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My apologies, this is the most
popular page on my website!
I was advised, put adverts on it, make money.
Is that right I thought?
BUT, Kev spends his working day (or rota)
touring charity shops for goods to sell on E bay!!!!!
So why not I, make profit, on his popularity?
Working with Kevin Petters
In the beginning things were not to bad, work enjoyable,
colleagues good company,
even Kevin, the supervisor was amicable,except for his bad days.
(about every 28 days) I think that was when the paperwork he was
doing in the van was getting him down, although one of my colleagues
reckoned he was writing a book.
KP wrote many good things about me, in my appraisals, and even talked
me into applying for the vacant supervisor post in Llanelli. Although
the reason he wanted me to apply, were that he was afraid, one of the
other candidates (a welsh speaker) may get the post and would get on
better with the welsh speaking manager, and therefore reduce his
influence on the running of the maintenance team.
I told him that I did not want to move to Pontardulais to live, that I
intended staying in the Swansea area. He told me not to mention it,
"tell them after I had the promotion". I said no,
and explained my reasons in my application.
In the meantime I persuaded JB to apply for the post as well.
JB was being stubborn,by not applying, because he thought management
should have offered it to him because he was the obvious candidate.
I used the interview to try and get across to ST that I could make the
Rota a lot more efficient.
After the interview I mobiled JB to tell him the questions
( he was being interviewed later)
JB got the post, and life carried on as normal, except KP's paperwork
increased, the time he had to spend in the office increased,
and his moods got worse. It was getting the whole team down, one
of the caretakers phoned me, a brother of one of KP's best mates
from school days. Wayne, he was quite upset with KP attitude
towards him,
he was being belittled and bullied ( he had also phoned Jeff) to
suggest we bypass KP and contact ST for personal requests etc,
because he had phoned ST previously and found him
more understanding than KP.
I advised him, that we could not go down that road because it
would undermine KP, and cause more problems.
SO WHAT WENT WRONG IN 2004 AFTER NEARLY 3 YEARS EMPLOYMENT,
AND NOT ONE DAYS SICK ABSENCE
Three changes happened in the first half of the year, I moved to Brickyard,
I arranged the rota, and KP's best friend KR started as a temp.
1 BRICKYARD (Cwmdu Close)
KP had been instrumental in getting the residential caretaker,
AC in Brickyard dismissed.
We eventually received a letter from ST announcing, that there was a
vacancy at Brickyard, I applied immediately .
KP was in London on leave at the time . He arrived back on the
Wed ( so had only a few days to apply)
and was very annoyed at ST about the timing of the letter.
(I did not realise Brickyard was in KP's plans)
He had wanted his "GIRLFRIEND" in London to see the house before
he applied for the transfer, but AC was still in possession of the house,
so it was not possible for him to view it with her. So he did not apply .
BUT HE WAS NOT HAPPY,
BECAUSE HE IS USED TO HAVING HIS OWN WAY.
So some one had to suffer,
He chose Me, of course
It was decided by ST (or was it George Bush?) that Exchange Court was not
clean enough, so before I transfered to Brickyard to work,
Exchange Court must be spotless
When I moved into EC in July 2001, the builders were in, correcting work
that had not been done correctly originally.
A flat was vacated every two weeks, furniture was carried out into storage and
brought back two weeks later.
During this process many hundreds of marks appeared in the stairways due to
the furniture rubbing against the walls.
About a year, after the builders left, it was decided that we would paint over
the marks. I told RS that I was not going to pick the paint
"You chose the correct shade , I will paint," I said. He never got the paint.
That was the end of that chapter, I thought. But now I was leaving, the spots reappeared..
I was given spot remover scrubbing brush scourers etc etc. "Get Rid of Spots"
I was told.
After about two weeks ( ie Mon, Fri, Mon, Fri own site days) KP
came to see me, and wanted to know when will I finish getting all the spots off.
"About three or four months", I replied, "because as You can, see there
are loads of spots,
and some spots can take over an hour to erase"
" Look" he said, "the team are not happy cutting your site at Brickyard,
because
you are here. Why don't you get in touch with ST and sort it out?"
" I have got no problem"I said I f ST wants me to work here, I will
just carry on and keep ST happy"
The following Monday, I start working in Brickyard! The Spots?
they remained on the walls, until the building was redecorated in 2006.
Oh! except a few were rubbed out in Oct 2005 by JM
(an excellent worker sacked because of a difference of opinion with RS )
but that is another story (absolutely crazy,..... wish I had time
now to relate it)
With hindsight I should have stayed in Exchange Court, because
two years later
I am in a similer position with JB 'cos he wanted Brickyard!
2 THE WORKING ROTA (this WEB PAGE is rougher
than norm due to time constraints will improve in a few days)
I was given the job of planning the rota for the summer of 2004.
