Napoleon

Melancholy, it’s an odd feeling. It’s funny how your emotions affect your perception of everything around you. Perception can change one conversation from a discussion to an argument. A Roommate into an enemy, a job into the worst decision of your life. But why is it always so obvious afterwards. It would be really handy to have a shit filter. Something like brakes, something that slows down your reaction times, something that helps you analyse things more objectively so you can make better choices. Interestingly, there is research out there that suggest that mild depression can do this. Apparently mild depression acts as a bit of a brake, and that people with mild depression actually see things more clearly than people in other emotional states. For those of you who read ADHD style, skipping words here and there, assuming you will get enough info for an accurate general gist, I will repeat it in bold type: MILD DEPRESSION CAN MAKE YOU MORE LOGICAL, not that depression makes you logically superior to happy glass half full types. Of course, a conversation is a two-way street, for it to work both people have to be grown-ups, ready to listen, compromise and work towards a satisfactory solution for all involved.

Napoleon was one of those people who was lucky enough, to have been young enough, dumb enough, with no experience, while still being able to rise up within a growing company that exceeded in its growth exponentially. She got in on the ground floor just as the lift doors were closing and headed for the executive suite. With the sudden exponential growth of pathology in general, KRONOS in particular, people were promoted beyond their capabilities.

Napoleon has been with KRONOS for a good quarter of a century. It started to show in her face and her attitude. A lack of interest in anything, and a weariness about having to be involved in anything. I guess Napoleon figured if after all this time, if she didn’t already know it, it wasn’t important. Napoleon would either lie her way out of things, or shove them under a rug. Out of sight, out of mind. This allowed her to continue spending her work days shopping, lunching with her girlfriends, and generally feeling important. As the Sydney area manager, her domain covered The Beaches, The Upper North Shore and The Lower North Shore. She had 3 area managers and approximately 250-300 collection staff to manage. Understandably Napoleon didn’t concern herself with low level day to day problems, that is a clinical supervisor’s job. In a properly functioning hierarchy, each level has its roles, and day to day was not Napoleon’s role.

I called for my meeting with Napoleon knowing full well I would be leaving in about 5 weeks. I was to start a new job with Hermes Labs at the Hospital. All new state of the art equipment, brand spanking new, custom designed. It was the perfect opportunity for staff who felt under appreciated in their current roles, or had been tossed to the side due to personality clashes. This Hospital allowed pathology staff who had been mistreated by Napoleon to move on.

I decided to go into the meeting light heartedly, to casually discuss a few of the ways I was unhappy at KRONOS, and to see how things progressed. If the meeting was another episode of The Napoleon and her lies Show, I could hand her my letter and see how she responded. I was really hoping Napoleon would end up grovelling, begging me not to pursue the issue further. Unfortunately, she was unphased. It was 4 pages but it took her forever to read it. Almost 20 minutes to read 4 pages. Whether Napoleon was trying to understand the big words or memorise the allegations I’ll never be quite sure. But the letter was a warning.

I went in with a plan of attack. I wanted her to tell me why I was removed from my Dom run 12 months earlier. I asked her why I was forced to swap with Bertha, and I asked what Bertha had done to have her run taken from her. The way Napoleon told it, I had agreed to Napoleon’s very reasonable terms at the time and had stated that I was quite happy with the swap. She said that it wasn’t till weeks later that I voiced my concerns. This was a lie. Both Bertha and I had protested the change, and Napoleon had come to speak to me at the time when I threatened not to return to work for the rest of the week unless I received an explanation. I even confirmed it with that traitor Bertha. She remembered it the same way I did, we both said no, we both protested, to both David Brent and Napoleon, and they moved us anyway.

Napoleon told me, ‘I will not be discussing other staff members with you or the circumstances surrounding why those decisions were made’. It’s a stupid rule. If nothing can be discussed, how can I have all the information I need, and how can anything be resolved.? It was this statement from Napoleon that sealed the fate of KRONOS. All I wanted was a reasonable explanation for what had happened to me. An explanation for the continuous misleading, reshuffling & retraining that I had to endure. Why I was being punished and trotted out as an example, and bullied by management. Instead she hid behind confidentiality and privacy bull shit. At that point, I still wanted them to beg me to stay, to say they would do better if I just gave them another chance. I could have even have accepted a cop out excuse if Napoleon had just been honest with me for even 20 seconds.

