I finally had a nervous breakdown

[Seshat]

Is there anyone from another store in the area where you work that can attest you were physically in the store during those times?

Is there any record kept of the door opening/closing, or any cameras?

Security tapes that show that you were, in fact, in the building and working for that length of time would be extremely satisfying.


Other than that: ditto on everything everyone said.

[Der Cute]

Honey....

Big hugs and a teddy bear.

First thing:
When speaking to A about any issues have you DOCUMENTED THEM???
This will help when firing, and cover your ass when you can her - to the management.

Second thing:
Go home. Turn phone off. Write down a daily journal, (copy what you told us here) of your daily activities for the last two weeks. Detail it. Bullet -line it.

Third thing:
If you are NOT fired, and just screamed @ by VP, I want you to take your ass directly to a mental health org ASAP. ER is an ok idea...and get the psych eval. Well, even if you are fired.

Fourth:
When you have the psych eval, the documents of what you've done, the A-canning document, walk in to your boss's office and say: Find a person to take over for 2 weeks; Dr's orders for vacation. Starting June 3rd. (you have dr. paperwork to back you up, HR can help you with this if boss starts crapping a brick)

Fifth:
Yoga. Kus, hon, you sound like me in my 20's. Concerned about so much and not really having enough power to fix it all. Behavior modification counseling helped me tone / focus my worrybrain and to shut the gerbil in my head up. Yoga is a great way to learn this skill. THIS IS SOMETHING YOU WILL NEED THROUGHOUT LIFE.

Understand this:
I have been fired from over 90% of my jobs due to behavior issues - "I dont get along w/ the people" (during retail career span) My behavior is partially due to Epilepsy, child abuse and anxiety...funny little things that grew to a large ball of spaghetti.

I have SURVIVED being fired. Everytime I'd get canned...goto Unemployment office. File. Start hunting. Get up next day. Do it again. Remind self to not eat Steak & Lobster, more like beans & rice. SURVIVE.

The longest span was a 7 month period of no job. I was in Alaska, and hunting like a crazy person for an IT job - without too much experience and a BS degree. 2 things that really hurt me. I filed for food stamps. I asked for heating assistance (mid winter, remind you) and I borrowed money from friends who cared.
Ya know what? I'm still here. I applied, got rejected, applied, rejected, rinse & repeat....but I'm alive! I did side jobs for puter fixes, I was on line A LOT.....and prayed too.

Your pride stings when you get fired. Feels like a fall on ass when ice skating - cold, hard and ow when you get up. But you get up. You have to get up. Nobody's there to help you get up. So get up.
It's a rejection feeling emotionally too, and that hurts. But remember: You CHOOSE on how long that will hurt. Everything in your day is a choice. CHOICES.
You choose to have a weeklong pity party, or a 1 day pity party?

So, remind yourself:
I have choices. I may not see them at the moment due to my anxiety, but I DO HAVE CHOICES.

I will survive, no matter WHAT the outcome. I WILL SURVIVE.

I have friends. I have choices. I have a cushion for a fall. I CAN DO THIS.

Kus, honey, we are here.
Hugs
Cutenoob

[Rapscallion]

You won't be throwing her under a bus. She's thrown herself under. If you go, will someone else cover her back?

Unless you're getting something out of covering for her, and it had better be pretty good, don't get screwed over for someone else. Sometimes, a manager has to be a bastard.

Rapscallion

[Cia]

Don't forget to remind them of a little thing called 'time zones'. 1300 on the east coast doesn't mean it is also 1300 on the west coast.

A needs to be fired ASAP.

Take care of yourself Kusanagi.

[Andara Bledin]

Yikes! That is one bad situation you've found yoruself in.

First off: You're doing nobody any favors, least of all, yourself, by keeping A around. This job is beyond her abilities, and with all you have done to fix her screwups (not counting the stress), I don't think there is any value to her presence, except having a warm body, and even then, she seems lukewarm at best.

Next up: Get yourself straight to a doctor and ask about stress leave. You may end up with a pittance out of it, but I can't imagine that a doctor wouldn't order you to stay home for two weeks, at the least, to allow yourself time to stop killing yourself for your work.

The worst your work could possibly do is fire you (which I believe would be illegal while you were on medical leave), and I'm not sure that wouldn't be a huge favor considering how much damage it's causing your psyche.

I can actually relate (on a much scaled-down level) to what you're going through right now. For the last 6 years I've been in a poisonous home situation that I knew I had to get away from but couldn't face the idea of what it would take to do it. Basically, the solution was to move. I dreaded everything about the idea of moving.

