Chapter Twenty-Seven: Valcorp Ringwood—Part Two
So, going back into my little world at Valcorp Ringwood…
At this point in time, as my workplace started to feel like a psychological minefield, I was also starting to discover a few upsides to this little company that made it so difficult to walk away. With the money rolling in from new customers and jobs, Edward started to tease us with a taste of the high life. We were taken out to expensive restaurants like the Waterfront at the Crown Casino in Melbourne and a private dining floor booked for us at the Flower Drum, which I hear has a price tag of over $200 a head! It certainly filled us with feelings of grandeur and importance.
One day, I remember taking a taxi in with Tony to the Crown Casino, all dressed up in a long, black evening gown with a slit down one side up to my thigh. The front of the dress was cut into a V shape that dipped a little below my breasts, with jewels hanging down from the middle and with high heels on my legs, which looked like they went on forever. On the elevator on the way to the restaurant, Tony amused me by pointing out the looks he was getting from other people. “They must think I’m rich,” he explained to me—older man, attractive young woman, both dressed up in elaborate attire. He couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.
Back at the site, Tony and I also had a lot of comical moments joking around with the guys and the ladies on the factory floor. One day, I just about fell over from laughter when I came down to find Tony with a large, black stripe extending into one side of his mouth and out of the other. He was completely unaware of it. Apparently, he’d marked and cut out some plastic to do a test on the sheet properties while out on the line and had held his marked sample in his mouth while setting up his machine, hence the permanent marker clown mouth.
When I told Tony, he had a little chuckle and decided to leave it there while he finished up his work. He chatted to a few operators and let them get a kick out of it too. He was very comfortable with himself like that and didn’t see the need to put on a formal air.
One week, I even went through the training course to get a forklift license. Yes, me, Ms. Clumsy who trips over and walks into everything! When I sat the test, I remember how a crowd of guys from the factory floor had stood around watching and were almost falling over with laughter every time I accidentally jerked the forklift controls or reversed instead of going forward. But with cheers of encouragement, I passed the test and was given a license to drive and learn the forklift further. Hooray for me!
In between all the fun out on the line, however, the day shifts in the office were becoming increasingly high pressure, as I mentioned before. Edward wanted everyone to work long hours to keep up with the new projects that needed to move forward. He frequently used his line about staff giving 110 percent and drew charts on the whiteboard to illustrate his point.
One day, I worked on trials for more than twenty-four hours in a row before an operator, Allen, came in to relieve me of the role. I was really supposed to stay until all the trials were finished, but kindly, Allen insisted I couldn’t work any longer and he could handle it. Unfortunately, although he worked hard, the sheet trial that time failed, and they couldn’t get the product in specification. I don’t think Edward or Hugo were too impressed the trial needed to be re-run.
On another occasion, I insisted—well in advance—that I wasn’t going to be available on a particular day, as it was my father-in-law’s 60th birthday celebration. As the day approached, the trial of course fell on that day, and I put my foot down and said sorry, but I wouldn’t be coming in. It caused the production schedule to be interrupted, and Edward had a word to me about how disappointed he was, telling me lines like, “You don’t help yourself, Michelle.” He told me he was worried that my commitment to the job wasn’t strong enough, notably because of something he was sensing about my demeanor.
I think what he was picking up on was really my reluctance to do some parts of the job, like calling around or approaching contractors and unfamiliar people. It was my Aspie exhaustion talking. But, of course, Edward translated it as lack of motivation or proper dedication. He said he didn’t think I was giving 110 percent.
Sometimes, Edward tried to help me by giving me tips on how to interact with people. “Don’t tell them everything you know right away,” I remember him advising me. “Hold on to some of it. Use it to your advantage.”
He wanted me to be more politically savvy and come across as more cool and powerful, but I guess I just wasn’t getting it. I have a way of coming across as me, not as one of the cool clique. I’m more just someone who is always off in my own little world doing my own little thing and then trying eagerly to join in the moment I think of something I want to say. I can’t really be anything else, and slowly, I could see that I was losing Edward’s backing.