SW told me to email it to him
From: brimor@tiscali.co.uk Add to address book
To: stuart.thomas@fha-wales.com
Cc:
Subject: Rota for Kevin P
Send: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 23:45:29 +0100
Hi Stuart, Its midnight on sat, and I have just remembered to send
the rota
for kev, I am off very early tomorrow, for the day so I have no time to
check my work
Brian
Swansea Team Rota.doc (0.1 KB)
When I saw KP at the Clase site the following Tue he was really mad.
"You are lucky Stu could not open the doc .(he must have had lotus
not microsoft,
I think on his computer)
You would have opened a bag of worms.
(To me it was simple sums. Rota days were Tue, Wed and Thur:
Three Days a week
They had a fornightly cycle.
When I started in 2001.
5 men worked week 1, and 3 men worked week 2, which is
5 times 3, plus 3 times 3, which equals 24 men days a fortnight
The workload had not significantly increased, so the figures above should
stay the same.
My solution?
My van, 3 men for 6 days ( a fortnight) which equals 18 man days
So 24 minus 18 equals 6 man working days left for the other van.
So it left the two Kevs 2men times 6 days ie 12 men working days to
cover 6 working days!
An offer I believed he could not
refuse.I was advised, put adverts on it, make money.
Is that right I thought?
BUT, Kev spends his working day (or rota)
touring charity shops for goods to sell on E bay!!!!!
So why not I, make profit, on his popularity?
Working with Kevin Petters
In the beginning things were not to bad, work enjoyable,
colleagues good company,
even Kevin, the supervisor was amicable,except for his bad days.
(about every 28 days) I think that was when the paperwork he was
doing in the van was getting him down, although one of my colleagues
reckoned he was writing a book.
KP wrote many good things about me, in my appraisals, and even talked
me into applying for the vacant supervisor post in Llanelli. Although
the reason he wanted me to apply, were that he was afraid, one of the
other candidates (a welsh speaker) may get the post and would get on
better with the welsh speaking manager, and therefore reduce his
influence on the running of the maintenance team.
I told him that I did not want to move to Pontardulais to live, that I
intended staying in the Swansea area. He told me not to mention it,
"tell them after I had the promotion". I said no,
and explained my reasons in my application.
In the meantime I persuaded JB to apply for the post as well.
JB was being stubborn,by not applying, because he thought management
should have offered it to him because he was the obvious candidate.
I used the interview to try and get across to ST that I could make the
Rota a lot more efficient.
After the interview I mobiled JB to tell him the questions
( he was being interviewed later)
JB got the post, and life carried on as normal, except KP's paperwork
increased, the time he had to spend in the office increased,
and his moods got worse. It was getting the whole team down, one
of the caretakers phoned me, a brother of one of KP's best mates
from school days. Wayne, he was quite upset with KP attitude
towards him,
he was being belittled and bullied ( he had also phoned Jeff) to
suggest we bypass KP and contact ST for personal requests etc,
because he had phoned ST previously and found him
more understanding than KP.
I advised him, that we could not go down that road because it
would undermine KP, and cause more problems.
SO WHAT WENT WRONG IN 2004 AFTER NEARLY 3 YEARS EMPLOYMENT,
AND NOT ONE DAYS SICK ABSENCE
Three changes happened in the first half of the year, I moved to Brickyard,
I arranged the rota, and KP's best friend KR started as a temp.
1 BRICKYARD (Cwmdu Close)
KP had been instrumental in getting the residential caretaker,
AC in Brickyard dismissed.
We eventually received a letter from ST announcing, that there was a
vacancy at Brickyard, I applied immediately .
KP was in London on leave at the time . He arrived back on the
Wed ( so had only a few days to apply)
and was very annoyed at ST about the timing of the letter.
(I did not realise Brickyard was in KP's plans)
He had wanted his "GIRLFRIEND" in London to see the house before
he applied for the transfer, but AC was still in possession of the house,
so it was not possible for him to view it with her. So he did not apply .
BUT HE WAS NOT HAPPY,
BECAUSE HE IS USED TO HAVING HIS OWN WAY.
So some one had to suffer,
He chose Me, of course
It was decided by ST (or was it George Bush?) that Exchange Court was not
clean enough, so before I transfered to Brickyard to work,
Exchange Court must be spotless
When I moved into EC in July 2001, the builders were in, correcting work
that had not been done correctly originally.
A flat was vacated every two weeks, furniture was carried out into storage and
brought back two weeks later.
During this process many hundreds of marks appeared in the stairways due to
the furniture rubbing against the walls.
About a year, after the builders left, it was decided that we would paint over
the marks. I told RS that I was not going to pick the paint
"You chose the correct shade , I will paint," I said. He never got the paint.