Eventually the decision was made for me and the whole lot of us got evicted. I no longer have any interaction with the individual that was the cause of my stress (both mental and financial) and it's like someone hit a factory reset for my stress levels. People at work have accused me of being on uppers because I've been in such a good mood the last month or so.

That's how much my situation at home was affecting every other aspect of my life.

Being without work is scary and it can be really tough to find a job, but unless something in your workplace changes drastically, this job can't possibly be worth what it's taking out of you.

^-.-^

[nhollywood]

Another option is:
Step one: write A up
Step two: (next occurance) suspend A without pay
Step three: (next occurance) Termination

This will show management that you are taking steps to deal with a problem employee and protect you from a lawsuit if A decides to file one. You never know, A may actually improve (or not).

[Kusanagi]

The reason A hasn't been fired is twofold -

There's nobody to replace her (we only run two people to a showroom, and my showroom is the only one that has two people, the other two only have one)

I'm a sales manager, but I do not have the power to hire or fire people. If I did, she would have been repromanded by myself several times, and I would have fired the last coworker months before he was fired by M.

I guess they see no problem with keeping me stressed if it means they have someone up here so I can jet around to other showrooms.

[Gurndigarn]

I guess they see no problem with keeping me stressed if it means they have someone up here so I can jet around to other showrooms.

Then you have job security. Whether or not you want it is another story. However, START THE PAPER TRAIL. If nothing else, you show DM/RM/whoever the documented history of someone else's screwups. You say "wasn't me." Then you say "I don't have the authority to fix this. Can you do something about it?"

Your ass stays covered. And they have a hard time yelling at you, because you've got the answer: "I've shown you the documentation. I can't do anything about it. Will you?"

[Hobgoblin]

I guess they see no problem with keeping me stressed if it means they have someone up here so I can jet around to other showrooms.

Does anyone else see this as a hostile work environment? If you can't fix the problem, but you're getting blamed for it, that strikes me as fairly hostile. Certainly running you into a nervous breakdown in unethical. No one on the boards at all thinks this is even a slightly healthy place for you to be.

The only question I have is this: have you told M about all the things that A has done that you are making up for? Or if M can't fire A, have you told your supervisor about it? It doesn't have to be someone who can get rid of her, but you have to have the CYA paper trail.

Take care of yourself. Soak in a bath tub full of hot water (with about a pound worth of Epsom salts in there with you, it will help get toxins out of your body) until you feel relaxed. Go get a massage. Take a walk in the park. Watch a sunset. Pet a puppy (or kitten, if you're that type of person).

[Emmeileia]

I assume you are in the US Kusanagi, I don't know how things work down here, but in Canada I believe it may be illegal to give someone a bad reference. I know my company will not say ANYTHING other than to confirm they employed the person in question for fear of lawsuits. So that would be one worry off your mind if you quit/are fired.
I really think that if the job is that bad for you you shoule just walk away. If you are really desperate for any job, at this point there are a lot of seasonal jobs hiring that are good for a temporary fix...
I hope this works out for the best for you.

[Pedersen]

I assume you are in the US Kusanagi, I don't know how things work down here, but in Canada I believe it may be illegal to give someone a bad reference.

Don't know about illegal, but how about this for a nightmare scenario? He could get a reference like one of previous bosses got before hired to become my boss (how this guy became the manager, I can not explain, not with this reference):

Owner: Hi, I'm calling for a reference about EJ (his nickname around the workplace, but not to him, short for Capt Edward John Smith, HMS Titanic)
Other Guy: Yeah, he worked here for this long.
Owner: Can you tell me more?
Other Guy: Not without consulting with legal first.

All of it technically true. But tell me you'd consider hiring someone with that sort of reference? I know I'd be extremely hesitant, at best.

[B&NGoddess]

All of it technically true. But tell me you'd consider hiring someone with that sort of reference? I know I'd be extremely hesitant, at best.

well, yeah, but thats all we're allowed to do at the B&N. Human resources is supposed to take care of references and such. we're only allowed to confirm employment. im pretty sure that's the standard.

and Kus, i feel for ya. i echo everyone else's sentiment and advice so far. get yourself taken care of first and then deal with the other BS.

[Andara Bledin]

I'm a sales manager, but I do not have the power to hire or fire people. If I did, she would have been repromanded by myself several times, and I would have fired the last coworker months before he was fired by M.

