Auntie Helen

It was interesting as things were checked very vaguely.   airport did normal passport check/boarding card at security. Security queue was normal, maybe 15 minutes.   i arrived at the boarding gate 3.5 hours early as I had factored in loads of spare time.   Just before boarding began, one of the two women at the boarding gate started to look at people’s documents. She basically went up the queue of people waiting to board.   i always wait to the end to board and all she did was check I had three things - passenger locator form, test and Corona vaccination certificate on my phone. I showed her all three but I doubt she actually read any of it, she just saw the document or quick code on phone existed. I had printed out the first two documents which made this a bit easier as I wasn’t fiddling with my phone.   Arriving at Stansted it was just the passport at the electronic gate. However, my Passenger Locator Form is linked to my passport number. I assume if I hadn’t done a passenger locator form it would not let me through the gates.   My Day 2 test has arrived at my UK address and I will do this on Thursday, I then have to put it in a special post box (a 5km drive from here) and they will test it once I am back in Germany.   Social distancing in airport queues is bad as they have you queuing up and down taped-off routes. In the UK people swapped to community masks in the airport (presumably allowed) and that made me feel a bit nervous.   Mum and I stopped for scones on the way back from the airport. I kept wearing my FFP2 mask until seated, everyone else in the tea room was maskless. I am keeping my mask on in all public areas in the UK while I am here, and have brought a fresh mask for each day.

I am off to England tomorrow and got a Schnelltest in town this morning. The results have English in the important places and include my birthdate. Sensitivity and specificity are as required in the post above. I also filled in the Passenger Locator Form which is a huge thing and arranged for my Day 2 test in the UK. I will be back in Germany before the test arrives at the lab but hey ho, those are the rules.

I use Simply Business and they have been fine.   https://www.simplybusiness.co.uk/landlord-insurance/

I am available for the job market, and am doing applications regularly, but if the right job doesn’t come along in the first couple of months that won’t be a bad thing. If it does, then I will go for it happily. 

An update.   After a telephone conversation with a lawyer, I decided the best option for me was to resign on health grounds.   I phoned the Agentur für Arbeit to set that in motion, got another sick note from my doctor for two weeks and arranged a meeting with my boss. Agentur für Arbeit are doing the paperwork for resignation on health grounds so hopefully I won’t have the Sperrzeit - my doctor will sign the bit of paper they send.   The meeting with my boss was yesterday and was an hour long, with my colleague as support.    I talked to my boss about the events two weeks ago when the Betriebsleiter caused my breakdown. I talked about other events with the BL before that which looked rather like gaslighting. I discussed the high stress we have had for the last year and a half and how this had worn me down. I said I had now lost all trust and respect for the BL and so could not see an option to keep working there, so I would resign.   BossBoss said all the normal things, but wanted me to have a meeting with the BL and then everything would be much better. I said no, that man had caused a breakdown and I was not willing to see him. My boss did not suggest the BL would apologise, and my colleague tells me the BL doesn’t think he has done anything wrong. BossBoss pushed and pushed for this meeting but I was adamant. I don’t have the mental fortitude for it and it won’t achieve anything for me anyway. This was his only solution to the bullying problem, no other thoughts about how to protect his staff - typical chocolate teapot boss. In the end BossBoss accepted my resignation with regrets, etc.   i have one more week of work after my sick leave before final holiday and I offered to work from home that week tidying up various projects and writing instructions for whoever follows me. I think they will go for this as I said I cannot come back to the office as BL is in that area and they know my doc would sign me off again.   I asked my boss clearly to ensure that no other employees are bullied by the BL. He cannot say he didn’t know about it now at least.   After I made my decision to resign about a week ago, and after actually doing it yesterday, my heart has really lifted and I feel so much better. I will miss my colleagues but I won’t miss the stress. I am still doing job applications but would quite like a couple of months off to really have a chance to get better - and hopefully to visit my Mum in England when Corona allows.   Thank you all for the comments and advice, I read and thought about all options as a result.

Visit Mum in England Go for a long cycle ride and stop at a café for cake (can probably do that now actually) Have several friends round for dinner Enjoy a week in Berlin

Thanks for the advice. I know it is deeply unwise to say anything negative about the leadership, so I will have to suggest it is a desire for a new challenge after five years, combined with some rearrangement of roles within the company.   I sort-of made the decision yesterday that I will resign at the end of this month, following a meeting with BossBoss a week before to give him a chance to change things (which I don’t think will happen). My heart felt a little lifted and my general mood improved, which gives me a gut feeling I have made the right decision for me. I had a job interview last week with a recruiter and should have one with the company themselves this week so that gives me a little hope. I have even bought a car to give me the option to go for jobs further away (at the moment I cycle the 5km to work).   I am a strong believer in looking after my health and not taking this stress when it isn’t entirely necessary. My German chap is from a different culture and I think feels resigning is perhaps not the best idea, but he will support my decision. We are from completely different work climates and it shows, although he has much more experience than me and is a big cheese. But my health is more important than not slightly damaging my career, which is nearly over anyway.   Many thanks to you all for your advice and support.

Thanks Metall.   My BossBoss has a plaque on the wall of his office that says “love it, change it or leave it’ which is pretty much a summary of my options. Option 1 no chance, option 2 tiny chance, so not much hope. 

