Sometime after the first incident, I was having a discussion with some people who I considered 'friends' and they were wanting to know why I chose to come to live in Scotland rather than staying in England. I responded by saying that I had been offered a place to study on a funded program in a College and didn't want to go to England as I wasn't sure if such funding would be available to me in England. It was a European Union social fund.

The same lady had been listening to the discussion and she just blurted out that he has come here to take education for free when he would not have been able to get same in his country. She was going on about this so I really got annoyed and spoke back warning her to stay clear of me and everything that has to do with me. When I looked around me, I saw bland faces showing no feeling or expression.

The incident was reported to HR and HR investigated for a few days before coming back to me to ask me if I wanted to take the matter further. My assumption was that a reported incident should have been dealt with officially but how wrong that proved to be. The way in which the HR manager actually put it to me was like trying to tell me that if I dont tell them to drop this now, my life would be hell in this work place...my life here has been hellish ever since then. Anyway, I just said I would not want to take it any further than it has already gone so far. I didn't know if/where I would get another job should they get angry with me and find reasons to make me redundant.

However, ever since then, everybody within the organisation was given a dossier on me and warned not to interact with me. This became obvious because everyone went out of their way to avoid me like a plague. New employees were also warned against having anything to do with me; I knew this but it was confirmed when one new employee decided to tell me what he had been told. He actually became a very good friend of mine and told me to ignore most of what's going on. It was easy for him to say that but I understand that if you've never experienced something, you cant understand how it feels.

I'll continue...