h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have been a Union Rep for over 3 years and in that time I have seen a few of my people loose their jobs.

Today I had a result for a lady who should never have been sacked in a million years, and that has never happened to me.

I feel absolutly destraught, the person involed is the breadwinner for her family and had a mortgage. Whilst you cannot ever gaurentee anything I was as confident as I had ever been about such a case that we had won the case. I feel that I have let her down sooo badly.

I dont understand how this happened and I cannot work out if it is partly my fault.

I am feeling soooooo

Hey I can swim and I wasnt there that day to save someone who drown in a local sailing pool

Lots of things we can blame ourselves for but if you know you did your best why beat yourself up?

Is there a chance of appeal you can go through, if there is maybe someone else can have a look at the case and give a different perspective on what you might have done.

Most of all remember that you're dealing with people. Have you ever watched football apparently the referees in football are human so you will be aware of some of the shocking decisions they can come up with.

Having only ever led one single instance of industrial action in my career Im constanly in awe of your choice to do it as a proper rep.


chin-up bro.

Cheers duder...

Thats the thing I dont see what I did wrong. Cases like this one are open and shut the person doesnt get sacked.

There is an appeal route and I have already lodged an appeal, someone else (of a higher rank) will do the appeal but I will have to go over their case on monday with the apeal rep and hopefully I will either be told "you did the best you could" or at least find out what I did wrong.

Its all about learning to deal with not making the grade and not fearing failure mate.

The first time one of my rugby kids broke a bone I was in something close to shock and thought about giving it all up. Id come to terms with them losing and being downhearted but they always bounced back, but I was left wondering "what if one day one of them does soemthing he aint going to bounce back from"?

Then I watched "million dollar baby" and decided that I would do *my* best to help people do the best they can, because what else is there to do?

I dont think you would have dome anything less than your best and if it turns out that wasnt good enough I think I know you well enough you'll work hard to improve in future.

Cheers man!

I'm sure you did your very best, Ferrett - I can't imagine otherwise.

Sorry the result didn't go your way this time, but at least there is the option of appeal where you can find out what needed to happen to change the outcome for another time.

Your job must be really stressful at the best of times - even more so because you so obviously care about the people you represent. Unfortunately, and I know it's trite (sorry), but it's the truth that you can't win them all.

Cheers Ancrene.

What they said . . .


az

Cheers az.

Having slept on it I am now more mad at the manager and less down on myself.

"Dont get mad, get even"

Well, as others have said already, you did your best, as you always do. But the final decision was not in your hands.

Perhaps there is something to be learned from this experience in order to help others even more in future? I dunno, like presenting cases in different manners *if* you know who is going to be judging them. Not unlike lawyers who know they are coming up against a 'hanging judge' in court - they will then modify their case in order to get the best result for their client. Yeah, it's quite cr@p - the laws should not rely on the whim of judges/managers, etc. But of course we know differently.

Meanwhile, this is nothing to beat yourself up about. You did your job well and to the best of you abilities, as usual, and then someone else made an unfair decision, over-riding your case.

So, how do you plan to get even?

az

Well for one rthing bust a gut doing the groundwork for the appeal. Whilst I wont be representing (at appeal everything has to be higher grade, regional manager and regional rep) but I can dig loads of stuff out to give the new rep the best possible info.

As to the rest, we have our ways . We are a pretty "Happy Clappy, work with you not against you" union at my workplace. That can easily be rectified for a time. A bit of "Us and Them" from time to time really focus' management.

So howzit going?


az

Well we have put the appeal in, and spent some time going over stuff. I did miss something but it was a mistake anyone probably oculd have made.

We had a NEC (the unions ruling council) member down who had a look at it for me and she felt it was much harder than it looked, and that I shouldn't be too down on myself.