Pixie's Chronicle: Pick On Pixie Week

Wowzers, I had completely underestimated just how busy work would keep me these past two weeks. I think I might have mentioned it in my last entry, but they have been trialing giving us extra hours, which is all well and good, but our new manager went on vacation, so once again, this little pixie has been having to deal with everything again. So yeah, that's why you haven't heard much from me and have been seeing little to no updates. I keep jinxing myself with this. 

Anyway, as you may have guessed from the title, I've actually been having a little problem with bullying lately. You'd think in the adult world, everyone would have grown out of this silliness, but nope. I've literally been bullied by multiple people for the past few days. It's not offended or upset me or anything since after years of being tortured and bullied through school, I've developed some pretty thick skin. It's just made me angry because I can't understand how some people think it's okay to behave this way. It's not been fun. 

 

I despise bully on literally any level. Giving someone constructive criticism or having a mature debate with someone is fine, and I think we need more of this in society. But out right being horrible to someone is not okay. Like I said, I literally spent my whole time at school being bullied and I never got a break from it. It wasn't until I started college at 16 that it all stopped, and I figured it was because we were all grown ups now and that we have learned to be more respectful towards people. It turned out that I had given humanity way too much credit. 

The bullying started at work with two of my co-workers. One of them is the regional manager and the other is her lap-dog and is being trained to become a regional manager. I have never liked this regional manager as she shows very little respect for her workers and she clearly has favourites. I, for some reason, am one of her least favourites. If she's not pretending I don't exist, she's insulting me in some way or just being passive aggressive towards me. She has this nicey-nicey exterior that tricks you into thinking that she's really kind and caring, but damn she is a b#@ch. 

She's always been bossy, and constantly harasses us all through email, and she can't even leave you alone when she's supposed to be on vacation. But hey, that's just typical of a manager on a power trip. It turned out that one of my colleagues had actually been on the same training course as her, and she didn't like her then either. Her behaviour is annoying, but it was just something that we had to put up with because she was our manager after all. Every now and then she would piss us off and we would move on. 

But this week she really crossed the line. 

Lone trading is a thing in our company which sucks. A lot of the time, we have to work alone in the building, dealing with some crazy people, and it's not fun. When one of my colleague's was pregnant, she was forced to lone trade even then, and she was actually attacked by someone during that period and could have lost her baby and her own life as a result. It's pretty bad. 

Technically we're not supposed to be lone trading at all, and if we have to, then it can be for no longer than 3 hours. But because the company hardly ever gives us enough hours, it means that whoever is the duty manager of the store that day is always lone trading way more than what is acceptable. But that's through no fault of ours. If we go over our contracted hours without having gained the overtime permission (which is almost always never granted) then we get shouted at. So we have no choice but to leave the manager alone for extended periods of time. No one wonder store managers are always quitting. 

This was the case the previous few weeks. My hours had been cut back since I kept going over what I was contracted for, and the regional manager herself had even personally altered our rota because she knew that our old store manager would always try and make it so we weren't lone trading because she was always concerned about our safety. So we had no choice but to follow her instructions this time, because if we deviated from it, then she would immediately know. 

Then a few days ago, we get this email off her and we couldn't believe our eyes. She had sent an email out to the whole region naming everyone who had left a colleague lone trading (A.K.A. followed her orders), and I was on the list twice! So she had humiliated me in front of our entire area for doing something that she told me to do! I can't decide if she's thick or sadistic. We were all disgusted as a few of my colleagues had also been named too. I don't think we've all ever been so angry. We're thinking about reporting her, but we have to step carefully. Her telling us off for doing something she told us to do was bad enough, but to name and shame us like that was disgraceful. I mean, I always knew that I was on her sh#t list, but to actually see it in writing was incredible!

To make matters worse, I was then picked on by her lap-dog. The lap-dog is the manager of another store that's a few cities away, and boy does she love lording it over us and sucking up to the regional manager in the hopes of a promotion. She's such a crawler. But anyway, her supervisor had signed off sick for two weeks (probably due to the stress she puts him under) and she needed someone to help cover her store. Why she immediately comes running to us, I have our idea. Our store seems to be the black sheep of the company and we have no idea why. Probably because we're the only store that actually puts any effort into our work so we come across as pushovers. Our store is miles away from hers, and we all rely on public transport to get into work. And if you live in the north of the UK, then you'll know just how terrible our trains and public transport is.

Anyway, I was sorting through some posters having been at work since 6:30am, so I was already in a grumpy mood, especially after the stunt our regional manager had pulled. The phone rang and my supervisor answered before turning to me and asking if I would be able to manage the lap-dog's store the next day. I immediately said no, because I'd already discussed this with the lap-dog before; I would never be able to cover her store because I can't get there! Now bear in mind that me saying 'no' should have been enough of an answer. Me covering another store is not mandatory. I work my contracted hours in my assigned store, and anything else is optional. 

