Hypocrisy

‘Sometimes being a high riding bitch…. is all you have to survive’.

Tammy is a trainer at KRONOS. Heartless, demanding and with no life outside of her job. I was going to say she has no concern for anything but Tammy is a vegetarian. Have you heard of the term slacktivist? They are the people who post shit on Facebook like ‘like if you hate cancer’, then dislocate their own shoulder trying to pat themselves on the back for their ‘woke’ awareness raising activism.

They are the people who when caught stealing from a homeless person argue that they give to charity, and raise awareness about cis privilege, so its ok. Doing one good thing doesn’t give you free reign to do shitty stuff. No-longer eating meat because you think it will help you lose weight and disguise your eating disordered thinking behind a social movement doesn’t mean you are free to hate fuck people into a nervous breakdown. Being vegetarian can be a noble thing, but it has to come from a noble place. You can be a shit person and a vegetarian, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Tammy’s job was her life, and for every animal life saved by her not ingesting it, she punished a human in its place. Sometimes I felt sorry for the miserable bitch, but mostly I didn’t. Tammy had a lot of wisdom hidden behind her hard-outer shell of bitterness and moral superiority. Yet rather than using her wisdom to build a happy life and lift others up, she sold her soul and worked her substantial arse off making others hurt. Have you seen that video of a massive Canadian lumberjack throwing logs at the woodchipper? He’s like a sexy machine, lifting trees as effortlessly as less physically gifted people lift pencils. She was like that, not a sexy lumberjack but relentlessly and methodically working her way through healthy people and leaving a pile of chopped up broken shit in their place. I’m actually a little disturbed by my comparison. I may have damaged my sexual blueprint, they do say that a single event can imprint on your sexual preference, and that’s sometimes how a person may find themselves sexually attracted to Bob the Builder, their mind linked a non-sexual image with a sexual feeling and Boom you find yourself fapping to plastic hard hats. God I will kill myself if I ever find myself one day aroused by a middle-aged woman with a mean streak because my brain synapses associate them with sexy lumberjacks.

Tammy oversaw the training and development of The Beaches for KRONOS. Her job was to take sapling pathology collectors and ensure they grew into mighty oak pathology collectors, guiding and shaping our future wood. Ok I am going to scrap that analogy from here on because while I love a good wood joke, it really doesn’t reflect how unappealing she was on every level, especially sexually. I can fap to almost anything, but my penis retracts into my abdomen when confronted with Tammy.

Tammy was a podgy, 60 old, divorced, vegetarian with a heavily mortgaged shitty little apartment. She was at her happiest when she was unhappy, and almost orgasmic when making others unhappy. It’s called an external locus of control when your emotional state is reliant upon external factors, and it’s called a reverse correlation when two things correlate in opposite measure. The more unhappy she made others, the happier she became. You may be asking yourself why I scatter so much psychology and philosophy throughout my stories. I do it because firstly this is my book and I will write it how I bloody well want to write it, if you don’t like it write your own, and secondly showing how my witty little antidotes tie into bigger universal themes shows the commonality of my uncommon experiences with my dear readers experiences. Without that sense of ‘I too have felt that and experienced that, but in a less witty and glamorous way’ it’s just a fucking diary. My diary is in fact awesome, but the point of this is human bonding, finding the shared human experience, and learning, we are all the same under the skin. You and I, dear reader, are not so different. You may not be a glorious gay unicorn with a plethora of witty antidotes, but my hard-learned lessons still apply.

Tammy had had a rough life but she viewed the world very negatively and pre-emptively hurt others to protect herself from imagined future hurts. Strike the first blow because they might strike in the future, is a bully’s justification. Have you ever noticed bullies often feel like victims? They often justify their shit treatment of others as them protecting themselves from future possible hurts. The wife beater who argues he hits her because she is a whore who will cheat on him in the future if she isn’t already. The colleague who belittles you because they feel they are better than everyone else and are not appreciated for being the obviously superior person they are. That shit eventually shows on your face, the pursed lips of a constantly disapproving face, the permanently lowered brows of someone more often angry than not. Tammy had that prematurely old and forever looking for fault in the world look.

Tammy was responsible for assessing staff. She was responsible for all new staff, shaping and moulding them into fully fledged competent pathology collectors. Obviously, she wasn’t from the gently mould them and encourage them school of thought, she was more old school, terrify them into broken submission school. Everyone was too scared of Tammy to question her methods. If Tammy wasn't having a good day, you were going to pay, this was unfair to say the least. Tammy went out of the way to treat you like a child, put you down and make you feel worthless. She was really good at it. If there were awards handed out for demeaning and belittling adults, she would be given a lifetime achievement award. Tammy obviously gained something messed up and psychological from being like this. People fearing you can give some people a sense of power and authority, but it’s not genuine power because there is no loyalty and people will always resent you and be waiting for you to fall.

