TL;DR I injured my back because of ridiculous uniform rules and 0 health and safety, I was lured into a meeting under false pretences and lied about, then fired.
on a 2 month contract, working the post room for some awful private school that charges £50k a year when most of the school budget seems to be spent on marble topped desks and shoddy artwork
I thought I'd be walking around with a trolley delivering letters but my job was actually ferrying 20kg+ worth of parcels from one end of the school to the other, dragging them along the floor in a bag. I would then organise them, catalog them and contact anybody who had a package, so lots of lifting and carrying. Any other department would be allowed to request the estates team to carry packages, who would wear appropriate, comfortable, unrestrictive clothing and use a trolley to transport them. Me, it was slim fitting suits and shoes only.
A week later I changed to my normal clothes, this was very much not allowed so I changed back to shirt and trousers, just not so slim-fitting. Nobody said anything against it, my manager in fact commended me for dressing appropriately. I started to notice teachers, other admin staff, anybody really, wearing trainers, these were all people that faced students far more than me, they also dealt with the principal, parents of students whereas I didn't really, I spent most of my time in a room at the back of the school, a dusty little hovel that had lift-up windows that were sealed shut. One rule for me, one rule for everybody else.
There was a large, plastic box that held exams, it was wider than me, heavy alone but would be much heavier depending on how much is in there, and would have to be placed on top of a cabinet that was nearly a foot taller than me. I was hurting my shoulders constantly doing this, and I was not provided with a step ladder to level out the height, in fact it was such a small space the myriad of amazon boxes that were delivered were often in front of that cabinet, making it more difficult.
I put the box in an area on the floor, my heel caught it and the force went straight up my back, and I now have muscle damage in my lower back. I went home early and had a total of 1.5 days off. I was interrogated over the phone, and the day I went in my manager immediately tried to paint it as my error, i disagreed.
Lunch time came, I was lured into an office for a 'back to work meeting' where HR was on Teams, and I was told my work ethic was poor(nobody said anything previously, I was consistently told I was doing a good job), my personal presentation was poor (by the same woman who thanked me for dressing appropriately) and that I had lied on the phone about hospital opening times (how could she know? she didnt even know the name of my hospital, I had to repeat it to her 3 times on the phone, so there is no way she could have told me the operating hours)
I was offered no representation, no time to prepare, I was lied to about the reason for the meeting. And worst of all watching her face smirk when she felt she had caught me in a lie made my feel physically sick (she didn't btw, she lied about me calling her at a certain time, I have screenshots proving there was never even a phonecall at the time she stated, I had been calling starting 90 minutes before she said)
She was so smiley and nice up until the morning when she tried to make me blame myself for my injury, when I said 'well it's not like there's much place to put the box' which she then stormed out and an hour later I was lied about and fired. In the meeting she told me they had THEIR health and safety person do a risk assessment, conveniently they had removed nearly all documents from the box and calculated the weight down to the individual sheet of paper and then used it against me. This does not negate the fact I had to lift it onto something taller than me without the aid of a step ladder (which I also have proof of)
The only upside is that when she tried to break the news that 'it's just not working out' I just said ok bye, walked out and got my things. She followed me into the office and said 'I need your lanyard then I need you to LEAVE.' It is amazing how this subsection of the mildly educated, overfed middle classes will patronise you, treat you utter contempt, outright lie about you, smirk in your face while doing it but two simple, non swear words send them into a self-righteous frenzy.
All of it is he-said-she-said and I'm acutely aware that her words have far more authority, but the two things that do have proof are her lies about the time I called, and the state of the room I worked in as I took a photograph.
If it wasn't obvious already, I live in England