Trials and Tribulations

2005-07-23 at 12:07 a.m.

This has not been such a good week. I have been working with my supervisor Ravi rather a lot. And this is driving me to distraction. Sadly, while he is a very nice man normally, every so often he gets a recollection of his relative seniority to me and whoever I am working with at the time. Immediately he loses all sense of courtesy (ordering us to work overtime, never asking), is rude (referring to us as "the staff" in front of whom some things cannot be said), and considers many of the jobs of the restaurant beneath his dignity, no matter how busy we are at the time. Even the general manager will help clean tables if we are busy, yet this guy finds this extremely distasteful. He will not polish anything, even when he has offered to do so in order to help me. Plus, he lies constantly and apparently is completely unaware that he's doing it. He asks me to back up what he says, even though I know what he is saying to be untrue, so I suspect he is not deliberately lying, but living in a fantasy world of his own.

In short, he has no idea of teamwork and an over-inflated sense of his own importance. Now I can maybe understand that, it is a bit of crap job that he has and he probably wants something better, so clings to what authority he does have to remind himself that if he isn't management he is at least better than us mere waiters. I may understand, I can even sympathise, but it is driving me mad. I cannot work like this, being constantly needled by Ravi so that he can show himself to be in charge. Only when I work with him do I find myself constantly thinking of quitting and walking out of the place.

So I told my manager that I am not happy working with him and would prefer to have as few shifts as possible with him. A rather embarassing conversation really, as he would have been perfectly within his rights to say that I don't get to choose who I work with. Particularly as I said that I wanted to work with Jacek, thus giving the impression that I cannot get on with anyone but him, which isn't the case. I may not like Jon but I did point out that I can work with him perfectly well. And I like Will and the others that I work with. He seemed reasonably okay with it, though my reasons were not properly explained (due to the embarassment), I just said "Ravi doesn't work", which isn't quite the whole of it, as he does do those jobs he considers to be right for his position. Anyway I also revealed that Stacey also has a problem with Ravi and that she is thinking of leaving because of it so he will be speaking to her sometime and hopefully she will be more eloquent than I. What is embarassing is that, when he does not have the Big Bad Supervisor hat on, I actually like Ravi.

I had to do something, my frustration in general with the hotel and in particular with Ravi has meant that I have not had a proper night's sleep in some time. I can't sleep when I go to bed and then wake up at three. And I have to get up at 5am. So I've been tired, and not very effective.

I also have discovered an unfortunate thing. I seem to be sliding back into illness quite fast. I am taking my moclobemide, but I am feeling bleak, thinking of self injury more or less all of the time and hearing crap. I've had a couple of days already at work where I've been too depressed to do much, and have pissed off the people I work with, who think I am lazy. I'm hoping this is something temporary brought on by the general annoyances of the hotel (our appalling hygiene for instance) and by the specific annoyance of my supervisor.

Anyway, back to normal. Yesterday I was moved out from working with Ravi to work at the other hotel, which was nice, though my rota for next week has me working with Ravi some of the time. I suspect this is so that Stacey and I can share the pain - someone has to work with him, and all they are able to do is make sure no one works with him constantly all week. Apparently others have made the same complaints before, so at least we are not alone.

Today, however, I had the first unbroken night's sleep I've had in ages. I woke up happy, and managed to remain so for most of the day. I was working with Jon for breakfast. Now we do not like one another, mainly because we both think the other is lazy (haha) but today went not just ok but excellently. We had 150 people in for breakfast and yet we never seemed too busy, never too stressed, Jon worked as hard as anyone, no job was beneath him, we had no complaints and we worked really well. Then we had quite a nice laugh and joke after breakfast had finished and I polished everything I could find in record time. So today was a good day, the first truly good day in a while now. I feel depression lurking in the background but if I work frenetically, it recedes a bit. So that is what I shall have to do.

On another note entirely, this week I have been meeting people. On Wednesday I surprised myself by bumping into an old schoolfriend who I have not seen in six years, and thought was in Israel outside the tube station. So we arranged to meet up for lunch the next day and gossipped a little. Though as ever with these meeting-old-friends it was a little awkward, I have changed since I went away, and I suppose she has too.

I also met up with Kerry-from-the-Birkbeck course tonight and we went out to the pub, though I didn't drink. We had quite a good conversation and I expect I'll see her again sometime soon.

I have made a resolution to try to protect my mental health. I have taken the sad step of deciding to stop drinking alcohol for the time being. If I drink, I feel crap the next day, and I do not wish to precipitate with my own actions another episode like I had at university. I am also going to take my pills and this time, take them every day not just every so often. The other thing I am going to try to do is calm down and avoid confrontation as my irritability has increased lately, and I do not wish to fly off the handle and do something I regret. No one at the hotel knows I have a mental illness, and I do not wish them to find out, so I will have to try to avoid even little lapses as I cannot explain why I cannot work well when I am finding the world unreal, or am very depressed, and it does look like laziness, I suppose. But never mind.

I think thats about it.

I read the Harry Potter book, and rather enjoyed it though I didn't think it was quite as good as its predecessors. Still I wanted to know the continuation of the story.

I have today bought Jack off Jill's Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers, and some Scottish folk music. I also bought two fantasy books by J V Jones who I have liked before, and a book about manic depression because I know bugger all about the illness I have sitting as my diagnosis in my files. (An illness, which has made the university I want to go to commission a special report on my suitability to study with them from my GP).

Anyway, my mother is shouting and my fingertips are numb now.

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