What to do, what to do...
- Thread starter Diddums
- Start date
Caporegime
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2013
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- 30,100
Just read it from the start. Diddums seems very sure of his capabilities.
One might say almost arrogant.
One might say almost arrogant.
Soldato
- Joined
- 2 May 2011
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- 12,298
- Location
- Woking
Sunbed
Soldato
- Joined
- 9 Nov 2005
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- 9,497
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- Southampton, hopefully not too hot, or too cold
wait how did it go from
"i've got a killer presentation" to "oooo some good gossip" to "i got threatened and sworn at"?
i demand an update!
Soldato
- Joined
- 18 Mar 2012
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- 5,492
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- Eastbourne
Diddums was killed by ***** over recording 
Caporegime
- Joined
- 30 Jul 2013
- Posts
- 30,100
Morning all 
Right, let's squeeze some lemons.
This could become a bit of a lengthy post but I'll try and keep it as short and juicy as I can.
First off, I have since left BTFS and joined a new firm in July last year. At the job interview I made it very clear that I wanted to move up in the world and exactly two months and seven days after starting, they offered me a supervisor position. I'm now supervising a team of five engineers and the job setting is chalk and cheese compared to my last one. This is one of London's "flagship buildings" (this one) in the city and is owned by an investment bank. Every i has to be dotted and every t needs to be crossed with duplicate paperwork documenting this. I'm very proud of what I've achieved, and our regional contract manager is dropping hints of pulling me off site and making me a sort of hybrid auditor/engineer going round all his sites and ensuring that the paperwork is up to scratch and helping solve some of the more challenging engineering problems his teams face. I'm very cynical however and take this with a grain of salt but who knows, we'll see. One thing I've learned in the last year is that the grass can in fact be greener on the other side.
Back to BTFS. We had a new lady start there who was above the ***** in the pecking order and this woman.... wow. She was fantastic. She listened to us when we spoke, she was actually interested and followed up what we asked or told her but sadly she was a drop in a bucket full of rotten, lying, two faced scumbags so even though she had our interests at heart, there was only so much she could do and as such I decided to leave rather than waste more time in a company which had no direction, ambition or organization. Before I left however I took the recording to a meeting with HR and took a union rep with me. The point of the meeting was to put in a grievance against my manager for the way he spoke to me. This meeting was, let's say... interesting. There were four of us in the room, myself, my union rep, the HR lady who was hearing me out and someone else who was taking notes (I dealt with this guy on a daily basis, he was the assistant building manager for BT's HQ).The meeting started off rather pedestrian with lots of "mhmm" and "aha" with a very strong undertone of "can you just get on with it so we can go please" - the lack of interest indicated to me that these people didn't really give a toss and that this was fairly common stuff, and as long as nobody looked under the rug, they'd be in the clear.
Then I told them I had a recording of the manager telling me that if I didn't conform to his game that he'd "make my life a living ****ing hell".
Well, that got their attention. I've never seen someone get owl-eyes that quickly. If ever there was a moment in my life demonstrating the rabbit-in-the-headlights effect, this was it. They had no idea what to say or where to take the conversation so they started off with "that's illegal" which I pointed out was incorrect and that as long as I was a participant in the conversation it was perfectly legal, although the recording couldn't be used as evidence in court. They asked to adjourn the meeting as they needed to contact their legal team to find out what the score was. I agreed and went outside with my union rep who told me that in the 25 years of him doing this, he's never seen a meeting get adjourned. He was having a ball, in his words, "you just dropped a nuke on them, they have no idea what to do" which seemed like a fairly accurate description.
Forty minutes later we're back in the room and the first question is "are you recording this?" to which I replied that I only record people if I have good reason to and I told them that I wasn't recording them. The rest of the meeting was just taking notes and asking questions, "was anyone else there at the time", "when did this happen" etc etc. I also told them about the supervisor thing and that it was a bit odd that I wasn't even given a look in at the position I wanted only to discover a few months later that the guy who did get it was sleeping with one of the HR girls (this was also quite a bang for them). I went back to work, handed in my notice that same day (or the next day, something like that anyway) and that was that. I accepted the job I'm in now (which was the interview mentioned on the last page) and made my presentation using the time I had left. I contacted SFG20 earlier and got a free trial of their system which I included in the presentation, took loads of photos of the site, and really went OTT to make my point, but more importantly, to help this new lady with the bunch of morons she'd been saddled with. I then spoke to her in my last week and put loads of concerns forward and explained how her manager and supervisor are destroying staff morale, what needed to change and how various aspects of how things are being done does not meet HSE standards (honestly, if the HSE audited that building they'd shut it down there and then without doubt) and told her about my presentation. She was very welcoming of it so I emailed it to her and rode out my last few days. She came to see me personally on my last day and said it was a real shame the way things went but as it all happened before she joined her hands were tied. She loved the presentation and asked if she could use it to put forward cases to get funding for things like emergency lighting upgrades which I said was fine. We left on very good terms and I regard her as someone I'd happily work for in future, a fact I made clear when I last spoke to her.
