Pixie's Chronicle: I Started a War

Oopsie daisy. Though I think that just might be the understatement of the century. Ummm... so you know how I've been having issues with my regional manager at work? Well... it got worse. Mainly thanks to me. Now everything is in chaos and people either think I'm a scheming trouble maker, or a hero of the people. I see myself as neither, as all I wanted to do was create a mature discussion. But did my boss take it that way? Well, what do you think? 

So yeah, I've accidentally started a war at work and I've painted a massive target on my own head. So long any promotion chances that I had because the regional manager will never let me live this down. It's been very stressful and it's been taking its toll on me this week. Something has got to give soon and some of it was unleashed on my regional manager which has now caused the mess that I'm currently in. So sit down with your popcorn at the ready, because this is the story of how I started a war. 

 

My regional manager was being a pain again. Nothing new there. But starting from last week, she had been extra intimidating and passive aggressive which a lot of us have not been appreciating at all. If there's one thing I hate, it's passive aggressiveness. If you've got a problem, talk about it properly, don't just talk to people like crap and expect things to change. It's no secret that I don't like my regional manager. In fact, I don't think anyone does. We all find her to be rude, bossy, snobby and think she possesses a holier than thou attitude. It grinds people's gears, but whatever, we can usually deal with it. 

As I had explained last week, this person was now threatening people's jobs and her behaviour had now overall escalated to a point where employees were becoming genuinely upset and scared. This regional manager has had staff in tears including my previous store manager when she tricked her into thinking she was going to be fired due to a customer complaint, only to then turn around and be like 'lol jk the customer sounded like an asshole, you're off the hook.' Funnily enough, that was the day before my old store manager had handed in her notice and yeeted the heck out of there. I wonder why? 

Now, I don't like seeing people upset, and I especially hate seeing people in a position of authority abusing said position. Maybe I was projecting my own past experiences onto her too much, but for me, enough was enough. 

However, it wasn't actually me who made the first move. After another aggresive email, someone from another store sent an email complaining about her behaviour and calling her out on it. This shocked me as I thought that nobody would ever have the guts to stand up to her. I was cheering this person on, mentally thanking her for saying all the things that we in our store had been thinking. We were glad it wasn't just us because it shows that it really is the regional manager that's the issue. I just had to show my fellow colleagues and they were all really impressed. 

I then wrote my own hypothetical reply just to get stuff off my chest and I ended up liking it that much that I once again showed my colleagues. They ended up really liking it as well and that's when my supervisor told me to send it. I was shocked because my supervisor is just as much as an anxious person as I am, so for us both to override our anxiety just goes to show how much this lady has ticked us off. 

Well, we weren't the only ones who clearly felt this way, and at the end of the day, nothing was ever going to be resolved if we stayed silent, so... I sent the email. 

The reply was swift. 

Instead of the mature debate I was hoping that it would create around how we could all best help each other, the regional manager. Has. Gone. Ballistic.

I don't even think she read my email properly. I think she just read the first few lines and then just assumed that the rest of the email was me criticising her rather than begging for some more constructive feedback off her rather than just threaning us all the time. I think my email was faily balanced. I politely explained that she had been making my colleagues and myself feel intimidated and that she had lowered morale, but that I understood she was under a lot of pressure herself. I explained that I wanted us all to come together and try and work on more proactive ways we could improve sales and all that jazz. 

Nope.

Apparently I was conspiring to start a witch hunt against her. 

I'm not joking. 

That's literally what she accused me of. 

I then received a very passive aggressive phone call off her, saying I was trying to make trouble and start a witch hunt and that I needed to remember that she was human as well. I heard out her side of the argument (not that she was letting me get a word in anyway) in which she explained that the region was in chaos and that we should be doing better, something I admitted to in the email which she would have known if she'd read it properly. My issue was not her telling us that sales are an issue, it's the way she spoke to us that I took issue with. You can't threaten people like that. Manager or not. I tried to explain this to her, but again, she wouldn't let me get much of a word in. 

In the email, I had also mentioned the fact that we didn't appreciate being named and shamed in front of the entire region. She then tried to gaslight me and claim that she never did that, and if she had, she hadn't tagged in the whole region. I then simply forwarded the evidence to her, and she had very little to say in response to that other than stuttering out that it was an accident.

She didn't appreciate that I had tagged the whole region in my email to her too, which I can understand, but there was no malicious intent behind it. I was merely replying to the chain of emails, and like I said, I thought I could start a mature discussion on how best we could all help each other. I apologised if it sounded like I was trying to start some sort of witch hunt, but that it wasn't my intention at all (bear in mind that she hasn't apologised for any of her behaviour). She still accused that of being the case so I had to grit my teeth so I didn't say something else that I would regret. I was beginning to feel like she was reacting really immaturely to the situation. At the very least, she wasn't listening to me.

She then threw in some good old emotional blackmail about redundancies and that she really cares for us all, and our safety and wellbeing means everything to her. After everything she had said to us over the past few weeks, those words just sounded hollow and empty, and I didn't know whether to believe her or not. If she cares about our safety and wellbeing so much, why does she put all this pressure on us? Why does she talk to us and look at us like we're something nasty on the bottom of her shoe? Why does she make us work illegal hours? Why does she make us do unpaid work? Why does she force us to put customer safety at risk? The list goes on. 

We ended up ending the phone call with me not really having any idea of what just happened. I just kind of sat there in a state of shock for a while. I had taken on the regional manager and I had lived to tell the tale. Granted, I hadn't actually technically done anything wrong, so she couldn't punish me even if she wanted to. My email was very respectful and I'm entitled to have a grievance and point out when I feel like I'm not being treated fairly. 