Many thanks Maxie,   I have good colleagues who I think will support me, and one of whom says she will attend the meeting with the bossboss with me when I return after sick leave.   I would like to give the bossboss the opportunity to find a solution if he wants to keep me there. I can’t myself think of one as BossBoss finds the job of running a company boring and just wants to think up new logos for the company and dream his dreams, thus the Betriebsleiter who takes care of everything. But in my meeting with BossBoss I will approach it from the angle of “is there any solution so I can stay in this company”?   We have no Betriebsrat and the HR lady left last month as she couldn’t stand it any longer either. She has not yet been replaced. My colleague who will help me still has the balls to speak to the Betriebsleiter but I don’t feel I can, unfortunately. I don’t worry about discussions in the company about this issue as all the workers know what the BL is like and we are all madly job-hunting, I have lots of support from them all.   Job market for me isn’t brilliant as I am a Key Account Manager/Sachbearbeiter but without a German Ausbildung. I speak decent enough German but would prefer to work in English again, as I did at the beginning with this company before my customers changed to German-speaking ones. As I only want part time there aren’t many jobs, but I did find this one five years ago so they do exist!   I think you are right, I need to get my stress levels down by having this time off and knowing that I will be leaving at the end of next month so I only have to work another 3 weeks (annual leave booked for my 50th birthday mid-June). I am quite well paid so that makes it a bit harder to leave but what is money if you can’t sleep, have no free mind at the weekend and feel afraid to see your boss!

Hi Lenny, thanks for the response.   i don’t have a company pension plan at all. It’s a very small company (30 employees) with no Betriebsrat and precious little plan/structure.

I see this topic from three years ago and am currently going through a similar situation.   i have worked at my current company for just under 5 years and have ein unbefristeten Arbeitsvertrag.   The Company is pretty chaotic and the company owner is useless (he inherited it from his father but has few leadership skills himself). He brought in a Betriebsleiter last year who unfortunately has been bullying me - a mixture of gaslighting, ignoring requests for help (far too much work for our team to manage, mega stress) and the icing on the cake last week, he arguing with me whilst I was in tears in my office due to the stress. He was blocking the door so I couldn’t escape and kept on and on haranguing me, although I had turned my back, had my head in my hands on the desk and asked him to leave me in peace. This went on for about 10 minutes with three colleagues as witnesses, one of whom asked him several times to leave me alone. Lots of shouting, both by me and him - I am normally a quiet and calm person but was completely emotionally collapsed.   I managed to get out of the office past him and went straight to the doctor to get written off sick. I have 2 weeks to work out what to do. I have been applying for jobs for a couple of months but it’s tricky for me with my qualifications not being German and I only want to work part time.   my gut feeling is I need to leave to preserve my health (this is my third stress sickness in 14 months, each with him as a significant factor). I can afford to wait 3 months for unemployment benefit, in fact I can afford to give up work completely if I live frugally, but my partner who is German is worried about my CV if I resign. I would prefer to work but not at the expense of my mental health.   Alternative 2 is I ask the big boss to let me go. I am not sure if he will, and I don’t know if this is worse for the CV than me resigning.   Is me resigning really bad for my CV? Are there any reasons I could explain it to a potential employer apart from being too stressed, as that makes me look like a bad prospect.   I hasten to add, in the UK I had no such problems with work and amongst my colleagues in this current job everything is great. We work well together and I am a very good employee for the company, just a personality/style clash with the Betriebsleiter and the boss’s unwillingness to employ enough people so we are not permanently stressed.   Any advice appreciated!   Auntie Helen

congratulations Optimista on your French citizenship! You should write a book on the paperwork nightmare; I have to admit that my German citizenship in December wasn’t too difficult. 

You’re right, it isn’t keto now, just low carb, but I was properly keto for the first couple of years and have got lazy with terminology.   I stopped excreting ketones in urine after a couple of months, which is normal, and haven’t bothered with a blood keto meter as the individual tests are so pricey. I doubt I am currently in ketosis but my brain feels clear and I have a lot of energy still.   For me, the test is whether I start the Heißhunger again - then I know I have had too many carbs. That only really happens when on holiday and eating carbs again - if I have too many carbs one day a week at the moment I don’t fall off the wagon, so to speak.

I have been doing Keto for about three years now and have lost 35kg in that time. I initially lost 20kg and kept it off for two and a half years without any calorie counting, now I am working to lose another 5 (already dropped 15 kg in six months) and am food tracking to see what’s what. That will mean I am normal BMI instead of obese.   I am now a bit more relaxed on carbs and allow myself 100g a day without issues. The Heißhunger has gone, I just eat lunch and evening meal (no breakfast) and I love the food. We eat the same amount of meat as before but many more vegetables (we have veggies where we used to have carbs). The food is great and we feel really healthy - blood work at the docs confirms this. Our cholesterol is lower as is my blood pressure.   i intend to carry on eating like this for the rest of my life, and am happy with that thought.   Keto isn’t for everyone, but for some people it suits them very well. It works best for the insulin-sensitive always-hungry types, of which I am one. My partner’s daughter started Keto six weeks ago and has lost 7kg (the first 3kg probably water) and her pre-diabetes is no more, according to the doctor. It’s working well for her too.

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