That was the end of that chapter, I thought. But now I was leaving, the spots reappeared..
I was given spot remover scrubbing brush scourers etc etc. "Get Rid of Spots"
I was told.
After about two weeks ( ie Mon, Fri, Mon, Fri own site days) KP
came to see me, and wanted to know when will I finish getting all the spots off.
"About three or four months", I replied, "because as You can, see there
are loads of spots,
and some spots can take over an hour to erase"
" Look" he said, "the team are not happy cutting your site at Brickyard,
because
you are here. Why don't you get in touch with ST and sort it out?"
" I have got no problem"I said I f ST wants me to work here, I will
just carry on and keep ST happy"
The following Monday, I start working in Brickyard! The Spots?
they remained on the walls, until the building was redecorated in 2006.
Oh! except a few were rubbed out in Oct 2005 by JM
(an excellent worker sacked because of a difference of opinion with RS )
but that is another story (absolutely crazy,..... wish I had time
now to relate it)
With hindsight I should have stayed in Exchange Court, because
two years later
I am in a similer position with JB 'cos he wanted Brickyard!
2 THE WORKING ROTA (this WEB PAGE is rougher
than norm due to time constraints will improve in a few days)
I was given the job of planning the rota for the summer of 2004.
SW told me to email it to him
From: brimor@tiscali.co.uk Add to address book
To: stuart.thomas@fha-wales.com
Cc:
Subject: Rota for Kevin P
Send: Sat, 17 Apr 2004 23:45:29 +0100
Hi Stuart, Its midnight on sat, and I have just remembered to send
the rota
for kev, I am off very early tomorrow, for the day so I have no time to
check my work
Brian
Swansea Team Rota.doc (0.1 KB)
When I saw KP at the Clase site the following Tue he was really mad.
"You are lucky Stu could not open the doc .(he must have had lotus
not microsoft,
I think on his computer)
You would have opened a bag of worms.
(To me it was simple sums. Rota days were Tue, Wed and Thur:
Three Days a week
They had a fornightly cycle.
When I started in 2001.
5 men worked week 1, and 3 men worked week 2, which is
5 times 3, plus 3 times 3, which equals 24 men days a fortnight
The workload had not significantly increased, so the figures above should
stay the same.
My solution?
My van, 3 men for 6 days ( a fortnight) which equals 18 man days
So 24 minus 18 equals 6 man working days left for the other van.
So it left the two Kevs 2men times 6 days ie 12 men working days to
cover 6 working days!
Unbelievable, he kept the site attendant on the rota, and recruited a temp.
So he had 18 man days to carry out 6 man days work!
I had no complaints, but Jeff was not happy, he saw it unfair that our van,
Jeff, DJ and myself, the golden oldies
as KP called us,(we were all over 50) had nearly three times the work of
the other van with the"youngsters"
KP, KR and Wayne.
We had the meeting in Jeff's house. "Well Brian did the Rota" retorted KP.
"Have you got any complaints" he asked DJ and myself.
"No" we both replied. But Jeff stuck to his guns.
I told KP and Jeff to sort it out between them.
It is 10.30pm Sun continue tomorrow (sorry a week late!)
Jeff came back from his meeting with KP chuffed that he had got KP to
accept the "Pinewood Close" Clase site,
(he and KP hated the site) plus they swapped some other sites.
So our rota was a little easier and now only twice the work of KP's team!
But we were happy.
We were still happy in June, KP was on holiday, and we saw Wayne and KR,
on Wednesday at about 2.30pm.
Wayne without thinking, mentioned that they only had the Llangenith site,
left to do on Thursday. A very small site.
About 20 mts work. (90 mts traveling!)
"Cor" I said, "You have finished the rota in two days and there are only
two of you working this week?"
and smiled.
He realised his mistake and said, "Oh, we really pulled out all the stops
and worked hard"
It did not worry our team we knew the score, we were just happy to be
left alone, do our work and take pride in
getting our sites up to a good standard.
When one of us were on holiday, it got a little hard, but no offer of
help from our supervisor.
They spent most of the summer either parked in Woodfield St Morriston
( FHA have opened an office there in memory of them.)
or High St Swansea , there were numerous people who informed us of
their presence there.
It was an enjoyable summer until the "Clase" site erupted,
Our happy summer came to an end in July, we arrived in Hollet Rd
( big bank to strim, KP tried strimming it once, twisted his ankle,
never went near it again!) to find a dejected and desolute ST.
"The whole site,(Clase) have rebelled, e-mails, letters,telephone calls,
site is a mess, they ( the caretakers) do not pick up the grass cuttings,
they spend all their time on their mobiles etc, etc". We tried to
console ST and then went about our work
Next day we were cutting "Cadnant" the second biggest site on the
Swansea rota, when I get a telephone from KP,
asking me meekly if I would ask Jeff and DJ to help them out with
Clase, he would prefer if the whole team went in.
