mocachapeau
Dagobah Resident
Hello everyone!
Some of you may know that, when I am not forgetting myself and letting my "complain about my wife" program take over (which is much less frequent but still present), I am trying to apply the knowledge I gain from The Work to help my wife find solutions to her health problems. She has gotten a lot better over the last few years but she still suffers from occasional migraines and strange attacks of stomach pains. Starting around October of last year these two things started to become much less frequent and less severe until they were almost gone. But in the last three or four months they began to pick up again.
A couple of months ago we received a bit of news that worried my wife quite a bit. At that point we hopped in the car and drove for about 6 minutes to get home. By the time we got to the kitchen she was having a full blown stomach attack. When it had subsided I pointed out to her that this attack seemed to be set off by stress, and nothing else (nothing she had eaten, which is what she usually blames it on). I suggested that it might be beneficial to take some time to identify the different sources of stress in her life so we could work on eliminating them. Well, it didn't take her long to realise that the greatest source of stress for her is a certain colleague at work.
My wife is one of the phone operators at the reception desk at the hospital where we work. She works from 8 to 4 in rotation with several other women, one of which is constantly tormenting her. There are so many things I could tell you about this woman but I will try to keep it brief. The lady that held my wife's position before her went into retirement a year and a half early entirely because of the abuse that this same woman was subjecting her to. At least once, the team leader came into the office to find her crying because of this woman's torment. It was apparent to everyone in the department that she wanted this lady's job because it had better hours than hers. And then my wife got this lady's job.
She complains about everything my wife does that she doesn't like, including her going to the bathroom when it isn't break time and eating a rice cake while she's working. But everything she complains about, my wife has caught her doing at different times. She actually makes a list of every little mistake my wife makes during the day (the common slips that they all make, all the time) and presents it to the team leader the following day. This woman's shift is from 10:30 to 6:30, but she shows up every single day at 7:45 and sits in the office until my wife arrives, for the sole purpose of noting if my wife is late for work. I think those are enough examples to give you an idea of the kind of atmosphere in which my wife works every day, but there are many more. My wife is unable to relax, at all, while she works.
Just to give you an idea of what this woman is like, aside from the abuse directed at my wife, let me tell you this. People are not allowed to use cell phones in the hospital. When she first started working there, she was severely reprimanded because when she saw someone walk by with a cell phone in hand she stood up and started pounding her fists on the glass of the booth screaming, "YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO USE CELL PHONES HERE!!". She spends most of her day practically yelling at people on the phone, and I was present once when she just hung up on someone. Furthermore, she has had several official complaints lodged against her by different employees, from various departments where she has worked over the years. Well now she has another one, because after the conversation my wife and I had about the stress in her life, my wife filed an official complaint.
Not long after that, my wife went in to see her doctor for a regular checkup. After describing all this, the doctor pulled her off work immediately due to harassment. So now she's at home for a couple of months waiting to see what will become of her complaint.
The thing is, the way my wife feels is that she just wants to get this woman out of her life, so she is willing to apply for a position that has opened up in another department. She doesn't want to wait and see how the administration will treat the situation because she doesn't know if she will be sent back to work with this woman before it has been dealt with, and she doesn't feel capable of spending even another second in the same room with this nutcase. Although I understand how she feels, and agree with her 100%, if she does this, the nutcase will have won. She will have chased another person from the department and won another chance to grab the job she so covets.
My wife's doctor said it right when she said that it shouldn't be my wife that leaves the job she loves so much, because she's the victim! It should be the other one that should be forced to leave the department, preferably forced to leave the hospital entirely. But in a government-run, unionized shop, it's very hard to have someone removed like that.
My feeling is that my wife should refuse to give up her post AND refuse to work another second in the same department with this witch. She should do whatever is necessary to have her pushed out. But at the same time I wonder if maybe my wife isn't the right person to fight this battle because it could be too hard on her. I don't want her suffer anymore.
Does anyone have any opinions on what my wife should do? Or better yet, what I might encourage her to do?
The good thing that came from this was the identification of stress as being at least one major cause of the physical health problems my wife has been displaying. But what a way to get there!
