The stress has given me eczema!

[Little Retail Rabbit]

Well, as I mentioned in a couple of other places, my company went into administration about a week ago. Before that I had been getting stressed out about cut backs on hours and holiday difficulties, and had started to get really itchy with a rash that at first i thought was caused by an allergy. As we were wondering what the hell was going to happen to our jobs last week, it got even worse, and it became evident that it was actually eczema, probably stress-induced.

I have never had eczema before so it took a while to identify, but it was my manager having a look at my red inflamed, patchy, dry arms and armpits that figured it out as she's had it herself. It has been on my legs, hips, belly, IN MY BELLY BUTTON, across my chest, my armpits, arms and back >.< Joints and "sweaty places" are the worst...

I'm still quite itchy now, but the redness is going down and skin is returning to former texture. Liberal doses of E45 really did the trick but I'm now switching in body lotion- as the eczema dies down, the E45 annoys it a little now. Guess it was best for when it was super bad, as its recovering, just needs a little coconutty moisture ^_^

Hang on, Rabbit, shouldn't you be posting this in Sickbay, I hear you ask? Well, the thing is...we've had some NASTY customers.

Here is the timeline of events:

Saturday 14th- everything was normal.
Monday 16th- I read online that Peahens has appointed administrators.
Tuesday 17th- I get into work to find this confirmed. Everyone is nervous. I'm getting itchier, but we are told that our CEO has until Thursday 26th to make a rescue plan. We notice an increase in the use of gift cards and vouchers XD We don't know if we'll get paid on the 26th...
Wednesday 18th- CEO has has his plans rejected and we go into administration at around 4:30pm.
Thursday 19th- the shit really begins. We no longer can accept any gift cards or vouchers, and cannot do ANY refunds or exchanges unless items are defective. We inform everyone of this at the time of purchase, but several people do not pay attention and come back trying to swap sizes- we just cannot do this under orders from the admins.
Friday 20th- sale banners start going up declaring all full price items now have 20% off. Really looks like they are preparing to shut us all down.
Saturday 21st- more of the same.

I haven't been in since Saturday, but I'm due in tomorrow, and we are due to have administrators into our store this week to decide whether or not we have enough stock to justify keeping us open.

So...yeah...STRESSY.

Where do the customers come into this? Well...first of all, we only had people who were constantly asking us before Wednesday if we were shutting down and why stuff wasn't reduced yet. People making jokes about it. In Sightings I mentioned the heartless bitch who made jokes and then tried to get my manager to give her equipment (and was rebuked soundly ). Very sympathetic -_-

Then we went into administration and everything just got AWFUL. I personally missed the evil bitch who went on a massive rampage after her gift card was declined. Now don't get me wrong, I TOTALLY understand how frustrating that must be, but there's nothing we can do about it, and being as we're looking at being made redundant, we are actually far more concerned about ourselves then some poxy credit notes etc. This particular woman had a £40 card and my manager told her that the administrators had set up something on the Peahens website where people could claim back their money, but she still had a massive bitch fit- and proceeded to phone EVERY STORE LOCALLY to complain about it. They ended up calling us saying "did you get the crazy lady with the £40 gift card?" Turned out the administrators hadn't finished setting that thing up on the website yet but then again, not even 24 hours had passed at that point!

At my ex-manager's current store, she had such a bad time with abusive customers being refused gift cards that she had to phone the POLICE to get them to leave. And she's a pretty tough cookie, knows how to stick up for herself, has been known to chase thieves down the street even when she's pregnant, so you have to wonder just how bad it must have been that it got her that rattled

My friend, an assistant manager from the nearest store, was surrounded by 7 women who were screaming at her over refusal of refunds. She's a very chilled, laid back individual, but admitted that at one point she ended up yelling "OI! LISTEN!" to a customer who had been ranting at her so much.

A FB page that was set up to "Save Peahens" started off as a place where we could say very positive things...but has now been taken over by rumours, gossip and other people telling the staff NOT to bitch about abusive staff who make our lives miserable!