And the arguments in the management office were getting fierce. I remember one day, toward the end of my time at the plant, how I’d attended a staffing meeting in Tony’s absence. A relatively new supervisor, Neal, had been recruited all the way from America after Rosie and Edward had run an expensive international recruitment campaign to find experienced operators.
Neal always had a soft and gentle manner, which had pleased Rosie at first. He believed in empowering people and building teams rather than the kick-butt methods usually employed at Valcorp. Some of the operators were not used to his style and made fun of his soft approach. They imitated the little one-liners he used to say, such as, “Donkeys look at each other and kick the problem. Hyenas look at the problem and kick each other,” thinking it was funny and missing the reason that he came up with such lines. However, all was going at least okay for him until he started to stand firm against Rosie interfering with his shift and his management style.
Very quickly, Rosie went from being happy with Neal to whispering in Edward’s and Hugo’s ears about his incompetence.
Anyway, long story short, in that meeting, the group had a discussion on what should be done about Neal’s difficulties as a supervisor. Hugo started to talk about the possibility of training or coaching him, to which Rosie brashly interrupted something along the lines of, “Forget that. I’m going to watch him until he does something wrong and get the bugger fired.”
Shortly after, Neal was issued a warning letter for some mistake he’d made out on the line. It’s the standard protocol for fair dismissal in Australia for a person to receive at least a warning letter first about actions that need improving. A week or two later, he quit, under further pressure, I’m sure. I’m guessing it better to quit and move on than be fired and have to explain it to the next employer.
I was rather shocked by how rapidly Neal departed. It seemed like one minute there was a problem, and the next, I blinked and he was gone! After that, things started to go downhill rapidly for me as well in the same manner.
Come pay raise time at the plant, I had a moment where I remember opening my pay slip and being shocked to read that I would be receiving no bonus that year and a pay rise only in line with inflation. At Valcorp, annual bonuses were standard, and I’d considered a bonus of around $5,000 to be part of my salary package. Tony had given me an excellent performance review and had written many positive things about me, so I wasn’t expecting what felt like a pay cut.
I marched upstairs—not angrily, just assertively—to ask Edward why my bonus and pay rise had been so low, to which he flatly told me he didn’t think I added any value to the business. What a line to hear! “You don’t add any value to the business.” He commented that I’m always in training and don’t do a lot of work on my own. “Training,” I came understand, was how Tony had been justifying his extra time with me on paper. As Tony was the only person who ever actually saw my work, Edward had decided, quite bluntly, that it wasn’t all that valuable.
In the moment, it stunned me, because I’d been working hard to see that plant grow and succeed. I spent a great deal of time on the line every day checking and double checking to make everything always run smoothly—always without being asked. That was my commitment.
Very coolly, I sort of frowned at Edward and threw a comment back about there perhaps being other reasons that Tony was around me all the time. In hindsight, it wasn’t the best thing to say, but I guess defensiveness got the better of me in the moment.
The next day, I came to work to find Tony upset. It seems Edward had gone straight to Tony the previous night to tell him how I’d tried to “backstab” him and “throw him under the bus” by making insinuations. Tony wasn’t mad at me but insisted that he was upset at how much trouble him being around me had caused for my salary and reputation. He also had admitted he was hurt by how it had all gone down, but again made clear that he wasn’t mad at me. He understood.
Argh. I was so mad at Edward for handling it that way. What a mess.
Sometime after that, Edward pulled me upstairs to talk about my phone records. He told me how he’d had me researched by the company to see who I had been contacting and look into how often I called Tony. However, instead of me calling Tony a lot, he’d found a lot of texts between me and an operator at the plant. He said it with a grin like he’d found something interesting. I shrugged it off—it was banter. But it did leave me wondering just how much he’d dug into to investigate me. It was a strange invasion of privacy.
All the while, I’d been getting increasingly depressed and stressed just from that awful feeling of just needing to get away from the workplace. Some days, I think I enjoyed the high of attention from one of the operators to get me through the days. It’s not something I would ever lock onto now, but sometimes, attention can be like a drug. It’s the high of escapism, and I was looking for anything to grab onto to keep myself together!
