WEEK 210 Contagion

Lost for words as I was last week, I had mixed feelings when I heard my friend walked out of her job on Monday. 

A part of me cheered. She had refused to tolerate her colleague’s hostile silent treatment for a moment longer. Good for her! Another part of me was angry at yet another hard worker plunged into unemployment after a weekend of unspeakable anxiety about returning to work.

My friend contacted the employment agency who’d found her the job and explained her reasons for walking out. Sadly, she discovered that she wasn’t the first to phone. 

Her former employers had already called. They demanded their initial agency payment back on the grounds that the agency had delivered somebody unstable. They implied that her recent illness (pneumonia) was simply a part of a larger (mental) problem. 

The whole thing is textbook workplace bullying. This is what happens 99% of the time. Someone gets bullied and their company goes to any lengths to broadcast how it’s all in the target’s head. 

The agency is on the case to find her something else. And the same agency will send her former employer a replacement for my friend. But what the person replacing my friend won’t know is that, if things don’t work out for them, it’s not because of any fault of the company, but that there seems to be a contagious psychological virus going around. 

And sadly, this appears more believable than workplace bullying.

Very best

BBTB