We (our store) have actually gotten off relatively easy. For the most part, our customers are actually lovely, giving us wonderful messages of support and sympathy, and being very understanding...but some of them have been so nasty. I've had to deal with many customers trying to bring things back and getting pissed off at me. For the most part, I am able to diffuse them by saying "I really do understand how frustrating this is, I do, but I just can't do anything about it, we're all just glad to hear that we're going to get paid next week!" (Yeah, that manages to guilt trip a lot of them into swallowing back some of their bile lol). But heck, I've had people copping about prices not being lower, about this and that...one woman copped at me because she couldn't bring back some shoes she bought the weekend before it all kicked off. She said "Why the hell did they say I COULD bring them back if I couldn't!?" I said "Well, on saturday <14th> we had absolutely no idea that this was going to happen, it was so out of the blue, we only heard about this on Monday and we only went into administration on Wednesday!" This, of course, was not good enough.

Don't get me wrong, it must really piss you off when that happens, but screaming at the cashiers who are about to lose their jobs is not going to help. I mean, I can't help but wonder how bad my nerves would be right now if I had been working at one of those other stores where all the cunts have all but attacked the staff. I was getting so upset on Friday that I was on the verge of lifting up my shirt to show all the red spots covering my entire torso and screaming "This is what the stress of losing my job is doing to me, and you are freaking out over a fucking CREDIT NOTE!!!"

The upside is that if one of us does absolutely lose it and tells a customer to go and fuck a chainsaw, the number for customer services has now been disconnected


Bonus: One lady felt so sorry for us that she went and bought us cakes and biscuits! We're giving her a big discount everytime she comes in!

[emax4]

Eesh! I can sort of relate. I had/have eczema but it seems to occur during the cold seasons. However, when I was working at a call center I had it flare up on stressful occasions.. which was about every few days. There are a handful of great medications out there, but if you still have health insurance (dunno how that works in your area), I'd get yourself checked out ASAP, and grab that medication.

[Little Retail Rabbit]

I live in the UK so its not applicable. NHS

At one point my parents were worried that I had had measles, so I tried to get a doctor's appointment to confirm it and was met by the Bitchy Cunt Receptionist who never gives me an appointment within a reasonable time. I mean, I've been in agony before and this woman just snottily talks to me like I'm inconveniencing her or something. So I haven't bothered since. It would be at least a week, probably more, before I could see someone. It was a day later we realised what it REALLY was...

If I'm not needing a major pain killer or actually dying I just don't bother with going to the doctor anymore. In the meantime, I am filling out an anonymous GP survey and ripping the shit out of my practice MWAHAHA!

[EricKei]

but has now been taken over by rumours, gossip and other people telling the staff NOT to bitch about abusive staff who make our lives miserable!

Did you, perhaps, mean "abusive customers"?

Also, "Administration" = bankruptcy or otherwise being forced to sell everything and go out of business, correct?

And you have every right to vent about them (feel free to quote me on this ^_^) -- While it is reasonable for both customers and employees to be stressed out over this, the sudden change to Administration was NOT the idea of anyone at store level. They're screaming at the wrong people, as the employees can do nothing about it, and I would suppose that you guys are all MORE stressed out over this than any of the customers -- after all, you have to deal with it all day, every day, not just for the half an hour or so it takes to make a quick shopping trip!

You have my most profound sympathies.

[XCashier]

Bonus: One lady felt so sorry for us that she went and bought us cakes and biscuits! We're giving her a big discount everytime she comes in!

Nice lady, Just goes to show, as you give, so shall you receive.

LRR, you are in one hellacious mess. I wish I could do more than offer virtual tea and sympathy. It sucks when your company is in trouble and the SCs take everything out on you. I sincerely hope you can find something better very soon and that awful eczema clears up quickly.

[Hanzoku]

Sorry for the amount of stress you're having. At the same time, at least your company has been letting you know what's going on.

