Before I went into the meeting I spoke to another colleague at reception. "Hi, how's it going?" She picked up the phone, spoke to someone, put the phone down, spoke to me, "He's coming to get you now." OK. I'm thinking it doesn't bode well when a colleague whom I've worked with for the last 4 months blanks me in this way. Meanwhile a big, 'ard maaawwwwnnn (one of the ones that floats about and looks at you like you've just guffed in his steak and kidney pie) stands in reception and eyes me up and down. I turn to him and say "Alright mate?" He also doesn't respond.
I know I have a tendency towards paranoia, but I also have spent the last year sober and in that time I've paid attention to my triggers. This was an occasion where I knew I could get nervous and fearful, but I wasn't either. I was past caring to be honest. So I can't be 100% sure, but I strongly felt like I was walking into a scenario where people wanted me to feel intimidated. Why was that guy there? Why didn't he nor my other colleague respond to me, with even a bit of politeness or manners?
From a non-suspicious perspective: They were just being unprofessional. They were just being dicks, like so many people who work in the company: So let it roll off my back and move on, I thought to myself.
My supervisor walks into reception: Another "big 'ard mawwwwn" with an unapologetic intimidating gait. My heart sinks. I didn't want him to be here throughout this interview. This immediately removes my ability to be completely frank about the staff I have worked with and the inappropriate language and behaviour I've witnessed from some of them, (including this supervisor). But that just makes it all so much clearer to me: As far as anyone in this interview is concerned, it is my behaviour that has been inappropriate, not there's!
And so the farcical comedy of the interview begins, my supervisor is there to take notes and write down EVERYTHING that is said between me and the area manager. Of course! What better way to make sure I will keep my words brief: Put the intimidating supervisor in there and let me sit through 10 minutes of being told my every crime in agonising detail.
I start laughing at one point and interrupt this process: "Look, for the sake of speeding this up, how about you list the selection of things I've being accused of and I'll speak up if there is anything I find I need to defend or want to ask about?" They agree.
But the agonisingly slow verbal explanation and the comical note taking continues.
Eventually I get to put forward my side of the story:
As far as I am concerned, I have done my job well. I carry out all my duties to the best of my abilities and have done from the beginning. Yes, I admit there have been some issues raised with me, but I have put these right, as you have mentioned. So I don't see why my employment here needs to be terminated. I also think people need to speak to me more clearly if they have an issue with any part of my performance here. Unlike the way I was spoken to by !!!Twat-That-Had- A-Big-Rant-At-Me-The-Other-Day!!! who spoke to me completely inappropriately. He also didn't stop when another employee entered the room and I think that is just unacceptable: That undermines me and my position here.
"OK, can you read that back?" Says the area manager.
A large heavy exhale comes from the big mawn: "I have done my job well, I carry out my duties well and I have tried to be a better employee. I think I have been treated unfairly by .
"Is that OK?" says the area manager.
Yes. It is OK. It is OK because they've made it clear that I'm not going to get a fair hearing here. They've already decided they don't want me here and so this whole process is laughable and pointless. Sure. Write whatever. Fuck it.
It carries on in this way, eventually the area manager and I are arguing over some points, I think I do quite a good job of touche-ing his accusations, such as: "Do you think it's right that in a 12 hour shift, a guard only spends a few hours doing his duties?" To which I replied, "If all the duties he has been asked to carry out only take him a few hours, then yes, I think it's perfectly acceptable."
Of course this wasn't going to buy me any brownie points.
In the end an email from TWAT THAT HAD BIG RANT, sent to the area manager was read out to me, making everything loud and clear: "I can't trust him anymore and I want him off the site" was the jist of it. Basically it was everything he had said to me, but now excluding the part where he said, "One more thing from you and I'm going to ask you to be removed from this site." Seemed he changed his mind about giving me that one more chance, between having a rant at me and writing the email to the area manager. At the end of the day, it's his call whether or not the security team stay there at all. In that sense, I guess I was collateral damage. Maybe my dismissal sends a message to the others to knuckle down. Though in fairness, 'I just didn't fit in there, I hated the job and didn't really try to hide it', is probably closer to the truth.
After all the to-ing and fro-ing I was sent off to get a coffee while they mulled it over. They took longer than I thought. I saw the area manager on the phone. Perhaps they were phoning TTHBR to confirm he wasn't going to change his mind. Maybe they actually were willing to give me another chance and thought they'd try and reason with the TTHBR. I doubt it though. In hindsight, seems more likely they knew exactly the outcome before I arrived.
What was the phone call about then?
Hiring new stuff? Letting HR know to send out the position and make it available? Sort out my last few weeks payment? General paperwork involved in the whole firing and rehiring someone probably.
After the break I was given my sentence. It was slightly humiliating, but slightly amusing. I'm not sure why I found it all so funny, maybe because it felt so unjust.
I was asked if there was anything I wanted to say, off the record (as notes were no longer being taken), the big mawn pipes up, "I can leave if you want." I really wanted him to, but I didn't want to say it. What would be the point? The area manager and him used to work together here. I didn't have any faith in the confidentiality of anything I said to either of them. Also, what good would it have then done to say, "Well actually, the big mawn there, he's been saying some pretty inappropriate stuff, here's a list..." At most it would get him taken aside to have a finger wagged in his face, maybe his wrists slapped. Combine that with the fact that I have a slight aversion to having my legs broke by huge tattoo'd Loyalists from Sandy Row!
Moving swiftly on... I did mention in the hearing that TTHBR was totally out of order and that someone should speak to him about this. In some small way I hoped this might help the other guards. If he was also told to calm down a bit and be less of a prick with people, then maybe their lives will be just a little less stressful and people will get on a bit better, but I certainly won't hold my breath. I won't even waste time inhaling, hoping that anything will be said to him at all.
So that was that. I said "I've never been fired before. This is an interesting feeling" and I smirked and before I left I said "I'm just going to go downstairs to buy a couple of things, do you's mind?" They didn't.
I got my £5 Lack table and £4 waste paper bin and was on my way back into the world of unemployment.
Everything is fine except the uncertainty of paying bills. I am fine about the way the hearing was actually just a crock of shit. I don't really mind that I was fired. I am fine that people there never really took to me, or me to them. I am fine to not have to travel over an hour to work each night. I won't really miss the wee hard men and the big lads talking about "gettin' the boys round" or "them there pakis" or whatever other inclusive and fun work banter they pour out of their face holes. I am happy with everything except the uncertainty of how I'm going to pay my bills.
But, aside from this big blog-a-thon, I have been on the case with that, so fingers crossed for the future. And maybe even one without wankers? Well we can dream.
