I have my resignation letter in my hand

Yes, I think you’ve been caught spunking into the milk. Shame on you!

Tell them you don’t accept their suspension due to the fact that they have no authority over you as you are no longer an employee.
Put it all in writing.

They must know there’s no conceivable reason to force you to work out notice, or even be suspended during it. At best, you would be pretty unproductive during that notice, to put it mildly.

They must also realise that you walking rather than dragging them through disciplinaries and potentially tribunals is a positive thing for them.

+1 Meeting with HR, as suggested. You may have cooled off a bit over the weekend, and actually regret resigning on the spot. Or not!

Sounds like you’ve missed a large chunk of story out of how it got to this stage.

Not really, I posted something else a while back. My boss just seems to dislike me, my performance has been fine with others…there have been hiccups when working with/for her but these were mostly down to poor instructions on her part.

However…she’s never wanted to have to train me either…I was thrown into the deep end when I started this job, she expected me to hit the ground with my feet running having never done this type of job before and having just gotten out of university….and I’m being paid well below the average wage for this job….basically they wanted someone they didn’t have to train and who they could also pay a pittance….because of my academic record but lack of experience they thought they could do that with me.

For example…she didn’t even have the time to train me in the lab techniques they were carrying out, we do lots of different types…..but it was often a matter of…here are the crap protocols….here are the histology samples that we need sectioning…I’ll show you once how to section….now section, stain and mount our samples from this massively expensive study….which you can easily **** up.

At the same time…and this is the part that really **** with my head and I can’t even begin to explain it…is she managed to micromanage me all the **** time without ever training me adequately.

I blame running important time limited experiments while trying to get an ID card.

Hah. There is that.

On what grounds have they suspended you?

Are they suspending to investigate managers complaint against against you, or to investigate your complaint against her? They can’t just suspend without some form of reasonable grounds.

You could be on to a significant win if you play this right – you need, AS PEOPLE KEEP TELLING YOU to demand they pursue a grievance procedure against your manager – this can still be done now, while you’re suspended!

Okay, I will then.

I’ll have some fun with them now everyone’s shown their cards.

Do you work in a highly regulated environment with QA monitored procedures for the stuff you do? If this is the case, and your manager is asking you to perform tasks for which you aren’t trained, and then using this against you in a performance review… Well, if I were the regulator or QA manager, I’d have a fascinating conversation with your Manager!

No not really, they like to think they’re highly regulated…and they should be but they’re not….the whole place is a disorganized mess with a couple of people at top that like to talk about health and safety, quality assurance and organisation but don’t put it into practice. We definitely don’t have a Quality Assurance manager.

From what I have read it seems that you have been there less than 2 years?

This means that they can terminate your contract without a reason.
So if they wanted rid of you, this would be the obvious way to do it.

I would suggest take the suspension and raise a grievance.

A lab without QA?
Are you sure?
Surely a lab without QA is a shed that does a few experiments without credible results.
If they do have QA there must be a QA manager.

Is your missus happy in her job, and does it pay all the bills? How important is your relationship with her? Don’t answer here, they are just questions to ask yourself.

I ask because after relationships which had taken second place to careers (and failed), a few months with Madame were enough to convince me that our couple (and later our little family) should take priority over careers. The resulting choices were sometimes seen as madness by family and friends but we went from strength to strength, ended up in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing and prospered, together.

So rather than arguing with RH, have a good heart to heart with the Missus about what she wants from life.

Iolo. It’s very, very ad hoc. There’s a senior tech, a line manager who’s never worked in a laboratory (her only qualification is in HR) and a health and safety officer who never goes in the labs (lol).

I think I might have stumbled upon the worst laboratory in the UK, if it was Pirbright or Porton Down we’d all be dead by now.

You didn’t go to univerity in Sheffield and now work(ed) for TES do you?

If the results the lab generate have any clinical relevance, there will be regulation and QA. It may not seem like there’s structure, but to the regulator there will be. Without wishing to patronise, junior lab staff often aren’t aware of the QA structure – but this is a QA failure in itself.

Just trying to offer another angle to use in any dispute.

It’s not clinical, environmental. I’m sure the mods will be able to work out where it is.

You didn’t go to univerity in Sheffield and now work(ed) for TES do you?

Noooooo.

LOL, the work that my boss complained about was done before I was signed off as competent to carry out the work.

So they do have some sort of QA system, but it’s very very ad hoc and poorly carried out.

That you had to adhere to. Otherwise the tests were worthless.

? I did adhere to what I was told to do, the problem is that she signed me off as competent without looking at that previous work first and now she has the gall to be complaining about that early work.

So you’re declaring yourself as incompetent and unable to carry out the tasks given as you’re saying she signed you off without checking your capabilities?
Or am I missing something?

She’s complaining about the work that was done BEFORE I was signed off as competent, which she didn’t pick up and should have done at the time. Since then I’ve been doing things fine, which was pure luck as I didn’t know I had done the slides before I was signed off incorrectly.

She should have picked it up and told me to do the work differently, she didn’t – 6 months of work could have be wrecked.

Sounds like her booboo to me, I was meant to be in training at that time. As TallPaul said, she had me doing experimental work before I was signed off as competent to do so.

I’m staring to wonder if my boss is a bit of a derp, instead of a total asshole.

Tom_W1987 – Member

… There’s a senior tech, a line manager who’s never worked in a laboratory (her only qualification is in HR) and a health and safety officer who never goes in the labs (lol).

There there … the main problem is HR qualification while the other one is laziness.

She sounds like a corporate bully bitch who is also ineffectual.

Beat her at her own game by using the procedures to your advantage. Don’t rely upon HR to help much, they aren’t union reps and will side with their pay masters.

She can’t criticise you on performance of tasks you haven’t been asked to do.

Ask for proof the task was assigned to you. If they weren’t take her to a grievance for being an incompetent bitch of a boss, turn the gun her way. Most satisfying.

Cool, double post,

What do I win?

I was made redundant today after 23 years at the same company.

Not unexpected but not a good feeling 🙁

Does what you do have any direct influence on the health and test results of people who may or may not have terminal/life-changing illness?

It is public service? Private?

Sounds like critical training and QA tasks are not being performed by those in higher positions and things are being swept under the carpet.

Whistle-blow. Destroy them as they would destroy you and others.

Unfortunately no, I’m not going to say exactly what at the risk of outing myself on google and my old colleagues finding this thread when one of the postdocs is on a “google for journals” binge…

We do have an animal unit though, maybe I could cause some hilarity by complaining to the right people that regulate them….just need to think of an infraction first.

I was made redundant today after 23 years at the same company.

Not unexpected but not a good feeling

Ahhh that sucks. Keep us updated on your life plans! It’s always good to type/write things, helps you think about your situation….clearly didn’t work with me though….I flipped out and resigned anyway.

sargey – Member

I was made redundant today after 23 years at the same company.

Not unexpected but not a good feeling

I was made redundant last month after nearly 15 years of part-time job with the same company.

I don’t feel good but I know the bureaucrats are milking the system at the expense of part-time works and low level employees. Non of the management staff were on redundancy by the way.

Some of the low level employees don’t earn a lot and with family so it’s hitting them hard. I feel for them.

🙄