I worked for PC Club once upon a time, and while we knew the company was struggling financially, they really hid their plans to close the stores in Washington state. One inventory night we have an assistant manager from the Tacoma store there to watch how we do it and pick up some experience. Fine, fine, easy peasy. We have a nice quick inventory and one of the lowest shrink totals ever - something like $40 across the month. I'm off the next two days, so I grab my stuff and head home around midnight.

The next day, people come to work to find the doors locked and barred and a sign that the store is now closed. They had to call the district manager to open it long enough for people to get things like sweatshirts, mugs, portable harddrives, etc. I had one attempt by corporate to let me know I was terminated (they called while I was at class at college and my folks were at work, left no message. We got enough telemarketers doing the same thing that I didn't check the number.)

I found out the next day from one of my (now former) coworkers instead of through the company. They closed every store in Washington instead of the one in Tacoma, leaving a lot of people in the lurch, including Microsoft, who had bought some computers through us for a gaming test lab. One of those computers was in the store and not fixed at the time of the closure. x_X

I was not sad to see that they went entirely out of business not much later.

[earl colby pottinger]

1) Is the NHS that bad in England? In Canada all I do is go to the emergency ward of the local hospital, talk to the nurse on station, wait till the really bad cases go thru, and get a doctor and a treatment. Longest wait 5 hours, but that was to be expected considering the three car pile-up followed and hour later the idiot who drove his family into a ice cold lake.

2) Maybe showing your problem to customers will shut them up. It does not sound like you have a lot to lose. So maybe get some fun out of your last days there.

PS. Only do number two if you are very sure that the business will close.

[emt_cookies]

Are you sure it's eczema? I've had eczema all of my life and I was under the impression one doesn't just develop eczema suddenly although the exact cause is unknown. I can think of a few other things it could be like shingles (I had a friend in college who developed it in college.)

If it is eczema, my doctor tells me not to use scented body lotion, shampoo, and detergent. I still use them though. I have had eczema ever since I was 3. The doctors used to tell me I would outgrow it by the time I was 12, then 14, then 16, and at 17 they told me I was probably stuck with it for the rest of my life. If it is eczema, you should try and see if you can get on Atarax or whatever else it is called. It supposedly prevents itching at night.

[Little Retail Rabbit]

EricKei, yes, you were right, typo on my part XD

Administration is well, my understanding of it is that they basically take over the company and try and find a buyer for it. So right now, we technically don't work for Peacocks anymore, and work for the administrators...if they can't find a buyer, they shut us.

XCashier- oh yes, that lady is lovely! My manager pointed her out to me, and I cried "WE LOVE YOU!" She's really sweet!

Hanzoku, omg thats awful! Well, we feel this has been out of the blue, but the problems have been well publicised by the media, so everyone really knows about it. I hate to think what it would be like to walk in to find locked doors O.O

Earl, my personal opinion is that the NHS is probably better than the American system, but then again, when you're used to free health care a flat rate for prescriptions (less than £8 per) then its something you really come to take advantage of. This is not an ER I was talking about, but my GPs practice. There is no walk-in-clinic there, and its really stupidly hard (for me at least) to get an appointment. a 5 hour wait in a regualr GP would be unacceptable, but its probably different for emergency, walk-in and A&E (what most Americans refer to as ER). It shouldn't be this hard, and it is easier at other practices, apparently, so I am considering moving, but the GPs, the doctors themselves are actually good. We switched to this practise because the doctors at our last one were AWFUL! Like I said though, I was selected for an anonymous survey of practices, and I'm totally ripping the shit out of the nurses and receptionists at my practice- they are so rude, unhelpful and downright unprofessional. Which is a shame because I'm comfortable with the doctors there.