Tammy had friends in high places and had been in the company for over 20 years. Anyone brave enough to complain about her was shut down very quickly and punished repeatedly for it. Ironically, despite her infantilisation of grow-arse adults, she tantrumed like a 2-year-old when called out, refused to acknowledge consequences and continued on her merry way treating people like shit. I’m sure she ruined many people’s confidence then trotted off home to eat her #vegetarian frozen meal confident in her #woke goodness. The sad old bag was liked by no-one, not even her own daughters. They used her for money, but only tolerated her when they wanted something. Tammy knew it, and constantly bitched about it. But never saw how her own behaviour caused it. Two things, you raised them, if they are bitches it’s because you taught them to be. And if you have no friends, more often than not, it’s because you are not a good friend. If you want people to care about you, you have to care about them beyond what they can do for you, if you want people to listen, you have to listen instead of always making it about you, if you want people to accommodate your quirks you can’t be a judgy bitch about theirs. Them the rules. It might not feel fair if say, you are on the autism spectrum, but the reality is you have to give as much as you get. You can be socially awkward, so long as you don’t treat people like they are an audience for your monologue. You can be in a wheelchair so long as you don’t expect people to be your servants. You have to bring as much good to the table as you are expecting of others.

Maybe no one ever showed Tammy kindness or love. There are two types of people, those who have been hurt and do everything in their power to make sure they never become the hurter, and those who have been hurt and become someone else’s hurter. Tammy was the latter.

I hope I finish this book before the old hag drops off the face of the earth. I'll make sure I slip this chapter under her nursing home door so she knows what her legacy in this world was. The sad thing is when Tammy leaves KRONOS, Tammy will have nothing and no one. The CEO of KRONOS won’t be popping by once a week for tea in a nursing home with this dedicated employee of 100 fucking years. Her former trainees won’t be making cooking rosters to ensure she has a delightful variety of lovingly home cooked meals to see her through her days. Do people with no empathy finally grasp the concept of empathy when they need it from others, probably not, they probably continue to feel justified in their behaviour, like the consequences of their behaviour proved them right.

After the incident where Tammy buried me over a coffee, instead of simply talking to me like an adult, she turned up at Dee Why to assess a trainee. This particular trainee was hopeless, couldn’t find his own arsehole with a map, here it is sign and a mirror on a stick, but he passed. Goes to show that there is nothing fair and unbiased about assessments, Tammy picks and chooses who succeeds.

Marianna is one of those people who is simply lovely, a genuine pure of heart type. She goes to the coffee shop each day and gets everyone coffee. On this day Tammy wanted a hot chocolate, probably to feed her bad mood. It was probably Tammy’s breakfast, like many chubsters with disordered eating and too lazy to do anything to genuinely improve their health, Tammy skips meals and then binges on junk (but its vegetarian junk so #woke) then wonders why she is still sick, tired and fat. Tammy was working in one of the doctor’s rooms. For those of you not in health or science, there are clean areas and dirty areas. Anywhere where bodily fluids are exposed is considered a dirty area and food cannot be consumed. It’s a contamination risk thing. A collection room, processing room and a Doctors examination room is a ‘dirty’ room. It’s a standard infection control rule designed to prevent someone cross contaminating their food with a flesh-eating zombifying virus. (if only)

Pretty sure Tammy is a huge hypocrite, I decided to see if literally only days after reporting me for a coffee in a dirty room violation, she would make an exception to the no exceptions allowed rule for herself. She did, Marianna returned with the coffees and I kept my distance so it didn't seem like I was the stalker of the century. I plonked myself in the staff room and waited for things to unravel. Tammy took her hot chocolate to the Doctors room to drink in comfort while she berated a trainee. I could not contain my glee, I jumped up and did a happy little tango through the reception area not caring what anyone thought. Naturally I ran to Katie for advice. Katie likes mischief and hates hypocrites. She sometimes likes to watch the world burn and can always be relied on for advice on pyrotechnical stuff. This was right up her alley. Katie told me to call Centre Bench. Centre Bench is the lab hotline for advice. They advise us on all technical issues and how to proceed etc. so for legal reasons everything is recorded. Inconvenient paperwork can be lost, conversations can be denied, but Centre bench recordings are sacrosanct and undeniable. I explained the situation to the Centre Bench manager who then referred me onto the HR department, who then said I should report it to Virginia, (another sworn enemy) who is in charge of customer relations. I don’t know what staff violating policy has to do with customer relations but Virginia has her fingers in a lot of unrelated pies.