Some of you may know that, when I am not forgetting myself and letting my "complain about my wife" program take over (which is much less frequent but still present), I am trying to apply the knowledge I gain from The Work to help my wife find solutions to her health problems. She has gotten a lot better over the last few years but she still suffers from occasional migraines and strange attacks of stomach pains. Starting around October of last year these two things started to become much less frequent and less severe until they were almost gone. But in the last three or four months they began to pick up again.
A couple of months ago we received a bit of news that worried my wife quite a bit. At that point we hopped in the car and drove for about 6 minutes to get home. By the time we got to the kitchen she was having a full blown stomach attack. When it had subsided I pointed out to her that this attack seemed to be set off by stress, and nothing else (nothing she had eaten, which is what she usually blames it on). I suggested that it might be beneficial to take some time to identify the different sources of stress in her life so we could work on eliminating them. Well, it didn't take her long to realise that the greatest source of stress for her is a certain colleague at work.
My wife is one of the phone operators at the reception desk at the hospital where we work. She works from 8 to 4 in rotation with several other women, one of which is constantly tormenting her. There are so many things I could tell you about this woman but I will try to keep it brief. The lady that held my wife's position before her went into retirement a year and a half early entirely because of the abuse that this same woman was subjecting her to. At least once, the team leader came into the office to find her crying because of this woman's torment. It was apparent to everyone in the department that she wanted this lady's job because it had better hours than hers. And then my wife got this lady's job.
She complains about everything my wife does that she doesn't like, including her going to the bathroom when it isn't break time and eating a rice cake while she's working. But everything she complains about, my wife has caught her doing at different times. She actually makes a list of every little mistake my wife makes during the day (the common slips that they all make, all the time) and presents it to the team leader the following day. This woman's shift is from 10:30 to 6:30, but she shows up every single day at 7:45 and sits in the office until my wife arrives, for the sole purpose of noting if my wife is late for work. I think those are enough examples to give you an idea of the kind of atmosphere in which my wife works every day, but there are many more. My wife is unable to relax, at all, while she works.
Just to give you an idea of what this woman is like, aside from the abuse directed at my wife, let me tell you this. People are not allowed to use cell phones in the hospital. When she first started working there, she was severely reprimanded because when she saw someone walk by with a cell phone in hand she stood up and started pounding her fists on the glass of the booth screaming, "YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO USE CELL PHONES HERE!!". She spends most of her day practically yelling at people on the phone, and I was present once when she just hung up on someone. Furthermore, she has had several official complaints lodged against her by different employees, from various departments where she has worked over the years. Well now she has another one, because after the conversation my wife and I had about the stress in her life, my wife filed an official complaint.
Not long after that, my wife went in to see her doctor for a regular checkup. After describing all this, the doctor pulled her off work immediately due to harassment. So now she's at home for a couple of months waiting to see what will become of her complaint.
The thing is, the way my wife feels is that she just wants to get this woman out of her life, so she is willing to apply for a position that has opened up in another department. She doesn't want to wait and see how the administration will treat the situation because she doesn't know if she will be sent back to work with this woman before it has been dealt with, and she doesn't feel capable of spending even another second in the same room with this nutcase. Although I understand how she feels, and agree with her 100%, if she does this, the nutcase will have won. She will have chased another person from the department and won another chance to grab the job she so covets.
My wife's doctor said it right when she said that it shouldn't be my wife that leaves the job she loves so much, because she's the victim! It should be the other one that should be forced to leave the department, preferably forced to leave the hospital entirely. But in a government-run, unionized shop, it's very hard to have someone removed like that.
My feeling is that my wife should refuse to give up her post AND refuse to work another second in the same department with this witch. She should do whatever is necessary to have her pushed out. But at the same time I wonder if maybe my wife isn't the right person to fight this battle because it could be too hard on her. I don't want her suffer anymore.
Does anyone have any opinions on what my wife should do? Or better yet, what I might encourage her to do?
The good thing that came from this was the identification of stress as being at least one major cause of the physical health problems my wife has been displaying. But what a way to get there!