Since you have no authority, then maybe you can find some way to pass all the shit coming upstream from A's screwups on back to M, since M is the one with the power. If you could find some way to pull yourself out of the shitstream and let it bounce between the two causes, you might be able to salvage both your health and your job, should you choose to stay.

I assume you are in the US Kusanagi, I don't know how things work down here, but in Canada I believe it may be illegal to give someone a bad reference. I know my company will not say ANYTHING other than to confirm they employed the person in question for fear of lawsuits. So that would be one worry off your mind if you quit/are fired.

If he's in California, I'm fairly certain that it is illegal to give a bad reference for a former employee. Even the comment someone else made about consulting with legal could be seen as a form of bad reference and would likely lose if the former employee wanted to sue.

^-.-^

[wagegoth]

In California, it's not illegal to give a bad reference, but most employers don't want to deal with the backlash, especially if the employee's bad behavior (whatever it was) that got him fired is not properly documented, if what was done by the employee was illegal and the company did not turn the employee over to the authorities to protect the company's reputation, etc., that's why they usually only confirm job title, dates of employment, and pay rate (all they're legally required to provide). Companies have been sued for giving a bad reference that they can't back up, especially if the bad reference appears to be based on revenge or retaliation for something the company might have done to the employee that was illegal.

The other reason is that a few companies sued previous companies who gave good references to bad employees to get rid of them. The new companies hired the employees based on these references, then found out that the references were lies. When lawsuits happen, smart companies duck.

Kus, all I can do is add to the chorus of CYA, create a paper trail, document, document, document. And be sure to report regularly not only to M, but any higher up you feel comfortable with.

[MystyGlyttyr]

I have gotten several jobs where I knew straight off the bat that I was in over my head, and I quit specifically because I knew I would be hindering the people around me. Even though I needed the money, I knew it would cost everyone else to keep me around and I knew the honorable thing was to cut everyone's losses and quit.

Hence, why I have already written A off. Either she KNOWS she's a screw-up and she's continuing to screw up without caring about the consequences, or she doesn't realize she's a screw-up, and thus she's a complete idiot.

So, here's my summation...

A: Moron. I count no less than four MAJOR fuck-ups in the course of a week. She may be a very sweet girl, but nice doesn't equal smart. Being a nice girl doesn't make up for wrecking business.

M: Prick AND moron. If you leave instructions for A to clean, and she didn't do it, and YOU didn't do it because you're NOT THERE because, as it is my understanding, it's your job to go between showrooms, then how is it your fault? Further, I don't care if you catch someone dead in the water, you NEVER explicitly call them a liar. EVER. Because then if somehow, even on a technicality, they get cleared, you're gonna get your butt sued for harrassment and/or damage to reputation. Thirdly, if you're going to make accusations about hours, get your freaking facts straight. My cousin with ADD who's an 8th-grade dropout understands time zones, he can even name all four of the primary U.S. ones off the top of his head (something I can only do after a moment's thought), and usually compute times give or take an hour for anywhere in the world. A businessman who is part of what seems like a national chain should at LEAST be able to understand 1 a.m. in California does not equal 1 a.m. in New York.

Company: Immoral, unethical, borderline illegal. They blame you for what you have no control over, they obviously don't have the mental faculties to insure that their computers handling the alarms can adjust for the time zone change, and they're wanting to cut your pay FOR SOMETHING YOU CAN'T CONTROL. The only way you're ever going to meet your sales goals every time without fail will be to assault people until they hand you money. Sales goals are always a stupid idea. Furthermore, these are the same folks who put you back in the SAME SHOWROOM you were assaulted in so that the little dickhead who attacked you could come back and try it again. Now, sure, maybe it's your job to go around to these different places, but the least they could have done was make sure you had another person WITH YOU while you closed so that you didn't have to walk out to your car alone and get jumped. That's gotta be at least unlawful endangerment. (Not a lawyer but still, jeez.)

I won't tell you to quit, because I know that sometimes money issues are so overwhelming they're all you can see. But you gotta know that your life is for YOU to live. I personally would much rather be a moderately sane bag lady than a miserable, psychologically-screwed rich lady. Hell, I could teach you how to dumpster dive...it's much, much cleaner than anyone will tell you it is, etc.

You just have to sit down, and make a list...reasons to stay, and reasons to go. And you have to figure out how much weight each reason has, and add them up.

Again, I'd offer hugs if I weren't physically offended by them, but I will say that I hope you can get things straightened out.

A thought, though...taking what you've written here, cleaning it up into a business letter, and presenting it to the VP might not hurt.