Silly Billy

I go and see my doctor, prefacing my appearance with all the usual apologies for having bothered him yet again. Fortunately (because he is an outstandingly good GP) he listens patiently to my description of continuing symptoms, and then questions me about the circumstances in which these tend to re-appear.

His conclusion?

"You do not have a mental illness" (Hooray!)

"You are suffering from Situational Anxiety relating to your working environment" (?? I vow to google it the second I get home)

"Medication won't help you" (Hooray again !!)

"I recommend that you consider a course of cognitive behavioural therapy to help reduce your feelings of anxiety around the workplace" (sigh. Yes Doctor).

He advises me to tell New Boss of his recommendations. I make a face. Doctor suggests that I make an assumption that New Boss is a decent person who will observe confidentiality (one of my concerns). I say I will think about it.

Later that day, I have a working lunch with Erica - a woman I deeply admire (dedicated, passionate, and with unshakeable values) and we are joined for a coffee by Rebecca - a woman whose vivacity, wit and sparky intelligence always cheer me up. If it wasn't for working with people like this, I would have been straitjacketed away from my job a year ago. So I thoroughly enjoy myself and it is in a very positive frame of mind that I finally head over to the Town Hall for my 4pm meeting with Line Manager and New Boss.

The former is late returning from a meeting elsewhere, leaving New Boss and I sitting uneasily in each other's company. Mindful of what my doctor has advised, I explain briefly to New Boss that my GP has recommended I undertake some therapy to help me cope with some workplace anxieties. I don't make a big drama out of it. To place this discussion into context, New Boss is well aware that I was signed off work for five weeks earlier in the year due to "work-related stress".

New Boss wears an expression of bafflement (which potentially serves as A Clue As To What Is To Come, except that I am too stupid to register its meaning). He asks me to give him an example of what anxieties I am talking about, having earlier assured me that I can talk to him freely.

I pick as an example the departmental meeting of two weeks previously, explaining that because it was held in an unfamiliar venue, and because I ended up sitting directly opposite colleagues who have gone out of their way to be unpleasant towards me, I felt extremely unsafe and anxious throughout the meeting.

Now New Boss has many options at this point. He could say:

- "well, I'm sorry to hear that"
- "is there anything I can do to make things easier for you?"
- "sorry, I'm not sure I understand".

What New Boss actually says is:

"That's just silly".

I have undergone considerable management training while in my present employ, and sadly all this has served to do is to highlight the ghastly management failures which surround me. And here we go again! Because funnily enough, I don't recall "that's just silly" being the recommended response to a member of staff who is telling you their GP is monitoring their anxiety!!!

Here are MY options at this point:

- "are you really as big a clown as you pretend to be?"
- "I am going to have to make a formal complaint about what you have just said"
- "sorry, I'm not sure I understand".

What Real Woman (because Stepford Employee has just run out of the door, screaming hysterically) actually says is:

"that is a terrible response. You have just completely trivialised the way I am feeling. Do not expect me to ever tell you anything about myself ever again".

Does New Boss apologise? Does New Boss say he doesn't know what came over him? Does New Boss offer up the slightest justification for coming out with his cretinous, insensitive drivel?

Sorry - that's not a challenging enough question is it?
Because you're spot on - NEW BOSS DOES NONE OF THESE THINGS !!!

New Boss spends a fruitless 2 minutes attempting to shift the blame onto Real Woman, blustering that if she chooses to misinterpret the words "that's just silly", then there clearly is something as wrong with her as he has always supposed.

The only beneficiary from this whole sorry saga is Line Manager.

At this point he joins the meeting; and so grateful am I to be interrupted, that I greet him with something vaguely akin to warmth. I then switch the discussion onto my area of work and keep it there until I can gracefully make my escape. With fabulous good fortune (because we have ended up sitting in the main Town Hall reception, due to unavailability of rooms) two senior male colleagues from other departments pass, enabling me to chat and flirt with them animatedly and stop interacting with New Boss entirely.

As I have clearly now drawn the meeting to a close, New Boss stomps off in an apparent fit of pique, and as he disappears back towards his own office, I call "thank yooooooo" sweetly after his retreating back.

Later I tell the story to a group of friends. They goggle in disbelief at New Boss's inanity. One of them asks what I will say if he makes another attempt to "engage" with me.

"That's easy," I say. "I'll tell him not to be so silly".