Emt-Cookies, we're pretty sure. We went through a host of different things at worse...I had hives before Christmas, so at first I thought it was an allergic reaction but antihystamines and not-eating-the-apparently-evil-cheese (only new item in the house) didn't help at all, and I slowly got worse as the stress increased. We also feared measles at one point, but that was quickly ruled out too. It was my manager seeing it for herself that confirmed it, and it just made sense. The worst places were all in the sweatiest places, in fact I had to quit exercising for about 5 days. I naturally suffer from dry skin frequently anyway, but I'd never had dryness like this before. My dad actually had stress-induced eczema last year when he had a very stressful period- his was worse, but the symptons were similar.

Luckily, its really going down now, its not as sore, the red patches are fading in colour and number, and my skin is starting to feel like human skin again XD itching is still there but its improving, its nowhere near as fscking maddening as it was a week or so ago.

Thank you everyone for your sympathy. It has been very tough on everyone, and really taken its toll. I think I'm recovering ok because i may have something lined up (don't want to jinx it though! O.O ) but its still upsetting...but thank you to everyone for your kind words

[Nemesis44UK]

Peacocks is in administration?

Oh my god, LRR, I am so sorry to see that. It absolutely sucks that you are going through this.

I do tons of shopping at Peacocks, although with the rise of "ahem" Trimark, I did worry. Trimark however has the worst quality going. The stuff goes through a wash or two and becomes unstitched!

Reminds me of when Woolworths went under - the staff doing their best and the screaming (yes, actually screaming) hordes of customers trying to beat them down on price even further! I still miss that shop, because it sold a bit of everything.

Big hugs and sympathies - it is a pretty grim time for retail personnel at the moment.

[draco664]

1) Is the NHS that bad in England?

It can be. It depends.

No, really, it depends. Mostly on where you live.

You see, the NHS isn't a monolithic organisation. It is a series of (very) loosely affiliated 'trusts', whose funding is determined by some mind-mindbogglingly complex method not fully understood by anyone with a brain-stem (which is why they use bureaucrats ). If you live in one postcode, your NHS trust may be one of the best in the country, while the people in the street over may be in a trust so bad that it somehow sucks and blows at the same time.

When you move house, you register with a local doctor. They don't have to accept you if you don't fall in their 'trust', which promotes the kind of sucky behaviour noted by the receptionist in a previous post.

When the wife and I moved to the UK for the 4 year drinking/working holiday most Aussies traditionally take in their twenties, we were astoundingly lucky to discover that the flat we picked to rent was in a good trust; we didn't have any problem with the health services.

I ended up working for the last 18 months of our visa for $BIG_TELCO, on their NHS telecommunications project. Let me tell you that the sort of antisocial politics that occurs in most large organisations doesn't come close to the sort of shit that got pulled by people working in rival trusts. Seriously, people actively sabotaging the careers of their counterparts in another trust on the other side of the country just so that their trust would benefit ever-so-slightly more in the project. It would have been sickening, had it not been more-or-less confined to the senior management

[earl colby pottinger]

Ouch

When you move house, you register with a local doctor. They don't have to accept you if you don't fall in their 'trust', which promotes the kind of sucky behaviour noted by the receptionist in a previous post.

Ouch, in the last 30 years we have moved around four times, lived in three different small towns that are close together. I think the spread between houses most apart is 15 kilo-meters and never needed to change doctors. Since my aunt Poppy spends half her time in Jamaica and has not changed her's either I don't think it is a requirement here.

[Beckpatton]

LRR I am so sorry you are going through this, I have my fingers crossed for you that you find something even better very soon!

As for your eczema, to help with the itch and inflammation, I would suggest you ice it! Will work wonders!

Ice is my miracle cure for everything right now! I get a shingle on my eye, when I feel it coming on I ice it and it never appears. If I don't get to ice in time, the ice at least helps ease the itch and annoying tingle. When hubby gets a cold sore, I tell him to ice it! Friends have eczema and cirrhosis of the skin, I tell them to ice it!

Use your creams etc to treat it, but the ice can be very helpful in relieving symptoms!