New role nothing to do - stressful????

Hannaho

I've been transferred due to physical effects of stress - grinding teeth at night - tempromandibular problems, leading to arthritis in my neck, also sleep problems for a year - diagnosed with burnout and was off - lots of stress in a stressful job, mostly interpersonal stuff. Now, Occ Health have advised transfer, only if I agreed, so temporarily transferred - I hope - however with new job they are just leaving me sit in an office all day with nothing to do - I'm well paid, and others think I should just go with this, but I find it demoralising - especially with other staff commenting on it. The manager that was over me in the other job is over me now, and I feel he is doing nothing to get me some work, as he resents that it all went to Occ Health, and I got so sick - it took him a year to send me to Occ Health, and then only after my G.P. wrote me off for stress. Queston: Would any of you feel demoralised at the prospect of being at work with no work, or would you just, as my friends think, take the 60k per year and don't make an issue of no work? I would be interested in all of your comments/advice.

Stheno

Have you gotten in touch with HR as you were previously advised and and are keeping a log of every incident/comment etc?

ElleEm

Based on all of your other posts on your job, I would personally advise you to suck it up and spend all of the free time you have looking for a new job. You may be seen to be creating issues out of nothing if you begin complaining when they have moved you for the benefit of your health.

Hannaho

Yes, I HR were made aware eventually - and they took it all very seriously, which I was surprised at!

Re sucking it up - I'm just asking for advice re would others be happy to stay in a full-time job that really involved only one day's work a week - my family and friends think I should be delighted - maybe they are right, but I have always worked really hard, often bringing work home, so it seems alien to me to be in the opposite position.

tara83

Often a new role may take awhile to ramp up to full speed. Is there any chance it may get busier or could you find extra tasks to do? By the sounds of it you had a stressful time don't be too hard on yourself right now

Hannaho

Hi! Tara83, yes there may be a chance it could get busier, but my manager isn't sending me on any of the mandatory training I need to do the job - I have to do this training before I can do the job - though I have already done this work before. Re the stress - yes it has been a very difficult time, and I would say to anyone moving to a job where they have heard the boss is difficult, not to do it - I didn't heed my gut instinct, and listened when others said I would probably get on with boss eventually if I did a good job and worked hard - not the case unfortunately! But live and learn!

davo10

OP you say the job is stressful but there is no mention of bullying/discrimination etc so has your employer actually done anything wrong? They have transferred you to a job where you have no stress, on the same wage but this now does not suit you as you are not busy enough to be stressed. I'm not sure what you want, surely by giving you an increased workload they are increasing the risk that you will suffer further health problems?

Also, because you were stressed, OH moving you to a job with less stress would seem prudent. If every person with bruxism, TMJ and sleep problems were moved, work places would be like carousels.

Hannaho

Hi! Davo, it wasn't the job that was stressful, though it would be considered a stressful job, it was actually bullying by one particular person - I am not the only person that left the job because of this person who would be known as a bully. I was asked to do more work, in a quarter of the time than my other colleagues, and even when I managed to do it, my work was constantly picked over - this person did not want me in the job from the beginning and had had another person in mind for the job, but HR wouldn't permit her to give the job to her friend. There was discrimination there at the beginning, as mentioned before, the anti-single mother comments which continued for a long-time - my colleague could get away with this as she was aware that the boss, not my manager, did not support me getting the job and was making life difficult for me.

Re. the bruxism - I never had that until I started this job - I have had very many stressful situations and the same dentist for 20 years - and never had bruxism - the dentist told me when he told me I had bruxism that when he was training in the States, they would only treat bruxism - i.e. devise a brace, if the patient sought psychiatric help! He suggested at the time that I drastically needed to address my stress, but since the stress was coming from the job, this wasn't easy to do.

davo10

Op you seem to have started a huge number of threads about your situation, have you taken in board any of the advice given previously?

Hannaho

Hannaho wrote: »

they are just leaving me sit in an office all day with nothing to do - I'm well paid

If you're not happy there, then we obviously have different ideas of dream jobs.

If I was in your position, assuming there's some level of job security, I'd be keeping the head down and the mouth closed. Find a few office-friendly hobbies and keep as far away from management as you can for fear of drawing attention to yourself.


(That's just me, though. If I was handed a job on Easy St. I'd be fighting tooth and nail to keep it for as long as I could!).

Hannaho

Thanks, KKV, you're probably right - I'm a bit of a workaholic - come from a long line of them - so I'm not used to sitting there twiddling my thumbs, but maybe it's something I should get used to, as I'm well paid.

Stheno

Hannaho wrote: »

Hi! Tara83, yes there may be a chance it could get busier, but my manager isn't sending me on any of the mandatory training I need to do the job - I have to do this training before I can do the job - though I have already done this work before.

Have you followed up with your manager in writing on when you will get this training?

Birdsong

It is also possible that the training you require isn't available at the moment. I work in training & certain courses are only run every so often, so you may just have to wait until the training you require is being run.

stevenmu

Not having read your other threads, my guess is that your manager simply doesn't know what to do with you at the moment.

Because you have been off dues to stress and occupational health have been involved, he simply can't give you your old work back, he really has no choice in this. Instead it sounds like he has been forced by occupational health to create a new role for you when he didn't have any actual work requirements for a new role.

In addition to this there's probably a large measure of ass-covering. If he gives you work to do and you end up out with stress again then HR and occupational health will probably come down on him like a ton of bricks. So it's much safer for him to give you nothing.

What you could do is to make use of the time and freedom that you have now. Decide what you'd really like to do within the company, put together a plan for how you would go about doing it including what value it could offer to the company, then present it to your manager as a fait accompli. That solves his problems of not knowing what your role should be doing, you have requested the work so his ass is covered if HR or occupational health come knocking, and he no longer has an employee being paid to do nothing.

lazeedaisy

davo10 wrote: »

Op you seem to have started a huge number of threads about your situation, have you taken in board any of the advice given previously?

Have you taken advice already given? I know when advice is asked it's not always taken on board but since it's come up time and again and yet this post also asks for advice it would be interesting to see what you have come up with that works for you, as there are a lot of people who would love such a well paid job.