And then.
Large companies being as they are, gossip spreads like fire and I knew lots of people at BTFS, some of which I still speak to and I also know others from BT from completely opposite ends of the country who are completely unrelated to anything I did or anyone I knew during my employment so I still hear loads of info. Turns out the manager who swore at me got a warning but I opened the floodgates. Other engineers went to HR and told them of things that they'd kept quiet about, and of course the fact that I recorded the way he spoke to me meant that he didn't have a leg to stand on and was out of the company within two months. The supervisor was to incompetent that they passed some of his responsibilities to the cleaning manager otherwise they just wouldn't get done. Now the thing with this lot was that it was so poorly run that he had about three responsibilities so how he managed that I have no idea. They gradually took more and more of his powers away until he was just a husk sitting at a desk twiddling his thumbs and eventually he left (there's a punchline to this, keep reading).
I have since learned that BTFS is undergoing major changes, one of which is a complete rebranding as their reputation is so badly damaged that it doesn't make sense as a business to continue under that name.
And the punchline? The guy who was shacking up with HR and thus became the supervisor above me and subsequently drove staff morale into the ground and screwed up, rather literally, everything he touched, is now working at the same company as me. As a shift engineer. And I'm a supervisor (different site, about 100 yards apart). I thought someone was telling porkies so I went through our company email address list and sure enough, there he is.
I swear on my life I'm not making this up.
Right, let's squeeze some lemons.
This could become a bit of a lengthy post but I'll try and keep it as short and juicy as I can.
First off, I have since left BTFS and joined a new firm in July last year. At the job interview I made it very clear that I wanted to move up in the world and exactly two months and seven days after starting, they offered me a supervisor position. I'm now supervising a team of five engineers and the job setting is chalk and cheese compared to my last one. This is one of London's "flagship buildings" (this one) in the city and is owned by an investment bank. Every i has to be dotted and every t needs to be crossed with duplicate paperwork documenting this. I'm very proud of what I've achieved, and our regional contract manager is dropping hints of pulling me off site and making me a sort of hybrid auditor/engineer going round all his sites and ensuring that the paperwork is up to scratch and helping solve some of the more challenging engineering problems his teams face. I'm very cynical however and take this with a grain of salt but who knows, we'll see. One thing I've learned in the last year is that the grass can in fact be greener on the other side.
Back to BTFS. We had a new lady start there who was above the ***** in the pecking order and this woman.... wow. She was fantastic. She listened to us when we spoke, she was actually interested and followed up what we asked or told her but sadly she was a drop in a bucket full of rotten, lying, two faced scumbags so even though she had our interests at heart, there was only so much she could do and as such I decided to leave rather than waste more time in a company which had no direction, ambition or organization. Before I left however I took the recording to a meeting with HR and took a union rep with me. The point of the meeting was to put in a grievance against my manager for the way he spoke to me. This meeting was, let's say... interesting. There were four of us in the room, myself, my union rep, the HR lady who was hearing me out and someone else who was taking notes (I dealt with this guy on a daily basis, he was the assistant building manager for BT's HQ).The meeting started off rather pedestrian with lots of "mhmm" and "aha" with a very strong undertone of "can you just get on with it so we can go please" - the lack of interest indicated to me that these people didn't really give a toss and that this was fairly common stuff, and as long as nobody looked under the rug, they'd be in the clear.
Then I told them I had a recording of the manager telling me that if I didn't conform to his game that he'd "make my life a living ****ing hell".