On advice of my friends I was also nice enough to initially give Napoleon the benefit of the doubt. I wanted someone powerful on my side, but after the meeting it was clear that Napoleon had chosen to side with KRONOS bull shit once again. My one regret about the letter I gave her was that I didn’t throw her under the bus in it and incriminate her too. I can understand that Napoleon has to project a certain image to the staff she manages, but Napoleon should also do the right thing by people when they have been treated badly.

Since Napoleon told me to basically suck it up and bend over for the good of the company, I had lost any respect I had previously had for her. Napoleon’s lack of concern regarding my feelings about having my Dom run stolen put a bad taste in my mouth that never quite left. From that day onwards, I lost my faith in KRONOS and felt no loyalty to KRONOS. A job I had enjoyed for over a year and half, and lost its joy. I had to stand alone and feel victimised without any explanation from the people I was supposed to have trusted.

In my last weeks at KRONOS I decided to lodge a formal version of the letter I had given Napoleon, listing my concerns about the unfair treatment that I had experienced. Knowing I had already had a new job lined up, I wasn’t worried about any possible fall out. I was excited about stirring the pot and pointing the finger at people who were untouchable.

The letter went a little something like this -

Under the bullying policy of KRONOS section 8 it states that bullying is ‘repeated inappropriate and unwanted physical or psychological behaviour directed towards an employee or group of employees that is unreasonable, ongoing and a risk to their health and safety. It also states under section 8 that overt bullying is demeaning remarks and constant unreasonable criticism. It also states that covert bullying is placing unreasonably high work demands on one employee but not others.

The first incident occurred when I made a spelling mistake in E-collect. I was called by the head of training, Bella, who I believe is the instigator of much of this bullying. Bella asked me to spell the word out loud, I froze and said I needed to write it down quickly just to confirm. Bella told me that I should clearly know how to spell such a word and basically said I was an idiot if I did not. Bella then stated that I had spelt it wrong deliberately to cause problems on that end. Bella then abruptly told me to never to do it again. From this day forward whenever I had to copy clinical notes into the system, I got anxiety. I lived in fear of spelling something wrong, and again being reprimanded. I once again rang David Brent to say that and that I felt victimised by Bella, and David Brent said she would refer the issue to Napoleon. I was later visited by David Brent, and had to prompt her to tell me what had happened. David Brent had told me that Bella had rung multiple staff during that day whom had made mistakes, and that Bella was doing an audit. I however still felt that the way Bella talked to me was unfair and made me feel very uncomfortable.

A few months later Bella released an update memo which is sent to all collectors. About 3900 of them. A Lot of data entry was being done by staff in the initial E-collect systems, in the first section it had the patient’s details, some of them with a nickname that was then put into their real name like Dionysus and then ‘Brenno’. Their preferred name or the name the doctor called them. For some reason this was pissing Bella off and because Bella had the authority, Bella decided to change the rules once again. The memo stating all AKA names must be put into brackets, not parentheses. Now they were entering their AKA names as ‘Dionysus’. Bella wanted them in Brackets which would have looked a little something like this (Dionysus). Parentheses however are these “Dionysus”. It’s funny how one can make such serious accusations against someone else for a simple mistake, yet is very capable of doing it themselves. Sadly, I had left the company by this stage but my comments of Bella to me were well versed amongst the staff at this stage and a few of them forwarded me the memo for a few giggles.

April 24th, I started retraining back at the lab in Macquarie park. I was told that I would be driven to and from work by a trainer, Tammy. After the few days I felt uncomfortable and asked Bella if I could drive myself, to which Bella said no. Bella had organised the lift and therefore I would have to take it. Bella had also stated that there was no parking for me, even if I did drive myself. All other staff were allowed to drive themselves and park in the staff parking. Bella also told me to stand up once we had all sat down in the lecture room, and told me that I had to sit at the front of the room. No one else was singled out again. I finished the training for that week and felt more singled out than ever before. 29th of May Bertha and Pat both drove themselves to the lab for retraining. They asked for lifts as I had been given one and were told to make their own way there.