Honestly, I thought that phone call would be the end of it, but I guess I should have known better. I had humiliated her in front of the entire region by standing up to her like I did and it sounds like I had caused quite a stir in all the other stores as well. Though why all this seems to be targeted at me, I don't know. My supervisor had given me the green light, and I wasn't even the one who started it - that other store did. I just backed them up with our own experiences. 

The regional manager then went on damage control, threatening all the other stores not to do anything like that and in the future if we have any issues, we need to call her instead of emailing her. I can't help but notice that would mean there would be no recorded evidence of anything that gets said, but maybe that's just me being overly paranoid at this point. She was still convinced that this was some sort of conspiracy against her, but she finally said that she wanted to draw a line under the whole thing. Fair enough. 

That truce lasted about 12 hours. 

She called my supervisor the next day and demanded to know why I felt the way that I did (remember, she had called me the day before, so why she didn't ask me then, I have no idea). Of course my supervisor couldn't speak for me, but they backed me and defended me, saying that they felt the same way about her behaviour and begged the regional manager not to take any action against me. The regional manager admitted that she wasn't going to (because she couldn't), but admitted that she was going to have my store manager have a word with me. 

That then made me realise that our store manager was completely unaware of everything that had happened, so I swallowed my pride and gave her a call to confess everything. She was grateful to me for letting her know, and she warned me that in the future, all emails like that must be approved by her in the future, a policy that I was completely unaware of. I was told to keep my head low, that she was proud I had stood up to her and stood up for what I believed in - just in the future, I needed to be a bit more careful. I apologised and admitted that although I regret the way I went about things, I still stood by what I said to the regional manager, which my store manager respected and admitted that she thought the regional manager was handling the whole thing very badly. 

So yeah, I just had to keep my head low and she would deal with everything in a few days. 

Once again, the regional manager wanted to draw a line under the whole thing, admitting that maybe she had come across as a bit blunt, but we still had no apology. Not that we cared at this point. We just wanted this whole drama to blow over, especially since we had never wanted to cause drama in the first place. We just wanted our regional manager to calm down a bit and talk to us like humans. But obviously that was too much of an ask. 

This truce once again lasted for 12 hours. 

Yesterday, she declared that she had now banned anyone who isn't a manager or supervisor from accessing company emails... as if that's not going to cause a lot of problems. What if both the manager and supervisor aren't there? What about when people like myself have to run the store? It would mean that we'll miss important information, won't be able to print stuff needed for the store and won't be able to communicate sales figures like they constantly want us to do. 

I just sighed and figured I'd keep my mouth shut, follow the rule and see how well it turns out for her, because she really is going to end up cutting her nose off to spite her face with this one. 

With my manager back at work today, I thought that once again, things would finally be over. She once again heard my side of the story and repeated what she said before that it should have gone through her first, and again I apologised as I was unaware of this rule. But she seemed really kind and understanding, gave me a hug and said she would get it sorted. It made me feel a bit better knowing that I had her fighting in my corner so to speak - or at the very least she could see that I had the best of intentions. 

The regional manager has now gone on vacation which means that we've had the lap-dog to deal with. I knew that the lap-dog would take the regional manager's side because she's a huge suck up, but she's now treading a fine line herself, and I could have grounds to report her if she's not careful. She called my manager and explained that the regional manager was very upset and that once again they wanted me to be dealt with. All they could do was have me fill out a form that explains my side of the story and sign it to say that my manager has spoken to me about the incident. Clearly, despite saying multiple times they wanted to draw a line under the whole thing, they're still acting like petulant children in my opinion, and even my manager agreed. 

Still thinking it was over, I managed to relax a lot more during my shift today. That was until the lap-dog called wanting to talk to my manager about something. Usually, the lap-dog is very friendly with me over the phone. Even though I find her annoying and bossy, she is usually genuinely polite with me and will often make sure that I'm okay before asking to be passed on to the person she needs to talk to. Not today though. Today she was as cold as ice with me. In a spiteful tone, she just simply asked if my manager was there. 

It made me feel physically sick. I now feel like that there's going to be a vendetta against me. So much for any potential promotion chances. Not that I was probably going to get one anyway, because after all, before all of this, my regional manager kept forgetting that I existed. 

So now the thought of going into work terrifies me. I'm too terrified to answer the phone and I'm too terrified to communicate with most people in any way because of what I did. Like I've said before, I feel like I've painted a big red target on myself. I'm still de-frosting my ear as we speak because of that phone call. What was supposed to be a genuine grievance and a hope of sparking a debate has turned into what is pretty much a bitch fest. I feel like I'm back in high school. 

I'm feeling pretty miserable. I regret doing the whole thing, yet at the same time, I'm still glad that I made a stand and defended myself and my friends. I just regret all the problems it has caused, and although I feel like most of that is down to my regional manager, I was still part of the spark of the whole thing, and if I had just kept my mouth shut, then we wouldn't be in this mess. I wish I had kept my head down and just ignored it all because I feel like all of this conflict just isn't worth it. Especially if it puts me back into what it was like during my school days. I thought I had left all those days of being bullied behind me, both by equal peers and those in a position of authority above me. 

This whole incident has triggered my PTSD which is far from fun. I've been having awful nightmares again and haven't been able to sleep properly. I feel like I've been neglecting my boyfriend and my friends because I just haven't had the energy to deal with anything else. I just want to wrap myself in a cocoon of blankets and have a long rest from it all. I don't think I've ever been this physically and emotionally exhausted at the same time. There are times where I can see the funny side of this situation and then times where I just want to run away and start a new life as a goat in the Alps or something. 

Guys, I just want a break. I want to get through one week without some sort of drama or bad thing happening. I'm exhausted. I want to write and have fun and rest, but there's just no sight of that at the moment. 

I'm so so so so so tired.