So I asked (with a smile) Jeff and DJ, if they would come to the
rescue of our supervisor Kev.
they had no hesitation in saying yes.
Kev was at the Neath site, so he told us to wait until he they got back
We waited about half an hour ( we could have cut it ourselves by then).
We entered the site with trepidation but were not attacked by
any natives we cut it Kev said thanks and we left to carry on
with our rota.
That was the start of our complaints not tenants but senior Mgt.
We missed some strimming in Clos yr Orsaf, Morriston. KP noticed
it as he was driving past (it is a cul de sac!)
So we had to drive back from Swansea to cut around a post.
I jumped out and it took about half a minute to strim.
(ashley waz ere 2k7) He could have cut it (or one of his team) phoned me and
said Brian, you missed a bit I have cut it, take more care next time.
But no, we had to be taught a lesson, was the feedback.
Next, I was phoned just before finishing time to say, we missed weeds
at Cadnant,
At about 5pm I am with my lady friend at Cadnant searching for weeds,
romantic?
Needless to say, it was weedless.
The classic, phoned by ST and RS to say we had butchered the shrubs
at Llys y Pentre,
Jeff had worked hard with Erbez cutting them (I was cutting the grass there)
An upset Jeff was on the phone trying to explain that he thought he had done
a good job. What hope did he have?
What we did not find out, until a team meeting two months later, on
6th September 2004
was that FHA had received a letter a day or two later,
praising us about our work!
/////////////////////
It got worse
(Will type out later the events in following weeks. I was actually reported
for doing more work than I should have!)
/////////////////////////////////
The next major development?
Someone made the decision, for KP to swap for a day with Jeff.
KP and DJ were at my site by 8.05am on a Tue, and we immediately left
for Ty Myrtwydd, in Loughor.
( I normally collect Jeff and DJ, so we do not leave the area 'till
about 8.40am.
KP worked hard!!, after we finished cutting the site I remarked that
it usually takes us longer to
cut, earlier in the summer because the grass is longer.
“The height does not matter he said, It is the area that counts!”
I just looked at him in disbelief, but said nothing.
We had a very short lunch (by his standards) and carried on to
Gower View,
then we drove back to Ty Horeb in Morriston. A site we normaly
do on the following day.
We did not have enough time to finish it. KP was not happy.
It was obvious what the plan was.
Next day Jeff was off on sick. He was in pain with his hip He phoned me.
“When we got to our first site, Clase, KR told me to cut the bottom gardens,
the ones on a slope. He cut the flat ones on top, and when he finished them,
he did not come and help me, he picked up the blower and let me
finish the bottom gardens on my own.
And when we got to the next sites I had to do all the lawn mowing.
If KR had not had to take Keys to “Exchange Court” I believe
we would have finished their rota for the week that day”
I told Jeff he was stupid, He was senior to KR and should have
told him to do more.
KP came up to my site on the Friday, and he parked outside my home,
and sat in the van, whilst I stood on the pavement.
I told him I was not happy with the treatment of Jeff. We all
knew he had a problem hip,
but he is a good worker and that I believe he was abused that day.
KP replied “Huh, he was stopping for a fag, every 5 minutes”
( It was obvious his close friend KR had mentioned that)
“And how do you know that “? I retorted.
Suddenly, he jumped out of the van, his face grey and I really
thought he was going to attack me.
I was frightened. But thankfully he just shouted, swore and
threatened to hit me.
He then left I was shocked at his reaction, because I had
basicly criticised KR.
I phoned ST told him about it, and did not want KR coming up
to my site on his own in future.
The following Monday KP is up my site on his own! I was nervous,
but nothing happened.
Two weeks later it did happen, at Llys y Pentre, Treboeth.
He really erupted, F... his job , he is going to knock my head off,
watched by KR Wayne and Jeff (DJ went to clean the flats as
soon as the fracas started.)
KR had really lost it, tenants and visitors were walking past
frightened.
He then told me to jump in his van, to go to the office.
No way, I told him. (I remembered when he had lost his temper
with Wayne he drove crazily through the streets).
I went in the van with Jeff to the office.
///
/////running out of time for Sunday deadline///
////
Next day I take, my colleagues advice, go to the Doctors,
tell the Doc my fears for my health,
because my boss is a bully. so she puts me on the sick, with stress.
My first sickness paper in 36 years.
3 years and 4 with months with FHA, and I had
not missed a days work.
Thanks Kev
At the same time I take my grievance to personnel,
who told me there would be no need for me to go to Llys y Pentre
to get witnesses,
I also sent in a letter to confirm my grievance.
(I will type it out later, it is illegible)
I then waited for my meeting with the grievance panel
Another shambles