Under section 7 of the KRONOS core values and code of conduct, equal employment opportunity and affirmative action. Discrimination, both direct and indirect, is prohibited on the basis of: homosexuality (actual or presumed).

I then returned the following week back to intermediate days at the lab where I was singled out again multiple times. The first incident was when I kept getting called a girl from trainer staff, especially Kay. There was at least three times where I had been sitting with a group of girls and was called a girl directly. I am a gay man, but I still do not feel it is acceptable to be called a woman especially in front of other staff. Kay also stated at the beginning of most breaks that everyone could have a certain amount of time besides me. By saying my name and saying I got ten minutes less. It was especially cold another day and all staff had extra jumpers or scarves on that were not uniform policy, but I was the only one that was singled out again by Kay and told to remove my jumper.

On my second last day at retraining I told the trainer that I would drive myself that day as I was visiting a friend, who had lost her mother in law that week, on the way home. At 6pm at night after work hours I received a call from my supervisor David Brent with a message from Virginia, that I was to not drive myself under any circumstance and that Mick would be driving me. David Brent said that was just the message and that’s what I should do. I said that it was out of work hours and I could do as I please getting to and from work. I was told to visit my friend in my own time and if I didn’t go with Mick there would be issues. I requested to talk to Virginia on the reasoning behind this and was never addressed personally by anyone regarding why I had to be driven.

Mick was then later caught sending inappropriate Facebook messages to younger staff. Sexually inappropriate messages, multiple times, to staff technically young enough to be his daughters. It wouldn't have blown up either if it wasn’t for Bertha. Bertha discovered the news. Bertha spoke to Tammy about it, and Tammy told her she couldn’t dob in a fellow trainer. Tammy suggested that Bertha bring it to Bella’s attention so it could be dealt with accordingly with no skin off Tammy’s nose. These were the people that were driving me, Mick who sexually harassed young girls within the company and Tammy, who was willing to hide such allegations. These were the kind of role models that were running the Training department of KRONOS.

After training, David Brent came to visit me at the Brookvale rooms and asked me if I had a spare moment, and told me we had to have a chat before leaving. David Brent took me into the end room and sat me down and said ‘you know what this is about don’t you’. I replied with a ‘not really’. Apparently during training, I had entered into an inappropriate conversation that had been overheard by a senior staff member. No context regarding what the conversation was about, and I was not told who the staff member making the allegations was. It was hearsay. The only thing that she would tell me is that I was reportedly overheard speaking unkindly about Virginia and David Brent. How marvellously convenient that I should be overheard making disparaging comments about the people bullying me. David Brent told me that while she would not name the staff member, she was friends with them and completely trusted their side of the story, I was then reprimanded by our supervisor David Brent, saying that it was disappointing. I was found guilty of a conversation that never happened and judged before I even had time to defend myself.

I was told I now had another mark against my name and to be careful. I was also told that Virginia had been told of the conversation. I explained to David Brent that these people who sat near us during lunch time had a problem with us being visitors and taking their smoking table one lunch time. One of them came and threw our rubbish towards us and pulled up a seat and sat right on top of us awkwardly and blew smoke into our faces. We tried to stay out of their way but they continually stared at us, and made us feel uncomfortable. One man even lifted his checks off the chair and farted towards us. This behaviour was disgusting.

These concerns make me feel that I have been a target by Tammy, and then constantly victimised by Virginia, Bella and David Brent. I feel that the inequality between staff members and the fairness that different members receive is unfair. The injustice that some staff endure because they are less liked by staff in higher positions is clear and is causing staff morale to fade on the Northern Beaches. More conflict is arising everyday with the inappropriate things that have been said to staff from supervisors during assessments and the lack of concern that these supervisors have towards us when we do try to address and issue. Not only do we have to follow up on our own matters, it is hard enough to get an honest response or an internal investigation into any matters relating to staff. I want the inequality, homophobia and bullying to be looked at on the entire northern beaches as well as an explanation of why senior staff have made me feel singled out, depressed and caused anxiety for me within the workplace. I do not feel that this behaviour is appropriate or acceptable by anyone let alone senior staff.