Wednesday 8 September 2010

And you think you can handle being bullied?

I am being Bullied. I write what I cannot believe, I am ostracised, belittled, Lied about in an unrelenting and devious way, It's a silent but all purveying torture.

I am strong, I'm honest, And I wish the Bully well, I wish this person good health, I don't wish this person any ill will or a downfall, I just wish for this person to stop and leave me alone.

my health suffers, The pain is much worse than my cancer, I cant numb the pain with a drug, I can't sleep for it to be gone in the morning.

My thoughts are consumed by the unbelievable truth that, I am being bullied.

My tough poverty stricken upbringing that taught me right from wrong and all of its consequences, strangely stops me from retaliation , the very thing, perhaps that is needed. But you don't hit people, you don't speak ill of another, but shamefully alas you do, hate swells within me, a force somewhere deep within wants this person ripped to pieces,torn soulfully from body and sent to a hell where they will harm no other.

It's a silent yet glaringly loud attack on me that my "colleagues" watch with, perhaps a tinge of sadistic pleasure, watching someone shrink in stature and respect,less than them, a figure of distaste.

I hold my head high and smile at them, I even protest my lot to them, they do and say nothing, perhaps even the odd soundbite that they have heard or read somewhere that seems appropriate to this situation, enough for them to walk away and not get involved for they're fear is, it will not touch them, that the bully wont come for them and keep focusing on me instead.

It doesn't affect they're finances to a degree that is causing real anguish, Bills unpaid, left to fester on the table at home growing larger than you will admit..I stare at backs, at disinterest, at financial ruin.


The Bully denies you, "it" stops sending financial sustenance your way, It shuts down your communication pathways to the help at the top you need, It poisons your colleagues and once allies against you, you are shut off from them and hope YOU go away so they don't have to be part of the problem no more, they're backs turned on you, in a friendly sick play at being blind to a problem. They greet you with either, eyes glazed and fixed to the floor, a pretence that something more important has caught they're eye, or it's a smirk, a gloat, a smile, secretly and sadistically enjoying the spectacle of a bullied now sub underling, and glad and happy it's not them.


Well! follow through they're twisted logic there must be something in it right? I must be " a wrong 'un" perhaps someone a bit dodgy, in any case whatever they think or even not think, the value the situation, MY situation is less important than say, who's gonna buy the coffee today?


More disturbing are my letters of concern to the man in charge, not only unbelievably unanswered, but treated WITH anger upon receiving them! they are even paraded and quoted aloud to the other staff, to be dissected and shut down as pure rubbish, well, I AM causing the trouble and inconvenience right?

I have been at my job for over ten years now, a job that in itself carries many dangers, seen 3 to 4 owners come and go, and all this trouble has taken place only within the last seven or so months.

I am in remission for Bowel cancer, at diagnoses I was given 9 months left to live, after surgery and treatment and nearly a year of rest I am still here. as a result of half my colon and rectum, muscle, and my complete body cavity that is devoid of lymph nodes and other bits, I am in constant pain. I take medication to enable me to work and not need a toilet, at best for an hour or so at any one time. My cancer has taken any control I ever had over my bodily functions now and forever or whenever my cancer, (another bully that delights in letting me know it is still there)maybe will return one day to wreck more havoc on me.

So.. I need to use a toilet right? well, that safe lifeline of the use of a toilet has been cut off from me, I sit in my cab in the cold, away from the office, having to "disappear" to use a public toilet (if you can find one after 9pm in this town) I can even hear the laughter that the bully, (that my colleagues love to hate), share as well as the warmth and copious amounts of hot tea and coffee and good mirth and that safe camaraderie that workmates enjoy.

My time, my mostly happy times with this company are nearly at an end, I will drive a taxicab probably for someone else, my writing brings me comfort and comments from people from all over the world, I come across as a cheeky chappy taxi driver, and most of the time that's exactly what I am.

The Bully? this person has now moved on, surrounded as am I, no doubt with a loving family and friends, this person will no doubt also continue to spread the vile acid to which this person has an infamy for. I wish this person happiness, I pray my Hebrew prayers, hoping one of them will get through and shine a light of enlightenment into this persons life. god bless you and your family.

The man in charge? well, not a boss really is he? but he feels a victim too. BUT he justifies AND is in judgement, he is/was the key to my salvation, a lifeboat to my finances and also the key to my undoing. He could have given me work at any time to make up the shortfall, but made a distinct effort not to.

I am "old school" I guess,one of the last few of the previous regime, He is blissfully unaware that it is the very same " old school" staff to which there is now but a few, that provides the most loyalty and not one of his cliquey little favourites, a new owner come brush always sweeps clean, I've seen it before, and no doubt I will again.

This is a long and heavy piece you are dissecting dear reader, but please read on...


I have endured a torturous and beleaguered past, poverty on a third world scale, a beloved mother who beat and tortured with an anger that would rock the very earth itself, A beloved father that stood by and watched, neither loving nor hating, just...nothing.

My parents are gone now, my mother through chemical poisoning (a phrase oft used in a coroners court to really mean suicide), and quite recently my father to cancer and two of my beloved little sisters, nephews, uncles, aunts and dear friends, the list continues to grow maybe now albeit through old age. A normal death seems...attractive.

My death? ha! Cancer MOST probably! but I will continue! have no doubt, and with complete contempt for this disease too! ( you couldn't see my middle finger shoot up then could you!)

Nearly over for you dear reader, we will both have a cup of something when we both have read and written to the end.

I was a captain of industry, not of small insignificant cab offices, but a giant national company, a mover and a shaker, commanding hundreds, and affecting thousands.

I was in fashion, running some of the biggest and most prestigious address's in the country.

I was a business man, head of my own little empire.

I was a strippers runner, and when homeless and sleeping by bins and warm air con ducts at only 14yrs of age, I begged and stole to survive in Soho, London.

I stopped Bullies in my employ, I crushed them, shut them down and moved them on, I have never been helpless I have been the helper, but in this situation got no help,

I am sad.

But one thing is for sure, I'm not beaten, beaten down briefly by very small insignificant people, but will not be beaten down...ever.

I'll speak of this no more...to anyone...

Lets have that cuppa now eh?

Keith.

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