Well, that got their attention. I've never seen someone get owl-eyes that quickly. If ever there was a moment in my life demonstrating the rabbit-in-the-headlights effect, this was it. They had no idea what to say or where to take the conversation so they started off with "that's illegal" which I pointed out was incorrect and that as long as I was a participant in the conversation it was perfectly legal, although the recording couldn't be used as evidence in court. They asked to adjourn the meeting as they needed to contact their legal team to find out what the score was. I agreed and went outside with my union rep who told me that in the 25 years of him doing this, he's never seen a meeting get adjourned. He was having a ball, in his words, "you just dropped a nuke on them, they have no idea what to do" which seemed like a fairly accurate description.
Forty minutes later we're back in the room and the first question is "are you recording this?" to which I replied that I only record people if I have good reason to and I told them that I wasn't recording them. The rest of the meeting was just taking notes and asking questions, "was anyone else there at the time", "when did this happen" etc etc. I also told them about the supervisor thing and that it was a bit odd that I wasn't even given a look in at the position I wanted only to discover a few months later that the guy who did get it was sleeping with one of the HR girls (this was also quite a bang for them). I went back to work, handed in my notice that same day (or the next day, something like that anyway) and that was that. I accepted the job I'm in now (which was the interview mentioned on the last page) and made my presentation using the time I had left. I contacted SFG20 earlier and got a free trial of their system which I included in the presentation, took loads of photos of the site, and really went OTT to make my point, but more importantly, to help this new lady with the bunch of morons she'd been saddled with. I then spoke to her in my last week and put loads of concerns forward and explained how her manager and supervisor are destroying staff morale, what needed to change and how various aspects of how things are being done does not meet HSE standards (honestly, if the HSE audited that building they'd shut it down there and then without doubt) and told her about my presentation. She was very welcoming of it so I emailed it to her and rode out my last few days. She came to see me personally on my last day and said it was a real shame the way things went but as it all happened before she joined her hands were tied. She loved the presentation and asked if she could use it to put forward cases to get funding for things like emergency lighting upgrades which I said was fine. We left on very good terms and I regard her as someone I'd happily work for in future, a fact I made clear when I last spoke to her.
And then.
Large companies being as they are, gossip spreads like fire and I knew lots of people at BTFS, some of which I still speak to and I also know others from BT from completely opposite ends of the country who are completely unrelated to anything I did or anyone I knew during my employment so I still hear loads of info. Turns out the manager who swore at me got a warning but I opened the floodgates. Other engineers went to HR and told them of things that they'd kept quiet about, and of course the fact that I recorded the way he spoke to me meant that he didn't have a leg to stand on and was out of the company within two months. The supervisor was to incompetent that they passed some of his responsibilities to the cleaning manager otherwise they just wouldn't get done. Now the thing with this lot was that it was so poorly run that he had about three responsibilities so how he managed that I have no idea. They gradually took more and more of his powers away until he was just a husk sitting at a desk twiddling his thumbs and eventually he left (there's a punchline to this, keep reading).
I have since learned that BTFS is undergoing major changes, one of which is a complete rebranding as their reputation is so badly damaged that it doesn't make sense as a business to continue under that name.
And the punchline? The guy who was shacking up with HR and thus became the supervisor above me and subsequently drove staff morale into the ground and screwed up, rather literally, everything he touched, is now working at the same company as me. As a shift engineer. And I'm a supervisor (different site, about 100 yards apart). I thought someone was telling porkies so I went through our company email address list and sure enough, there he is.
I swear on my life I'm not making this up.
Last edited:
Soldato
- Joined
- 2 May 2011
- Posts
- 12,298
- Location
- Woking
That was so worth the wait. Bloody good job!! Has he spoken to you at work now?
No, we work on different sites so I probably won't speak to him either. We have a common acquaintance from BTFS who we both speak to and I'm sure this guy has told him that I'm a supervisor at his firm, at a building valued at approx. 5x what his is worth. I suspect he'll be avoiding me like the plague.
This!!!
In fact, was he even aware that you worked there?
Can just imagine seeing his face drop when seeing you in the queue in the canteen.
Associate
- Joined
- 1 May 2010
- Posts
- 664
I shouldnt laugh but i did at that outcome 
Hope it goes well for you however!
Hope it goes well for you however!This thread made my day, so glad it got revived and we got the whole story!
Incidentally Diddums, does your new company utilise a permit-to-work system? If so, and judging by your past of developing and innovating how work is scheduled, we should talk!
Incidentally Diddums, does your new company utilise a permit-to-work system? If so, and judging by your past of developing and innovating how work is scheduled, we should talk!