At this point, you may ask why I didn’t just quit the job. What on Earth would possess me to stay in such a toxic environment? But you see, I was starting to see a pattern. It wasn’t just in this job that I was having trouble. It was in all of them.
As much as I didn’t want it to be true, this is what I kept finding:
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All I could conclude was that the common factor was me. I didn’t know why, but I was the problem. So what would be the point of starting over somewhere new when I would just have to go through it all over again? Besides, I loved this little Ringwood plant, if only I could work there without all the management staff. (And turn the lights off too!)
By this point, strong feelings of uselessness had crept into my head. I didn’t think I could ever start a new job and do any better. I just didn’t have the energy to try again. I’d resigned to just try and cope if I could.
In hindsight, I wish I could go back in time and teach myself how to separate the weaknesses I perceived in myself from unfair treatment. I would explain to myself that no matter how bad at politics I am, I still deserve to be treated kindly and with respect. I would point out that while I have weaknesses, I also have strengths—valuable strengths. And a good company should nurture a person’s talents and help them find ways to work around their weaknesses.
Not being strong in every area doesn’t make you a failure. It took me time to come to these realizations—many years, in fact. At the time of this story, I was far too trapped in confusion and depressed emotions to see the picture clearly.
Anyway, one evening, when I was particularly alone and despondent and just couldn’t handle the idea of going into work one more day, I did something awful and hurt myself. Even writing that, I’m ashamed and want to scratch it from my writing, but I need to say it, as it’s an important part of the story.
It would be easy to just dismiss it as an act of stupidity or something thoughtless and impulsive, but the truth is, when you’re drowning in that much emotion, it’s not something you do as an accident. It’s a logical thing—anything to make the pain go away. For me, it was also anything to escape work the next day and the next and the next. When I woke up the next morning, it did feel like a stupid thing to have done, and I hid it away for a while.
When I came back to work the next week, I remember Tony was still talking about my pay issues and how annoyed he was that Edward had passed on my pay rise without even consulting him. I was his staff, and he thought that was just downright disrespectful.
I’d taken a day off work on the Monday after “the incident”—which I will call it, as anything else just sounds too embarrassing to say out loud—and that Tuesday, I was feeling somber and not at all in the mood to discuss the pay raise issue or what I’d done. So I just pressed on with my day. But after a few days at work, I did manage to bring “the incident” up. Just to Tony. I don’t think I could have told anyone else.
As you can imagine, Tony was mortified and admitted he had had some idea something was wrong. I can’t remember his immediate reaction, as I’d sort of felt awkward and looked away. It’s times like these where I especially can’t look at people.
But I remember shortly afterward, in a fired-up state, he strode on up to Edward and Felix and had a serious talk with them. (Felix was the temporary manager I mentioned earlier who’d taken over while Edward was scouting for marketing opportunities overseas. At this point, he hadn’t yet handed the plant back to Edward.) Tony was extremely emotional and red-hot motivated to get things back to the way they used to be. Perhaps he was hoping I’d be compensated too for all the stress I’d been put through.
After a little time for deliberation, I remember Edward called a private meeting with me, just one-on-one. We sat in an empty room together, and he reached out to me and let me know that I could get assistance from the company if I wanted counseling or the like. His manner was comforting. However, he did impress upon me—just between me and him, person to person—that if I did report the incident, the whole of Valcorp upper management would need to know about it and they would probably not take me as seriously in the future. It could impact my future pay rises or ability to get promoted within the company.
I was starting to feel ashamed about the whole thing and reluctantly agreed not to report it. I put it aside in my head and conceded to let it slide. In turn, Felix, as temporary manager, allowed me part-time work to take some of the pressure off me, which I was very thankful for. I needed that relief of the odd day off!
I would like to say it all settled in well from there and working part time was the break I needed, but unfortunately, when Edward moved back into the role as plant manager, he decided he had other plans for me. He moved me upstairs into my own office, where I was no longer privy to any plant conversations, and told me I would report directly to him from then on.
But then he never did come into my office to give me any work to do or pass on information about the goings-on in the plant. Sometimes, operators or other staff were sent out onto the factory floor to do parts of my job without telling me, which was exasperating to me as I didn’t know what was going on with the equipment. When I asked about work, Edward assigned me a different task—database design work—and told me that was my top priority and I should focus on that. It required communicating with others and waiting for them to get back to me—not work that I enjoyed!—and really only took up an hour or two in the day at most.
