I refer you to...

We've got a rope!
We've got a tree!
Now all we need
Is a referee!

-- American football cheer

It shouldn't surprise me that today sucks. After all, I'm seeing my mother tomorrow -- at the Tooting flat. This means that I have to spend the evening cleaning the flat, which will involve much hauling of bin liners full of festering crap and getting home at an unreasonable hour. Well, at least it means I can pick up a few other odds and sods I never remember to bring home: my framed photos, some books (my Preacher collection!), more clothes, that kind of thing. All the same, it's tiring and it sucks. So today wasn't going to be great anyway. Should I care that it's got worse?

Today really sucks because I made a great discovery -- great as in "huge" rather than "good". It goes as follows:

There is no end to the ways that ChelWest can screw me over.

I'm currently in the St Bart's job through a recruitment agency, but the first thing they did was hand me an application form so that I could be made permanent as soon as possible. After several days of forgetting to fill it in and another week being busy and forgetting to get it to Gloria, my office manager, I finally got it to her this morning. Gloria being an efficient office person, she got right to the ringing of my references -- she knows I'm doing my job well and wants to get me in a permanent situation as soon as possible. ChelWest is the most important one because the Trust requires a reference from my most recent line manager prior to the post I'm applying for. So, after correcting an error I made when copying down the number (I'm dyslexic when it comes to numbers, I swear), she rang ChelWest. She spent 20 minutes trying to get hold of Francesca, my former line manager, but persevered and eventually managed it and asked her for a reference.

Francesca refused to give her one.

Oh, boy, am I glad I told Gloria exactly what the situation was with regard to ChelWest during my interview. Y'see, it's not a problem with my work. Well, it wouldn't be, would it? The reasons she cited for refusing to give a reference were a) my breaking Trust guidelines with regard to notifying her of sick leave (luckily, the difficulty Gloria had getting through to Francesca backed me up in that regard), b) the fact that I left on no notice (not that I was given a lot of options in that regard, either -- I needed a paycheque fast after she docked my pay) and c) "the relationship". It's that last one that really freaks me out, because, well, what relationship? I've seen Francesca at maybe two work do's, exchanged the occasional pleasantry with her in the corridors and the rest of our dealings with each other have been through intermediaries. Maybe that's the problem; maybe she wanted me to come to her with any problems I had with the job or what have you. Not that easy when you're too busy to go hunt her down like the grey deer.

I'm lucky; Gloria has seen this situation (and, from the sound of it, been in this situation) before. She only informed me of what Francesca had said because she was 95% certain that Francesca would never tell me to my face if I confronted her; that Francesca would cite "confidentiality" when I asked why the hell she wouldn't give a reference. I'm not entirely sure about this, but I think I heard somewhere that an employer has to give you a reference and they're not allowed to slag you off. Even if it's only, "The employee you mention in your letter/phone call/e-mail worked as a part of my team from this date to that date", they have got to give you a reference. But Francesca's refusing even that much. And I don't think, "Yeah, I know who you mean but I'm not giving her a reference and it's not because of her work" counts as a reference, even if it does acknowledge a) that I worked there and b) that I was good at my job.

cholten99 has suggested that I take her/them to court over this and the fact that I wasn't paid for sick leave. The very thought just makes me cringe. There's this whole persecution thing -- I'm not supposed to speak up for myself. At least, that's how it feels from here. Anyway, I don't even know if I have a legal leg to stand on. Now, I freely admit that it would be different if it wasn't me. If anyone else I know was in my current position, I'd be in an uproar over:

the conditions they were forced to work under

how ill they became due to those conditions

the appalling communications that allowed notification of the illness to be lost somewhere

the docking of pay due to "unauthorised absence" despite presentation of doctor's notes

the refusal to process resignation upon receipt

the refusal to give even the barest of references

And a part of me is outraged. A part of me is foaming at the mouth over this and would happily clock Francesca. The rest of me looks at due process and bureaucratic legal haggling and curls up into a little ball going, "okay, I'll shut up, just leave me alone and stop bullying me!" And going over this whole thing reminds me, over and over again, that my own mother doesn't believe me, which hurts all the more. There's just no way to win here; I either stand up and take God knows how much abuse before a settlement is reached, or I just roll over. Neither way exactly leaves me feeling warm and rosy.

If I do roll over, it can still work out. My consultants love me and would hate to lose me over some niggle of Trust policy and some line manager's vendetta. What will probably happen is that I will work for St Bart's via Hudson for a few months, then get my contact at Hudson to be my 'most recent line manager'. Or, better yet, let me work under Slater and Slevin for a few months and have them serve as references. That's how I got the ChelWest job, after all. I'm getting paid now and my financial situation should be thoroughly unscrewed by next Friday; until then, I owe and I hate owing, but at least I can buy the groceries this week. Not contributing to the household expenses goes from suck through blow and straight to screwing the dead guy.

I dunno. Maybe some good hard manual labour in Tooting will take my mind off all this crap.

Public Service Announcement

I just remembered, and thought that everybody should know:

I have discovered a sure-fire cure for hiccups.

Yeah, not exactly a terminal disease, but mine tend to be extremely painful and nothing short of near asphyxiation will make them go away. I had a particularly bad bout of hiccups when having dinner with my mother just before my birthday and the cure suddenly presented itself to me.

Wasabi.

Seriously. When you get the hiccups, just eat a pea-sized lump of wasabi. Yeah, burns like Satan's hemorrhoids, but once you've got over that, no more hiccups!

...And I wonder why everybody thinks I'm looped.