Virginia advised me that I had to follow the proper chain of command while making a complaint. I said I felt uncomfortable reporting it to my clinical supervisor David Brent as she had already subjected me to unfair treatment in the past, but I was happy to report it to my area manager Napoleon, which I did. Napoleon agreed that it was hypocritical of Tammy to punish me for infractions she herself committed.

After reporting the incident, I repeatedly asked David Brent what was being done about the situation, as I wanted confirmation that they were not sweeping the issue under the rug. I was told multiple times that it had been referred to the appropriate department and that it was being looked at. Basically, it had been swept under the rug. Like a parent too lazy to properly discipline their child by teaching them consequences, Tammy was let off scot free, because she was sucking at the teat of the right work mummies.

A few weeks later another new trainee started, they seemed nice and had a good attitude and great potential. I supported Harry even though I knew I was leaving KRONOS fairly soon, because people with a strong work ethic, a great attitude and potential deserve to be supported. I ignored most of the other trainees because they were bottom of the barrel rejects that were clearly there to bludge and had no intention of ever brining anything of value to the team. Harry wanted to learn and was honestly trying his best. Harry is a Christian, a church goer, but the sort who lives by the Christian ethos of love one another, not just goes through the motions. He had recently moved from Adelaide, and was just a lovely guy who was new to the area. Harrys Uncle used to be my hairdresser, he was gay and we had crossed paths on gay apps many a time. Harrys ready acceptance of me was his way of showing he lived what he preached, acceptance.

Tammy is notorious for her moods, like a bipolar dragon her unpredictable moods had the ability to burn unsuspecting people. Harry was assessed by Tammy, and in her foul mood she decided he needed complete retraining, that nothing about him was good enough. Abigail had recently had her trainee do a runner; hence she was a trainer without a trainee. How wonderfully convenient that there was suddenly a person in need of complete re-training. What a stroke of luck that Abigail now had reason to remain at Dee Why spying on Petunia for Napoleon and David. Petunia is the room coordinator of Dee Why, and at the time he was being spied on by the powers that be for their own fucked up reasons. Petunia is awesome but he lacks back bone. He is a mellow guy, but his answer to ongoing problems is to do nothing. He had a power-hungry vindictive bitch of a receptionist Ursula, but his answer to the problem was to tell people just to ignore her nastiness and shit stirring. Napoleon and David knew Ursula was a problem but they did nothing, and if Petunia had tried to fix it, they would not have supported him, so nothing was done. Abigail was sent to Dee Why to spy, and maybe to replace Petunia, we weren't sure yet, but there was obviously a nefarious plan in place. After Harry was unfairly failed in his assessment, Abigail got to remain at Dee Why spying on everyone and reporting back to David and Napoleon.

The conversation that started my downfall began in the spin room. I asked why Harry was being retrained. Harry said Tammy said he needed complete retraining. I asked him if Tammy had been in ‘a mood’ before she assessed him and he said yes. I explained to Harry that I also had the same problem during my training period and that if Harry had felt uncomfortable by the way Tammy had treated him in the assessment, policy stated that he could request re-assessment by another trainer. Abigail was eavesdropping on our conversation. It unsurprisingly got back to Napoleon and David that I was speaking out of turn to a trainee, and they started an investigation into my conduct. I am a swearer, I scatter F bombs through my conversations, and like many gays I am liberal with my bitches and fags. I did call Tammy a bitch, but for context I call my bestie a bitch all the time. I was stupid to call Tammy a bitch while big ears were in the room but at the time, I thought nothing of it.

The training department just doesn't like people knowing their rights, if they don’t know their rights, you can get away with treating them badly. Luckily for me Abigail doesn’t have many friends, so when the investigation was happening people took my side not hers. None the less, they were now building a case against me, I was fucked. I decided to fight back. If Abigail was going to call me unprofessional and sacrifice me to gain some power for herself, I was going to show her for the hypocrite she was. I spent 2 hours going through our old Facebook messages from when we were friends and screenshotting all the times, she said anything negative about KRONOS and every time she was a bitch about fellow staff members and management. There were pages and pages of her doing the exact same thing she had reported me for. Luckily, I came to my senses before I sent them to HR. It could only have blown back in my face. They wanted snoops, they wanted people betraying their co-workers, Abigail was everything they dreamed of. We needed to break the culture of betrayal and bitchiness, not add to it. I didn’t want to become the monster I hated; I didn’t want to stoop to their mind games. Sometimes when it is all going to the shit, someone has to step up and say, I’m going to be the adult here. It didn’t benefit me, in fact, in the long run it hurt me, but I chose to be the grown-up, to not engage in their games, and I didn’t report Abigail to HR. They say ‘be the change you want to see in the world’, but they don’t tell you that it will cost you. In the long run it worked out for me, but yeah, the cost of being the bigger person can be pretty high.