One afternoon, tired of not knowing what to do, I caught him down in the management office and insisted that I was short on work and needed more to do, but his response embarrassed me. He—without yelling—berated me publically, exclaiming, “Look around at how busy everyone else is. There is an excess of work to be done. Take some initiative!” But how could I when I had no idea what was happening in the plant around me? I was out of that all-important information loop. I didn’t try to ask him for work again but instead retreated to the office and tried to find ways to while away the extra time.
Within just a week or two of him being back in charge, he informed me of some “good news.” He’d organized for me to transfer to Mooroopna, a site four hours’ drive north of where I lived, to do further database design work, which I could do on a part-time basis.
The whole offer infuriated me. I’d only just gotten back to living where I had friends and family around and was determined not to be torn away and lonely again. When I indicated that I didn’t want to move out to Mooroopna and didn’t accept the transfer, he looked at me coolly and said, “Well, I don’t see a place for you in the future of this plant.” I understood it as a threat that I would have to go one way or another.
Now, I know that I could’ve fought on and stayed in my role regardless, but at this point, I decided there was just no gain in it. I didn’t want to be the person I would have to become to survive at this site any more. It was either I change—become aggressive and fight my way back in—or leave. And so the next morning, I handed my resignation letter to Edward, which he looked a little too pleased to receive. I think he felt he had victory. How easily he’d won over me.
Edward announced my resignation to the entire team in the management meeting that morning. The speed in which he did it and lack of deliberation on his part really confirmed his stance on having me there. He had me verbally fill out an exit form—which he insisted he would do the writing for—and then had me sign it. I didn’t make it hard for him. I told the truth but kept it brief and left off the details so I could leave in an impartial way. After all, burning my bridges wasn’t likely to be helpful. And then by the end of the week, I’d handed over my things and left.
What a relief to not have to go in anymore! What a socially confusing situation, to now be without a job and really not want to seek another one. It left me floating for a while, taking time for the numbness that had been my life at Valcorp to wear off and for me to slowly find myself again. To feel again.
The good news is that this is the worst chapter in my story, and it only goes up from there. So you can breathe a sigh of relief now! It’s over. It’s over! Oh, thank God it’s over. I never want to go through an experience like that again.
The week after I left, Tony, who’d been outraged by their whole way of handling me, followed and resigned as well. I sort of always knew he would. He said that he could no longer work for a company that he didn’t respect or want to support. So in the end, their whole technical team walked out in a matter of days, which was a little amusing to me.
Edward tried to compel Tony to come back by offering him more money. He even said Tony could have two new staff to replace me if he wanted, which only insulted Tony more and cemented his decision. At some point, Edward said to Tony something along the lines of, “I’m screwed, aren’t I?” And that was the last I ever heard of Edward. Rosie, I hear, got a promotion into marketing but was fired not long after, because apparently the new site didn’t enjoy her attitude as much as Edward had. I have no idea where she works now.
Not to brag or be vindictive, but I can’t resist mentioning that after we left the plant, I heard feedback about the plant having serious problems with scraps due to errors in production and setup. Management, of course, attributed it to “operator incompetence” and gave warnings to the team leaders. But you can’t expect operators to foresee everything when you have shifts changing in and out and new products coming and going. You need a person to coordinate it all and be in charge of communication. That person was me.
The site produced thousands of dollars of scrap over many runs during the next few months. They also got an expert in to assess some of the problems in sheet quality who told them that the cooling rollers needed replacing. Surprise, surprise. I’d been telling them that for the last year but had been argued down.
I know that Edward must’ve realized in the week that followed that he’d made a mistake in driving me to leave. Sometimes, staff are not a dime a dozen. Some staff are hard to replace. Chewing them up and spitting them out can come back to bite you! But I’m not one to interfere or follow up on the situation. I just check in every now and then with my sources here and there and grin when I hear what disaster has gone on next. I know that’s bad, but can you blame me? We’ll call it my guilty pleasure.