My man and I have been travelling this journey for a while now. Each uphill and downhill, each twist and turn has broken us and rebuilt us. This event in our lives has been no different.
Mike is someone who is very passionate. He continuously thinks of others and always tries to maintain some sort of peace. He is a quiet introvert and a perfectionist, doing everything with a 150 percent heart. For some reason though, he simply cannot seem to get a break.
When I met Mike, he was unemployed. He was trying to start up his own business. There were a few short comings in his attempt, which he did eventually realise. For any individual who wants to start out, you need to have some sort of plan. You need to have some sort of marketing strategy that will help and guide you so you are able to sell your skills more effectively. You need to really know how to sell. Mike realised that well into the journey. The only problem he was faced with towards the end was that he started running low on funds. He knew he needed to find a job.
During that same period we started dating. Knowing how strong headed I am, I placed a lot of pressure on him to sort himself out. He found a job a few months later. The job meant he was a mechanical project manager within the food industry. This is industry is cut throat. Customers are brutal in their demands. They never turn off their machines for any sort of maintenance simply because they need to meet a demand quota. This makes it extremely difficult to install multi million rand machinery. These customers would give the smallest window of opportunity for him to get things done. This included testing time as well. These customers would only allow a shut down for 2 to 3 hours. He had to try and get as much done as humanly possible in that allocated time.
He is also the type of person who likes to keep to himself. This means that he needs to constantly find some sort of balance between himself and the outside world. Taking this type of job was a huge challenge to his character building. He was the juggler trying to keep the customer happy, trying to keep the workshop happy, trying to keep the drawings office happy and finally trying to keep a highly non-social and highly demanding boss happy. His boss created highly unrealistic budgets using outdated prices and never consulting Mike. This was a highly stressful environment for him.There were a number of reasons why Mike decided to look for a new job. He worked very long hours and did not receive an increase in the last two years. That was not the problem. The frustration came when he saw how the owners seemed to afford new houses and cars but never could afford to pay anyone increases. This kept occurring for the two out of the three years he worked there. However, in hind-sight, it was a VERY good and stable job.
He started searching again for another job two years into this job. It was tough, no one was hiring. Politically speaking no one was hiring a white man with a diploma. It seemed that the experience he had was not enough and rather the piece of paper stating the qualifications he had was more important.
Eventually, through someone he knew, he came across a company within the water industry. Mike has always had a huge interest in going back to water. He worked within this industry for a number of years before deciding to start up his own business. He went for the interview and tried to stay positive after all the rejections prior. He went and got the job. Things were starting to finally look up for us. He had far less stressful hours as a mechanical draughtsman. He finally started to relax at home. Our personal life started to be happier. This was good.
Towards the end of his probation period, his manager decided to work from home and thus become a contractor to the company. One of the other directors took over and started to make Mike's life difficult. It all started to smell very fishy. There is a saying in Polish (translated): "If you don't know what the problem is, the problem is usually around money". Well in this case we believe it was. This director mentioned that he was paid more than his other colleagues in the same position. After that statement, they extended his probation and the Director picked on every drawing Mike produced. They never gave him a chance to abide to their company standard even though it was not industry standard. They had no formal manual to give him that contained those standards that they kept alluding to. They never gave him deadlines. His deadlines were "As soon as possible." For some that can be a month, for others a day. It was so vague.
Mike did not last another month. He was eventually told to leave. It simply was not fair.
We decided that we would fight them on this and took them to the CCMA. If people can find a black side to themselves, this is where it happens. Mike was called a "Gold Digger". He was bullied and dragged through the coals. They threatened him with legal action for an apparent loss of contract due to not handing in a drawing on time. The mediator never intervened. Mike was so shocked and surprised. He was terrified at what these people could do and how much more could they ruin his and my life. In the end he realised it was simply not worth carrying on with this dispute and withdrew the case. He really had a good case, however if the inter mediator would not prevent intimidation, then not even Mike or the cabinet misters would have stood a chance.
I wish this story had a better ending but it does not. I went with Mike to the CCMA for moral support. I was so shocked and angry at how the events had turned around. I was extremely hard on him afterwards. All I wanted was for him to fight them, tooth and nail. I never thought of the consequences.
I now know that I should have been a lot gentler on him, instead. I never thought of him at this specific moment. Days later, I listened to his reasoning and had some time to process the information and I understand why he did what he did. I may not agree with his actions, but life carries on. This journey not only has rocks and boulders to climb over but somewhere in the distance there is bound to be a valley with the most beautiful flowers that would have made all of this worth it.