But oh no. This wasn't good enough for the lap-dog who was so used to me being a pushover. 

She demanded that my supervisor put me on the line, so I picked up the phone and she immediately demanded to know why I couldn't do it. I then explained to her that I would have to take 3 long bus rides to get there, a commute that would take a ridiculous 3 hours. And that's if the buses were running on time which they usually aren't. She then asked why I couldn't just get the train, and I said that would mean 2 buses and a train ride, which frustrated her. She was trying to think of every way to break me and render my perfectly valid excuses useless. She asked where I lived (which she technically shouldn't have done) and because I needed to prove my point, I had no choice but to reveal to her where I lived.

She then explained that she needed a key holder and that she could see that I had that day as a day off. I could hear the smugness in her voice at this point and it was like she was trying to make me feel guilty for wanting to be at home rather than rescue her store (which was her responsibility, not mine). I had no problem then revealing to her that I had already been working 6 days in a row, and because that day off was my only one that week, covering her store would mean working 9 days in a row. There was no way in hell I was doing that. 

Finally defeated, she sighed dramatically before saying 'fine' and hanging up on me. 

I don't really cope well with confrontation, so the whole ordeal immediately set off an anxiety attack, to which I then had to hide on the staircase while I rode it out. My colleagues found me in a messy heap on the ground and reassured me that I was totally in the right in the situation and that I shouldn't let the lap-dog get to me. My anxiety disorder makes this difficult though, especially since I have a fear of authority figures. This whole situation wasn't exactly helping me get over that fear. My supervisor suffers from anxiety themselves, so they totally understood and let me take as much time as I needed to calm down. I then pretty much spent the rest of the day dissociating, which is always fun. Actually I've spent the rest of the week in a dissociative state.

The cherry on top of the week of bullying ended up happening on Twitter. I have two Twitter accounts; my Taurus Pixie one as well as my personal account. On my personal account, I'm not too shy on sharing my political beliefs, but I mostly keep to myself. I don't harass anyone, and most of the time it's just me retweeting stuff that I agree with. So how this guy found me I have no idea because I rarely if ever use hashtags and just stay in my own little echo chamber.

Basically, he was some white nazi from South Africa. At first I found it funny because he was only targeting me, which I don't mind. After all, it's just some sad person with nothing better to do than troll people on the internet. I had a nosy at his profile and this guy was clearly a fascist white supremecist, so that should tell you all you need to know about him. At first he was bullying me over my mental illnesses which I just shrugged at. But then (obviously not getting the reaction he wanted) he started tagging me in racist posts, and that's when it went too far for me. I don't know if he thought I was black, but either way, it's disgusting behaviour and is in no way okay. I'm not going to say what the stuff was, but trust me when I say it was downright nazi level behaviour. 

Needless to say, I blocked him and reported him. Whether Twitter will do anything, I don't know, but this guy is clearly pure evil and needs to be stopped. It makes me feel physically sick that some people actually think and behave this way. This is why #blacklivesmatter. Because they have to deal with people like this. White people aren't under threat because of their skin colour and that's why #alllivesmatter is the stupidiest thing I've ever heard of. 

So yeah, that was my week of bullying. 

On top of that, I'm also currently in the middle of another health scare. Go figure. I just wish I could go through one year without needing to have some sort of medical exam. So I'll be having that checked out at some point, and I made the mistake of googling the procedure that I'm supposed to be having. Regret regret regret! All the regret! Now I'm even more scared than I was in the first place. I hate having medical exams at the best of times, but this one... *shudders* 

But I guess it's better to be on the safe side, just in case it's something serious. I wonder what wonky internal organ they're going to find this time. 

And this is why I haven't been able to update lately. Oy vey. 

As soon as my manager gets back, things shouldn't be as bad. It's because I'm having to constantly manage the place and it just completely drains me. I've actually put my foot down now and said that I want to be paid supervisor rates if I'm gonna have to keep looking after the place, and I'm sure that will put them off making me constantly do it in the future mwah ha ha ha!

Hopefully you'll see some AO3 and some smaller project updates this week. That and I hope that I finally get some free time to myself. Again, I feel like all I've been doing is working, sleeping, working, sleeping. I've had no time for the things that I enjoy. I started catching up with some of LycoRogue's work, but now that's come to a halt thanks to everything. 

I did manage to finally upload my island onto the dream database on Animal Crossing: New Horizons though. So if you want to have a nosy at my island, then my dream address is DA-5575-2695-9940. Plus you'll also get to see my real name when visiting my island. And yes, I did name my island after Peridot from Steven Universe. That and I like the name since the green connotations matches the green landscape of the island. Also, if any of you want me to come and see your island, then feel free to let me know! I love seeing the work that other people have done.

I'm off to go pamper myself now because I feel like I deserve it. I'm going to have a nice hot bubble bath, do my nails, play some games, chill with my boyfriend and order some pizza. I think I need some retail therapy as well. That and a good night's sleep. Hopefully things will be brighter and better next week.