hello my name is Jo
i had a panic attack at work on Easter Sunday, i had never had one before.
i asked if i could go home and my boss handled it badly asking me question after question about what was wrong with me on the shop floor in front of other employees. i got an appointment to see an out of hours GP who asked me about my job, i said i felt i had not been given adequate training on the tills and every time i used them i was worried i would get something wrong (and i often did) and that although my boss had said i could ask anyone for help the truth was everyone else was far too busy to help me leaving me with customers getting irate and my many requests for extra training were always denied. the doctor said that she thought my job was the cause of my anxiety and panic and that the sooner i left it the better. i saw my GP a few days later and he echoed her suggestion of leaving my job and gave me 1 week off. when i returned after the week i was ok for the 1st day but on the second day about an hour in i was told to go work on the tills, i went to the stock room for a moment to try to calm myself down as the mention of the tills had made me really scared. i decided to go back and ask her if i could be excused working on the tills when it was so busy and explained why but she did not care, she debated it for a bit with me (again in front of other members of staff) then took me to the office where another manager told me that there would be no amendments to my duties, he questioned why i was back off sick leave if i could not do the job. he agreed to let me work elsewhere for the moment and i went into the loos to dry my eyes, i was scared to go back out at all but i summoned the courage and went out to work. 5 mins later i was called back into the office to have the same conversation with the head boss, his ultimatum was, go on sick leave until you are cured and can do your job or else quit and he was not willing to fire me or dismiss me on medical grounds because he said he did not want to go through the disciplinary procedures he would have to do. i went back to my doctor and told him this info and he gave me a sick note for 2 weeks off. i asked if he might be wiling to give me some evidence of the fact that he thought the job was the cause of my problem so if i left i might have some chance of getting jsa till i can find another job but he refused.
and that is not the half of it. this post would be twice as long if i cited all the other things managers had done to make me feel bullied like accusing me of being late or not turning up when they had not checked the updated rotas and not apologising after for accusing me of lying. because of everything that has happened i don't feel i can go back at all, 4 managers have now told me off for being unable to do something they think i should find easy one of them said "you cant swan in here and pick and choose what you will do" and i told him i was not picking and choosing or swanning i was scared, my anxiety was awful just thinking about the tills and i was scared i might have another panic attack.
all the employees have been privy to my mental health and what the boss' think of it
i have a 4 yr. old and my partner who is a stay at home dad (looking for school time work but he has no GCSE's and no recent employment or references plus he has depression and ADHD) to look after and feed and i don't know what i can do. it has started to affect my life out of work, spending hours thinking over the same problem in my head and having conversations with my self (one sided) about it, being sick, not eating, feeling depressed, not sleeping. what can i do? I'm sure i can still work just not there and i have been applying for any job i can get and have had an interview for one and i know the right thing to do would be to try to carry on working till i can get another job but given all that has happened it is now the whole place that gives me anxiety not just the tills, knowing none of my bosses support me and i have no where to turn there if i feel unwell again
is there any chance at all that if i leave and site my reasons for leaving on the jsa form as anxiety and panic attacks caused by the job (but not backed up by my doctor) and being embarrassed by managers in front of other employees, being told to be cured or quit by my boss and that i had been doing everything i could to get another job before i felt i could no longer work there then the JSA people may see it as Just cause to leave and not sanction me?
i made an appointment to see a different GP to see if a different doctor could offer me some medical help or a note for the job centre but the earliest i could get was the 22nd and i will have to go back to work on the 19th. as my boss told me to come back cured or quit would it be a reasonable thing to ring and tell him that i am not cured and am in fact now worse and i cannot come in to work after the sick note ends but i am seeing a doctor and will let him know what the doctor says? because if he does not want me till i am cured and i am not cured then he can only allow me more time off or fire me and i don't think JSA would be able to sanction me for being fired given that i have been seeking medical help and have asked for help getting back into the job (the extra training and time away from the till i asked for) that was refused
just to make it clear i have been on JSA before and would much rather work and have no intention of staying on it any longer that is necessary. i hope that one of the jobs i am applying for will hire me and start asap and that i might not even need any JSA but i cant bet on that being the case and i really need to know how to afford to feed my family if i quit and don't get another job soon enough. has anyone else ever been in a similar circumstance? what did you do? is my boss allowed to refuse to make what i consider to be a small short term change in my duties and tell me my only option is to quit?
thank you so much for taking the time to read my mostly incoherent ramblings, any help appreciated
p.s there is no union and the HR department doesn't really exist its just a helpline that tells you to talk it through with your managers manager via an email that you have to send to them first and could take up to a week to be seen
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