Thursday 15 November 2007

WORKINGMANS BLUES PART 2

On Tuesday 13th November I returned to the job I've loathed more than any other after almost 9 months on the sick, while my hernias were diagnosed and treated. You can sense the reluctance. Notice I did not return on the Monday, that would have been just too much. Let the week start without me.
So, Tuesday morning I arrive, and need to get my Smart Card reactivated since it was repossessed a month or so ago, for "Security Reasons". This involved a lot of standing around while one of the techies did things that I didn't need to know about, after which it became instantly apparent that I was unable to access my work email account. As my instructions for the day were to sort through the myriad emails that would have accumulated in my absence, this was going to be a bit of a problem, and I sat quietly for 5 hours doing slightly less than fuck-all. No-one batted an eyelid.
A team member who tends to mother everyone kept trying to drag me into conversations, but all I wanted to do was stare out of the window.
The following 2 days were to be spent in training for the new workload, which is to be handling claims for Crisis Loans. Despite me only being scheduled to work Tuesday and Wednesday, I volunteered myself to attend Thursday's Training session so as to be synchronised with the rest of the wing when we "go live" next week. I wish I hadn't. Having undergone two days of quite intensive training I'm:
a) none the wiser
b) very tired and stressed
and
c) dreading going to work much more than I was before.
At the end of today I had a brief "welcome back to work interview" with the Wing Manager (who is as sound a bloke as you could wish to meet) but it didn't go as well as we might have expected.
I am currently on PTMG (Part-Time, Medical Grounds) and have thus far had to elicit two letters of support from my Doctor, but now it transpires that neither of these letters are up to scratch. I refused to go and see him again over such a trivial matter.
I'm sure he's aware that the bottom line is that I don't want to be there, but he's not letting on. Who would want to be there, with the prospect of having to deal with nothing but Crisis Loans for the whole of Scotland over the entire Christmas and New Year period? As nice a bloke as he is, he doesn't have a fucking clue what it's like to sit there on the phones all day. He should get back to the floor.
Three days later my email is still non-functional, which impacts quite sizeably on the job I'm supposed to be doing next week - once we've completed a claim for a Crisis Loan we have to EMAIL it to the relevant Benefit Delivery Office to be actioned. No-one at work seems any too bothered so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it, but it would be nice to send the odd abusive email to my fellow colleagues.

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