay just within legitimate legal grounds. Best of luck.

Bane, there is no excuse for what they're doing - and no positive feedback?  Poor managers IMHO.  Gather up every scrap of evidence you can - especially in regards to when your surgery date was upped and when you informed them.  What they are doing is disregarding your safety by attempting to make you jump into work before a SURGEON says you can.  I'd honestly talk to an Equal Opportunity organisation about this in addition to someone in a senior position at the highest eschalon about the unprofessionalism of your treatment and supervisors.

I'm glad you're going to the ombudsman. You should show him or her a cleaned-up version of your post here. Explain your position and that you are trying to operate in good faith.

Good luck man. Sounds teeth-grindingly frustrating.

Thanks for all of the lovely replies guys! Honestly, I expected everyone to look at my post and go 'No way, too long!' and leave without reading.

My issue is mainly that the two people who are treating me badly are another local manager, and my regional manager. The first of those two is best friends with the second, so I can't go to her immediate supervisor about the issues I have with her, and the only other person above my regional manager is our national manager. You know, one of those people who are so ungodly high in the company that you kinda get a shiver at the thought of even talking to them? Yeah. That guy.

I will be the sixth assistant manager to quit from the two affected stores in the year and a half since I've been here, so I'm fairly certain it's not just me who's had issues with the treatment. Fortunately I'm friends with several of those people, and I've been told that they'll give statements and back me up about the treatment if needed, so at least there's that.

After talking things over with the rest of my family, I'm thinking I won't quit after all. That way if they make me take leave without pay after giving them my light duties certificate, first of all I will have solid proof for the ombudsman of descrimination, and secondly I will still have the position on my CV as current, which will hopefully help me get another job. If they realise that they can't actually do that to me, and ask that I return to work, then I'm thinking I may as well abandon employment with them. None of my current referees are still with the company, and I don't really think I have anything to loose, and much to gain by simply telling them to shove it.

I'm kind of seething at the thought of taking the leave though, since it will be giving them exactly what they want, and that alone rubs me completely the wrong way...

Can I suggest something?

I am one of those people at the top of the tree that people fear to approach. They don't shiver because I do encourage them. But they are very nervous.

I am very senior but not in retail, in Pathology.

If I heard this account from one of my junior managers at a place that had such a turn over in management staff as you state, I would be getting my blow torch out for some interesting discussions with middle management.

I would suggest you place the facts, not opinions, the facts, into a post to the national manager. Including how many people have left before you.

If what you say is true I would have their balls or the equivalent on a plate and be discussing how they want them cooked.

You express that you are doing a good job, and it certainly sounds like that. I know who I would keep and I know who I would lose in this situation.

Be confident and express the truth.

Cindy

I agree with Cindy.  Gather up the facts. Get the statements from the previous people, and present the information to the national manager.

Don't worry about talking with them.  They are just people.  I have worked directly with some of the most powerful people in the world.  They do not intimidate me in the least.  I have found that they are just people who are used to getting their way.  But, people non-the less.  They, usually, are in the position they are because they earned it.  They will care more about the facts, and well being of the company than how the middle management feels.