Work

I've not worked for a while now.

I did have a job at one time. Most people would have considered it a poor job. I stacked shelves, or rather filled freezers, on a supermarket night shift. It was minimum wage, of course, but it paid the bills.

I lost that job about a year ago. What I did to lose it seemed amusing at the time. I pretended to take a photograph of a colleague. That was my fault. I admit that. That's one thing. Whether I got what I deserved is another.

I was the victim of many phenomena. One was the exponential assumption. This is the kind of logic that says 9 is nearly 10, so we'll say it's 10. And 10 is nearly 12, so we'll call it 12. And 12 is as close to 15 as 9, right, so it's going to be 15 from now on to be on the safe side.

The 'victim' of my faux-photography took it badly. She complained. This is automatically assessed by the system as 'harrassment'. Because I am male and she is female, the system classes this as 'serious harrassment'. According to the company code, 'serious harrassment' is 'gross misconduct'. And 'gross misconduct' is a sacking offence.

All over a non-existant photo.

I didn't have a hope in the hearing. The initial hearing was taken by managers who had previously been friendly with me, but who now treated me like scum. The latter is probably what they always thought of me as, but had to act as the former because of their managerial training. The second hearing was taken by a new manager who I I'd never met and another from a different store. The new manager wanted to make his mark. I was the mark he made.

I appealed, but I had no hope there either. To change the previous verdict, new evidence was needed before they could even consider it. Difficult to get new evidence when you can't even go into the store or even contact anyone save the designated 'colleague representatives'.

That was a year ago. I've not worked since. I went to the Job Centre, but they said I'd be better off on incapacity benefit. Difficult to disagree. I felt in no condition to submit myself again to the same type of people responsible for my position.

I am ill, true enough. But whether it's something I can recover from enough to be considered for work again is yet another thing.