This may be a long one.
I work in an office environment, one week a month. Usually we work from home.
The company states that we are allowed a week in the office to socialise with our colleagues and have a change of environment.
Today, an extremely humiliating incident occurred at work.
Our team leader was off today as he is working the weekend, and we were under the supervision of 2 seniors (one up from me, who have no authority over us agents) and another team leader from another team.
A senior, who I respect and have a great relationship with, approached me and a colleague and advised us to separate and one of us move seats.
After some time we realised that this was not a joke and we began to get incredibly agitated about it.
Nobody would tell us who gave us the order, or why. Only that we were distracting each other. I want to stress, that this was not the case. I was exceeding my targets from the day before, listening to my music and answering calls. It was incredibly random.
Now, a lot of agents, seniors and team leaders were watching this unfold. The whole thing was extremely condescending.
We had found out our team leader, on his day off, had given the order to separate us. I generally feel bad for the senior who had to do it, it’s not his job to be authoritative and I don’t blame him for the way it was handled.
The whole thing left me and my colleague who had to be split absolutely furious.
Another team leader sat with us and apologised for the way it was handled and allowed us some time to cool off. I have ADHD (my company are aware of this) and my other colleague has mental health problems I’m unaware of.
After cooling off, we got on with the last hour of work.
After getting home, I had received an email for a “catch up” tomorrow to discuss the incident. Me and my colleague had agreed that we only wanted to discuss this together and so I informed my TL that I request her to be there, or to arrange a formal meeting so I can have a third party present.
My TL had ultimately refused and said if further action needed to be taken I can have a third party present if a formal meeting must go underway.
Can I refuse to attend this meeting tomorrow? Because I am not comfortable at all discussing this with him alone. He’s incredibly condescending and a very difficult boss. I will find it incredibly awkward and will fail to get all my points across and will just sit and take what he has to say.
I just want to add, I am not an underperforming employee. A day before I had my “one to one” and it was discussed how I plan to progress to senior myself and it appeared I had my management teams support.
I work tirelessly in my job, take any extra training offered and always feel like I work to a high standard.
This whole thing is incredibly unfair and the fact I am denied someone present is ridiculous.
I am so tempted to refuse the meeting and tell him I’m willing to accept the consequences of refusing.
I could just go and take what he has to say but my team leader wasn’t even there. I can’t just let this slide and accept it. Especially when I’m looking to progress.
This is just one of many examples on how our company is just getting worse and worse.
Any advice for someone who struggles to stand their ground?